Depending on your professor's preference you may be required to use APA, MLA or Chicago citation styles for your references, works cited or bibliography page as well as in text citations or footnotes/endnotes. Refworks is a great way to keep track of your research bibliographies, set up works cited and references pages, footnotes/endnotes and in-text citations.

Use the links below to find out more about citing your resources.

Citing sources properly is an important part of your research.  The following list of tips may help you with your citations:

• Confirm with your professor the style manual you are to use.

• The complete style guides (MLA, Turabian, APA, Chicago Manual of Style) are available behind the Reference Desk, 1st floor, Pollak Library North.

• Use the Pollak Library's "How do I Cite Sources?" page, which provides information for APA, MLA, and Chicago styles.

• Check out the Purdue Online Writing Lab for more tips on citation styles and writing and paper formatting guidence.

• Make sure you have all the information you will need from each source to create a proper citation, including data such as publication information from the front of books, journal volume/issue numbers, and page numbers for articles and book chapters.  You can use RefWorks, an online citation manager, to store your citations and create reference or work cited lists.

• Plagiarism is a serious issue, which includes presenting the work or ideas of another individual as your own.  Keeping careful notes while researching your topic will help you to credit properly an idea or passage you came across.

• Read the "Student Guide to Avoiding Plagiarism: How to Write an Effective Research Paper," prepared by Sandra Rhoten, Associate Dean, Judicial Affairs, CSUF.

Click on the link below, to watch a tutorial produced by the staff at the American Psychological Association that covers the basics of setting up a research paper in APA style. Each short segment guides you through a specific APA Style element. You can watch the entire 18-minute tutorial or pick a specific segment. Always check with your professor to find out if a specific APA style element discussed in this tutorial (e.g. double spacing, exact font requirements, a title page, or running heading, etc.) is required.

http://flash1r.apa.org/apastyle/basics/index.htm

RefWorks is a web-based Bibliographic Management Software that enables you to collect and manage references to books, articles, etc., format them according to styles (e.g., MLA, APA, Chicago); and create bibliographies for use in a research paper or publication. The Pollak Library has paid for a campus-wide subscription to RefWorks. All CSUF students/faculty/staff can access RefWorks on-campus, or off-campus through the campus portal.

Please see our RefWorks guide for more information on how to use RefWorks.