Citations are the way that we give credit to someone else's words or ideas when we want to use them for ourselves to illustrate a point or provide evidence. Citations are also a way for you to engage with scholars, since all researchers use citations in their work.
Citations have two purposes:
Using a citation style correctly also shows your instructor that you have put time and care into your work. Most citation styles are made up of two sets of instructions:
There are many types of citation styles that academics use. At JIBC, we primarily use APA Style.
APA refers to the American Psychological Association. This is the organization that originally created the APA Style and continues to publish documentation about using this citation style. APA Style is used in many different disciplines like social sciences, psychology, and business.
APA Style is a very big topic and we don't expect you to become an expert overnight! The Library offers lots of support for students learning APA Style, including workshops, sample papers, and an APA Guide available both online and in-person. This module is a short introduction to the basics of APA Style. You can find more information on the library's two APA Style Guides:
The next 3 pages will introduce you to the basics of in-text citations, the reference list, and formatting your paper.
Unless otherwise noted, this guide is licensed under a CC BY-SA 4.0 (Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License).