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Using Citation Styles

When listing sources you've used in your research, be sure to use a conventional bibliographic style. Most subject disciplines have a standard style that writers are expected to use. Each style will specify a uniform way of citing sources that will:

give an orderly appearance to your bibliography, and
provide all the essential elements of information that a reader will need to locate the source.

A citation must include:

author
title
source (publisher and place for books or nonprint materials; periodical title, volume, and pages for articles; URL for Web pages)
date

Notes:
RefWorks: Automatically converts citations into properly formatted bibliographies. Styles include MLA, APA, Chicago, American Anthropological Association, IEEE, and more!

Citing Sources: This website gives examples of what your citations should look like in APA, MLA, Chicago, Turabian and CSE.

Research and Documentation Online: This website gives detailed information on how to both find and document sources, by general academic discipline. Replicates the book Research and Documentation in the Electronic Age, Fifth Edition, by Diana Hacker and Barbara Fister.

Identifying Elements of Citations

Book

Article

Web Page

Citation Style Guides and Manuals

The major guides are listed below. Most of these guides advise writers about citation styles in particular disciplines; The Chicago Manual of Style and A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations are more general. Style requirements and examples for all types of information sources are included. Your professor may ask you to use a specific style.

1. The ACS Style Guide: Effective Communication of Scientific Information. Washington, DC: American Chemical Society, 2006.
UM/Science Ref QD8.5.A25 2006

2. AMA Manual of Style: A Guide for Authors and Editors. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007
UM/Science Ref R119.A533 2007

3.The Chicago Manual of Style. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010.
UM/Ref. Desk Z253.U69 2010
Also available online, via UMass Amherst Libraries' subscription

4. A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations. 6th ed. by Kate Turabian. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.
UM/Ref. Desk LB2369.T8 1996
UM/Science Ref LB2369.T8 1996

5. Science and Technical Writing: A Manual of Style. Edited by Philip Rubens. New York: Routledge, 2001.
UM/Science Ref T11.S378 2001
UM/W.E.B. Du Bois T11.S378 2001

6. Scientific Style and Format: The CSE Manual for Authors, Editors, and Publishers. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
UM/Science Ref T11.S386 2006

7. Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. Washington, DC: APA, 2010.
UM/Ref. Desk BF76.7 .P83 2010

See also APA Formatting and Style Guide (from Purdue University) or Learning APA Style (from the APA)

8. The MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2009.
UM/Ref. Desk LB2369 .G53 2009

Last Edited: 31 May 2011