Start Your Research Claire Sandbox

Why Citation Matters

Citations are the way you give credit to the authors and creator whose ideas you use in your research assignments. Whenever you use information from a source (even if you put it in your own words), you must give credit to the source's author by citing it. Citations usually include information like the author's name, the title, and the publication date.

Why citations matter:

• Avoid plagiarism: properly citing your sources shows that you're responsibly using others' ideas
• Support your argument: citations allow your reader to see the research behind your claims
• Join the scholarly conversation: show how your work connects to or builds upon existing research
• Help others find sources: readers can track down the original ideas if they want more information

💡Tip: even if you're using others' ideas in your own words (summarizing), you still need to cite!

What is Plagiarism?

Plagiarism happens when you use someone else's words, ideas, or images (including the work of generative Artificial Intelligence) without giving them proper credit.  Even unintentional plagiarism will have academic consequences.

Common types of plagiarism:

• Copying text word-for-word without quotation marks or a citation

• Summarizing someone else’s ideas very closely without a citation

• Using images, charts, or data without citing the source

• Submitting someone else’s work as your own (including the work of generative AI)

How to avoid it:

1. Always cite your sources--except when something is common knowledge, like "police officers wear uniforms"
2. Summarize correctly--read the article, then put it in your own words and still cite your source
3. Keep track of your sources while you do your research so you don't forget where you found your information
4. Use quotation marks when you want to use a source's exact words, and cite it
5. Ask for help! Librarians and writing tutors can show you how to cite correctly

💡Tip: always ask your professor for permission if you'd like to use AI for any part of your assignment, and how to give it credit.

Citation Help

Park University Library has lots of tools to help you make citations quickly and easily.

• If you're citing a scholarly article in Pirate Search or library databases, click on the quotation marks and it will generate your citation for you. 
• Visit the library's Citation Quick Reference Guide to see citation examples
• Explore the Purdue OWL website and their explanation of citation generators 
• Try NCSU's Citation Builder