How Do I Document, Cite, and Reference My Sources?

Each academic discipline uses a certain academic citation style. These styles may look a bit different from each other, but all of them have the same purpose: attributing proper credit to each source of information used.

Following are the major academic citation styles and the academic disciplines that use them. Each one is linked to an external website that provides information and examples for that specific academic citation style:

• American Psychological Association (APA): business, education, psychology, and other social sciences
• Council of Science Editors (CSE): science
• Modern Language Association (MLA): literature, arts, and the humanities
• Turabian: history

During the course of your education at Bradley, you will probably be required to use at least two different academic citation styles. Fortunately, a variety of online sources are available to help you document, cite, and reference correctly using whichever style is required.

Purdue University’s Online Writing Lab (OWL) provides a wealth of information for academic writers using APA, MLA, and Chicago styles.

Citation Machine is an online tool that will help you create a properly formatted citation in APA, MLA, Chicago or Turabian style.

If you are not sure which citation style to use, be sure to consult the professor who assigned your paper or project. You will need to use the citation style guide appropriate for the discipline of the particular course or assignment, even if it is different from what you are accustomed to using in your major.