Citing Sources

Where you get your information is just as important as what information you found!

To show where you found the information described in your research and to avoid the crime of violating someone else’s copyright, you must cite your sources.

I didn’t plagiarize someone else’s research … did I?

In your research, have you credited the sources of facts or opinions that are not generally well known?  Take a moment to review the examples of plagiarism – including unintentional plagiarism – created by the faculty of Drew University, to help you avoid committing plagiarism as you conduct your research.

Why do I have to create a bibliography?

Besides documenting where you found the information in your research, your citations and your bibliography also help the reader of your research better understand the points that you are trying to make, as this brief “Citing Your Sources” guide from the library at the University of California at Berkeley explains.

How do I create a bibliography?

You can save quite a bit of time creating your bibliography if you use an online citation generator.   The KnightCite citation generator offered by Calvin College's Hekman Library is a reliable tool for creating properly formatted MLA, APA, or Chicago style citations.

You can double-check the work of citation generators by consulting our library's resources, such as The Chicago Manual of Style and publications of the Modern Language Association.