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Start Your Research - A Self-Guided Tutorial

A tutorial to take you through the research process.

16 - In-Text Citations

What About the Citations in My Paper?

Throughout this section, sources have been discussed as they would be cited in your works cited, references list, or bibliography.

There are two parts to every citation:

  1. The notation in the text of the paper itself which alerts the reader to source you are citing. This can be an in-text citation (for example, Jones, 1998) or a number corresponding to an endnote or footnote.
  2. The full citation as listed in your works cited, references list, or bibliography.

Every citation style does this differently, so check if you are unsure.

Graph of examples of in-text and bibliography citations in MLA, APA, Chicago, and CSE Format. Refer to the links below to go to the websites from which these examples were taken.

Every time you use information from an outside source, you must include an in-text citation. If you only provide one citation at the end of a paragraph or section, your reader will not know which information is yours and which is the source you are citing.

Examples excerpted from the Purdue OWL MLA (https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/), Purdue OWL APA (https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/), Purdue OWL Chicago (https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/chicago_manual_17th_edition/cmos_formatting_and_style_guide/chicago_manual_of_style_17th_edition.html), and Washington State University CSE Citation Quick Guide (http://www.wsulibs.wsu.edu/quickguides/cse).