FYS (First Year Seminar) - Previous Version of Guide

Citation styles provide rules for how to cite your sources. The three most common citation styles are APA, MLA and Chicago. APA tends to be used for business and the harder social sciences; MLA for literature; and Chicago for history, political sciences and other primary source-heavy disciplines. Although each is different, they usually use the same building blocks:

• Author name
• Title of the work 
• If applicable, the title of the larger work that it's in, in the case of journal articles, book chapters, etc.
• Date it was published
• Page number(s)

Very often, you can Copy/Paste Citations directly from Databases.

Most databases now have built-in tools that let you generate citations. Citation tools usually look like this: 
    or,

After clicking on the "Cite" button, select the citation style that you prefer, then copy/paste the citation. 

Double-Checking your Citations

It's still a very good idea to become familiar with the actual rules of the citation styles so that you can correct the auto-generated citations, because they often have small errors in them. To see examples and explanations of the rules for the three most common styles: 

OWL @ Purdue Guide to APA Style
OWL @ Purdue Guide to MLA Style
OWL @ Purdue Guide to Chicago Style
We recommend the OWL@Purdue site. It describes not just citation styles, but also how to format your paper, etc. If you need more detail check out the printed manuals for each style, which are available in the Library. 

There are many other citation styles beyond these three. See this guide to choosing the right style, with links to more resources for styles such as ACS, AMA, NLM, CSE others.