Citation Styles
Citation styles provide rules for formatting your citations or references.
There are many different citation styles. The best known are American Psychological Association style (APA), Modern Language Association style (MLA), and Chicago/Turabian style.
Each academic discipline generally requires a particular citation style. If a citation style is not indicated on a course outline or the assignment instructions, ask your instructor which style you should use.
You can find the COD Library Citing Sources guide at http://www.codlrc.org/citing
Tip: Information to Record
Although every citation style is different, there are some standard elements you should keep track of when you're doing your research.
- Title (If you are using an article, you should also record the journal title and volume/issue number in which the article appears.)
- Author
- Publication Date
- Publisher or source
- Start and end pages (for articles and book chapters)
For electronic sources such as web pages, you should record this additional information:
- The date you accessed the site
- The digital object identifier (doi) if there is one
- The URL (web address) if there is not doi