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Citation Helper - MLA, APA, Chicago, & NoodleTools

This guide includes information about citing your sources, including MLA, APA and Chicago / Turabian citation styles.

Guide to Understanding Citations

What are citations? A "citation" is the way you tell your readers that certain material in your work came from another source. It also gives your readers the information necessary to find that source again. 

Remember!

  • Citations are how you show your work.
  • In-text citations (or parenthetical citations) appear in the body of your essay. 
  • A complete list of your source citations appears at the end of your essay on a Works Cited page.

Remember! Citations are important for THREE key reasons-

  1. They give credit to the creator of the information that you used. 
  2. They allow your audience to evaluate your statements based on evidence. 
  3. They lead you or your audience to a list of related sources.

Citations on the Web often appear in the form of hyperlinks but function in the same way as essay citations in that they give credit, provide evidence, lead the audience to related sources, and include the necessary information for the audience to access the original or quoted source. 

Ex: New York Times article: Everyone is Canceled

Practice Citing Your Sources

Use the links to the various sources below to practice creating citations in NoodleTools (or on your own)! 

The Value of MLA Format

A citation style or format allows for consistency in sharing your sources and ensures that the audience will be able to track down your sources through the information included in your citations and Works Cited page. 

The OWL Purdue Writing Lab is a FANTASTIC resource for getting information about MLA and double-checking your citation formatting.