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Academic Writing and Citation

This guide provides time-tested strategies on becoming comfortable with the writing process, resources on citation styles, and information on how to avoid plagiarism.

Introduction

 

Citation & Formatting Styles

Citation is a critical part of academic writing. By properly formatting and documenting you are:

  1. Giving proper credit to the author's sources you have used,
  2. Making it easier to find those sources if readers want more information, and
  3. Helping prevent plagiarism from occurring in your papers by being consistent and having good writing habits.

This part of the Academic Writing and Citation guide will help you will find resources on APA, MLA, IEEE, and Chicago citation styles and how to incorporate them into your paper.

RefWorks

RefWorks online software simplifies the process of research, collaboration, data organization, and writing by providing an easy-to-use tool for citation, bibliography, and reference management.  Learn how to build a collection of references (and accompanying PDFs), share of folders, and integrate with Word and Google Docs (Write-N-Cite). 

Citation generators

Citation generators are websites that allow you to fill in the information of the source you are citing from and create the citation for you. When using these resources, make sure to always double-check the final citation and ensure all proper styles are followed. Inaccuracies have been known to occur, but they are a great way to get started. Get started by reading Using Citation Generators Responsibly (OWL) (Purdue University) to better understand how these tools work. 

Library resources

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