No matter what you're researching or why, you will need to complete your project by citing your sources of information. Properly citing your sources is important because it allows you or your reader to locate the sources you used and because it gives credit to the author(s) whose ideas or research you used.

The list of sources you cite in your paper is called a "bibliography" or a "works cited" or "reference list." There are published guides called style manuals that can show you how to cite your sources completely and consistently. Some style manuals are specific to particular disciplines, others are more general. A particular manual may be required by your instructor.

The University Libraries own current editions of most of these style manuals. Examples include:

• MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing
• Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association
• Scientific Style and Format: The CBE Manual for Authors, Editors, and Publishers
• The Chicago Manual of Style (see also Kate Turabian's A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations)
• American Medical Association Manual of Style
• American Society for Horticultural Science Publications Style Manual
• American Sociological Association Style Guide

Colorado State University (CSU) has created some helpful guides on using the various style manuals. To access these, see the Useful Links below.

Following a style consistently and carefully throughout your bibliography ensures that you include all the necessary information to identify your sources and makes it easy for your reader (and yourself) to recognize and locate them.

In the following examples, we use three of the most common citation formats:

• APA (American Psychological Association), primarily used by scholars in the social sciences
• MLA (Modern Language Association) used by scholars in the humanities
• Turabian (A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations) which is based on the Chicago Manual of Style.

Please note that in some of the following examples, the titles of some of the books, periodicals, encyclopedias, and Internet sources are underlined. If you are viewing this with Netscape 2.0, the underline will not display.