Local Research (SF & Oakland)

Citation Styles

Citation styles define how citations or references are organized and formatted within a paper.  The three most commonly used citation styles in higher education include:  

• Modern Language Association (MLA) Style: used in literature, arts, humanities, and some other disciplines.
• Chicago Manual of Style (CMS): used most often in history, art, and visual studies. Sometimes referred to as Turabian.
• American Psychological Association (APA) Style: used in social sciences such as anthropology, business, psychology, sociology, and political science.

If you are not sure which one to use, ask your instructor what citation style she or he prefers you to use for your assignments. This guide contains examples of common MLA and CMS citations. For additional examples, download the linked handouts below.

In-text Citations

When writing an academic paper, you need to indicate in your text when you are using the words or ideas of an outside source. This is not only true when you are using exact language but also when you are paraphrasing or summarizing material. Sources can be virtually any form of information you choose to include in a research project: text from books, articles, or websites, images and photographs, audio, video, artworks, or even tweets.

MLA uses parenthetical citations, typically the author's last name and a page number. Quotation marks must be used when you are borrowing exact language (approximately five or more words), but not when you are paraphrasing or summarizing. If you refer to the author in your text, the author's name does not need to be included in the parentheses. 

The Chicago Manual of Style (CMS) prefers notations -- superscript numbers that denote the use of external sources and refer to corresponding footnotes (at the bottom of the page) or endnotes (at the end of a paper, chapter, or book).

MLA Parenthetical Citation

CMS Note

References

In-text citations need to correspond with a reference entry.

In MLA, the citations are arranged alphabetically by author in a section titled Works Cited. The Works Cited list is typically included on a new page following the main body of the paper.

In CMS, the author chooses to employ either footnotes, appearing in the footer of the same page as the in-text citation, or endnotes, a numerically-ordered list at the end of the paper, chapter, or book. Longer works will also include an alphabetically-ordered bibliography on a new page following the main body of the paper. If you are unsure of whether to use footnotes, endnotes, and/or a bibliography, ask your instructor for their preference.