WR 121 Kidoguchi: Citing your sources

Course guide for a WR 121 class.

Why Cite?

We cite to:

  • Avoid plagiarism – give credit where credit is due
  • Allow our reader to follow up on points that interest them
  • Give our writing more credibility
  • Help our reader see how we came to our conclusions

When should you cite?

Academic writing requires that you give credit for others’ work.  You should identify and give credit to the work of others when you:

  • Use a direct quote
  • Make a claim that might be challenged/questioned
  • Paraphrase of the ideas of another person
  • Offer an expert opinion

It is not necessary to give credit for commonly known facts or expressions.

Test Your Knowledge: Avoiding Plagiarism

This quick quiz from the Ithaca College Library will test your knowledge and help you learn how to properly cite sources.

Cite Your Sources in MLA

Why cite your sources?

When you use someone else's words, ideas, or images in your writing, you need to give them proper credit. Providing a citation or reference enables others to locate these sources, too! Here is a sample MLA works cited page.

Resources for creating MLA-style citations:

Free citation creation tools to help you generate MLA-style citations:

  • MyBib
    • ​Generate citations and bibliographies by pasting a URL or searching for a resource by title
    • Covers MLA 8 & 9
    • Copy and paste citations, download them as a Word doc, save them to Google Drive, print, or email them to yourself
  • NCSU Citation Builder 
    • Simple citation builder for some digital and print materials
    • Covers MLA 8 & 9
    • Copy and paste your generated citation into your bibliography
  • Calvin College's Knight Cite 
    • ​Build citations for a wide range of resources in print, digital, multimedia, and communication
    • Covers MLA 9
    • Create a free Knight Cite account to save citations and export them to Word or RTF document

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