Guides Template
- Start Here!
- Pick a Topic
- Find Sources Toggle Dropdown
- Evaluate Sources
- Keep Track of Results
- Cite Sources
- Present Findings Toggle Dropdown
- Evidence-Based Practice
- Take it to the Next Level
- Course-Specific Information
Need Help?
Make an appointment with a librarian or Academic Support faculty member to get help with citations and avoiding plagiarism.
About Citations
Why is proper citation important?
When you quote or refer to words or ideas that are not your own in your writing, you must credit your source with a proper citation. These words and ideas are the intellectual property of the creator and we need to give them credit for their work. If we don't, that's called plagiarism - and it is theft.
Plagiarism is a violation of CVTC's Academic Honesty policy and is taken seriously at our institution.
Proper citations also...
- Help others access the helpful sources you used
- Create a research trail that can be used to locate your sources
- Provide evidence of the information presented
- Allow you to maintain your own academic integrity by protecting against charges of plagiarism
What is a citation?
A citation is a way of giving credit to others for their work that you used to support your research. Typically, a citation includes the author's name, date, location of the publisher, journal title, and/or DOI. Citations are an important step to avoiding plagiarism.
What is a citation style?
A citation style dictates the information necessary for a citation and how the information is ordered, as well as punctuation and other formatting.
There are many different citation styles to choose from and many fields of study prefer one particular style.
For example:
- APA (American Psychological Association) Style is used by Education, Psychology, Nursing, and Sciences
- MLA (Modern Language Association) Style is used in English courses and other humanities courses
- Chicago Style is generally used by History and sometimes others social sciences
Avoiding Plagiarism
Avoid plagiarism by following a combination of the following methods:
- Cite your sources (see above!)
- Integrate your research with your own writing through quoting and paraphrasing
- Explore your own thoughts on a topic
- Use a plagiarism checker, like Grammarly, CitationMachine, or PapersOwl
Copyright & Fair Use
Copyright gives the owner of a work exclusive rights to that work. Exceptions to this include items in the public domain, items with Creative Commons licenses, and items used under fair use.
Remember, failure to follow the guidelines of copyright, public domain, Creative Commons, and fair use is called plagiarism.
See UW-Superior's resource on Copyright & Fair Use to learn more.