Citation styles provide rules for formatting your citations or references. Although there are many different citation styles, those most commonly used by students at College of DuPage are American Psychological Association (APA), Modern Language Association (MLA), and Chicago/Turabian. The style you should use is usually determined by the discipline or course in which you are working. Ask your instructor what style is required or recommended.
Citing Sources: Information to Record
Although every citation style is different, there are some standard elements to record:
- Title (of book or article and journal)
- 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 no DOI