It's important to cite in order to:
Examples of citations include:
You DO NOT need to cite common knowledge.
There are a variety of different ways to cite resources in your paper. The citation style usually depends on the academic discipline involved. For example:
Check with your professor to make sure you use the required style. Whatever style you use, be consistent! View our Writing and Citation Support Guide for more helpful tips.
A great one-stop shop resource is the Purdue OWL, which has easy-to-follow examples of the major style guides. You can also peruse formatting manuals at the Library:
A common problem of students writing research papers is that they have lots of books, websites, and PDFs of articles with no real way to keep track of all these source materials in one place. Citation management systems (CMSes) are designed to help you keep track of citations and PDFs. They allow you to download citations from databases and websites, and to store, organize, and format those citations.
These are particularly helpful for:
A good, free CMS is Zotero. If you have any questions about using this software, please ask a librarian.
Olin Librarians are available to help with any questions!
For additional assistance, schedule an appointment with the Tutoring and Writing Consulting Center or a research consultation with any Olin librarian.