Citing Sources

This guide was created to provide students with instructions and examples for citing sources and links to read more. Navigate this guide using the topics on the left.

A source is anything that gives you an idea or piece of information to use in your paper or project.

• A source can be a book, magazine, newspaper, letter, song, web page, blog, podcast, interview, email, Facebook update, or even your own class notes.
• A source can also be something visual such as a TV program, movie, photograph, chart, diagram, or illustration.
• A source can even be an artificial intelligence (AI) tool. If you use text generated by a tool like ChatGPT, Bard, or YouChat; an image generated by a tool like DALL-E, Stable Diffusion, or Craiyon; or music generated by a tool like Beatoven, cite that tool as your source.

Citing your sources tells your audience where your information came from. This allows them to:

• Go to your sources to learn more about the subject

• Understand how you arrived at your theory, idea or conclusion

• Know which ideas are your own original thoughts

Just as you wouldn’t want someone to steal your design for a chair, you need to give credit where it’s due when you use someone else’s ideas.

Learn more

• Using Research | The Purdue OWL

• Citing Information | University of North Carolina

• What Is Citation? | Plagiarism.org