Research & Assignments

Citing Sources

Why do I need to cite?

When using someone else's words, ideas, charts, images and the like, you have to acknowledge where the information came from. Failure to do so is plagiarism. Using footnotes, bibliographies, in-text citations, and similar strategies serves two main purposes:

1. It gives credit to the person who created the idea.
2. It allows your readers to locate the sources you used, so they can find, read or assess them.

What style should I use?

• If you are writing a paper or assignment, consult your instructor about the proper style used in your discipline.
• If you are writing for publication, check the author guidelines on a publisher's web page for the required style.

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Citing Images, Figures, Tables, and Charts

You must credit the source of images, figures, charts, tables, etc. that you include in your papers. The formatting style will prescribe whether the source is cited only as part of the caption for the image/table/figure, or in both the caption and the list of references or works cited.

Consult the following for more details and examples of captions and citations for images, tables, figures, etc.: