Do you find citing sources to be the most difficult part of your research paper or essay? If so, you are not alone. The detail-oriented nature of citations can make it a challenge for even experienced writers to put together a strong bibliography, works cited, or reference page. It can also make it challenging to properly cite your sources in your essay. Never fear, our citation generator is here to make proper citations a breeze.
We have made our citation generator tool as easy to use as possible. You input information about the source into the applicable boxes and our generator turns it into the citation you need. We can format it into MLA, APA, and Chicago.
Whether you need a citation in APA, MLA, or Chicago format, you are going to need basic information about the source that you used. That information is designed to help others locate the source you used and, sometimes, where you found the information you are citing. Proper citation is important. It helps you avoid allegations of plagiarism or other types of academic dishonesty. It also helps people who are reading your essays do their own further research or further investigate information you have included in your work.
If you keep in mind that citation information is designed to help readers easily locate your source material, then it becomes easier to collect the information you are going to need to create your works cited, bibliography, or reference pages. Not all references use the same information, but you want to get: the author’s name; the date of publication; where the information was published; who published it; the name of a book or article; the name of the magazine, journal or newspaper; the URL; the DOI (if applicable); and identifying subsection information.
To cite your sources in the text of your paper or in endnotes or footnotes, you want to point readers to the specific part of the text you are referencing. Usually, this means a page number, though it might not with electronic sources. To make things easier for yourself, take note of page numbers or other identifying markers while you are putting your easy together. This will help you properly cite information when you go to write your essay.
APA style refers to the style published by the American Psychological Association (APA). It is generally used for academic writing in the soft-sciences and some of the hard-sciences. You use it when writing for scholarly journals or books. You may also see it as the default citation style for many types of academic writing.
MLA style refers to the style published by the Modern Language Association. It is the style for writing about literature and is often used for writing about other arts and humanities.
Chicago style is the style published by the University of Chicago. It is used by many universities for academic writing.
Generally, if you are writing in an academic style, you will be told which one to choose for your citations. If not, you can get guidance by considering why you are writing the assignment. The subject can generally be a guide to your writing style. However, if you are in doubt, check with your professor or instructor to ensure you are using the correct writing style. References or citations done in the wrong style can be considered plagiarism by some stricter professors or universities!
To show you how to cite a journal article, we are showing how an article in ScienceDirect, which you can locate online at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S136655452030819X, would be cited in each of the three styles:
APA
Gkiotsalitis, K., & Cats, O. (2021). At-stop control measures in public transport: Literature review and research agenda. Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, 145, 102176.
MLA
Gkiotsalitis, K., and O. Cats. "At-stop control measures in public transport: Literature review and research agenda." Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review 145 (2021): 102176.
Chicago
Gkiotsalitis, K., and O. Cats. "At-stop control measures in public transport: Literature review and research agenda." Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review 145 (2021): 102176.
To show you how to cite a book, we are showing you how to cite the same book in each of the three styles:
APA
Greyson, B., MD. (2021). After. New York, NY: St. Martin's Essentials.
MLA
Greyson, Bruce. After. St. Martin's Essentials, 2021.
Chicago
Greyson, Bruce. After. New York, NY: St. Martin's Essentials, 2021.
To show you how to cite a webpage, we are showing you how an online article, which you can locate online at https://time.com/5954736/minnesota-activists-chauvin-trial-daunte-wright/ would be cited in each of the three styles:
APA
Bates, J. (2021, April 15). Minnesota activists ON Chauvin TRIAL, Daunte Wright death. https://time.com/5954736/minnesota-activists-chauvin-trial-daunte-wright/.
MLA
Bates, Josiah. Minnesota Activists ON Chauvin TRIAL, Daunte Wright Death. 15 Apr. 2021, time.com/5954736/minnesota-activists-chauvin-trial-daunte-wright/.
Chicago
Bates, Josiah. “Minnesota Activists ON Chauvin TRIAL, Daunte Wright Death,” April 15, 2021. https://time.com/5954736/minnesota-activists-chauvin-trial-daunte-wright/.
Many people can easily cite sources where all of the information is available. However, if a source is missing an author, you cannot locate a publication date, or other essential information is missing, many students struggle to correctly cite that source.
With our citation generator, you enter the information that you can locate for the source. The citation generator then uses the information that you have provided to create a correct citation for the source. This is true even if you appear to be missing information that seems as if it might be essential.
Another area that causes confusion is when a source has multiple authors. People struggle with how to present the authors. Do they all get full names or are some limited to initials? Are all authors named in the reference pages? Should they be last name and then first name or revert to normal first then last after the primary author? The tricky part about those questions is that they have different answers, depending on which style guide you are using to write your essay. Fortunately, our citation generator takes the guess work out of citing multiple authors.
We are not going to lie to you. Even though our citation generator tool makes citing your sources easy, it is still going to be one of the most tedious parts of your academic writing assignment. That is simply the nature of citations. We cannot change that for you. However, we can make sure that you get the nitpicky details right so that, when you turn in your essay, you can be confident that you will be getting graded on your essay and not on what might be missing in your works cited page. It is just one of the ways that we help make writing simple for the average student. We also offer tools that can help you find a topic for your essay, help you paraphrase information, come up with a title, and more. To us, writing may not ever be your favorite part of academic life, but you should feel confident and secure in your academic writing. If you do not, we can help.