Citation Management Tools
Citation management tools help one collect citations for articles, books, webpages, and many more to use in one's research and to create a bibliography, references, or works cited in one's writing using a particular citation style (APA, MLA, Chicago, and many others).
Zotero is free software that can be downloaded on one's computer or used online. It can be downloaded on multiple devices and automatically synchronizes one's data. Zotero offers many citation styles, including APA, MLA, and others.
Grammarly is a free citation generator offering APA, MLA, and Chicago-style citation directions.
Citation Resources
The Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) provides writing resources as a free service to anyone worldwide.
Why One Should Cite and Plagiarism
Plagiarism is the use of words and ideas written by others without crediting the authors of those words. One should cite the sources of information one uses in one's academic work because:
Works Cited vs. References vs. Bibliography
Knowing the proper term for one's paper’s list of citations can be confusing. Is it called a works cited page? Should it be called a bibliography? How is it different from a reference list?
Works Cited
A “Works Cited” list is an alphabetical list of works cited or sources one specifically called out while composing one's paper. All works that one has quoted or paraphrased should be included. Works Cited is generally used when citing sources using MLA format (Modern Language Association) style, and sources should be listed in alphabetical order by author’s last name.
Example Works Cited entry:
Middlekauff, Robert. The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution. Oxford UP, 2007.
References or “Reference List”
A “Reference List” is very similar to a Works Cited list and is used when citing sources using APA format (American Psychological Association) style. The page should be titled “References” and be arranged alphabetically by author's last name.
Example References entry:
Middlekauff, R. (2007). The glorious cause: The American Revolution. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Bibliography
Bibliographies, on the other hand, differ significantly from Works Cited and References lists. In Works Cited and References, one only lists items one has referred to and cited in one's paper. A Bibliography lists all the material one has consulted in preparing one's paper, whether one has actually referred to and cited the work or not. This includes all sources that one has used to do any research. Bibliographies are often used in Chicago and Turabian citation styles. They usually contain a long reference with a corresponding footnote within the body of the paper.
Example Bibliography entry:
Middlekauff, Robert. The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2007.