Citing Your Sources
"Citing your sources" means providing a record of the sources -- journal articles, books, webpages, etc. -- you used on your project to your audience.
Top 3 Reasons to Cite Your Sources: 
#1 Citing your sources makes you look GOOD! People can tell you've done your research. The sources you cite "back you up" by supporting your own ideas and experiments.
#2 Give credit to those whose work supports yours.
#3 Your readers can follow the works you've cited and use them as a road map to build on what you've done -- they don't have to start from Ground Zero. That's SCIENCE!
A word about PLAGIARISM -- Using others' works or ideas without giving them credit is bad. Don't do it. With all of the good reasons to cite your sources, why plagiarize?
Image -- Research, Nick Youngson, Pix4free.org, Creative Commons License CC BY-SA 3.0.
When to Cite
Citing Sources -- More information on citing your sources, including examples of when to cite others' works. You can also ask your teacher, your local librarian, or ASK A LIBRARIAN.
Still not sure when to cite a source? When in doubt, cite it.
How to Cite
A good citation includes enough data to allow others to identify the item cited. This allows your readers to track down the cited publication for their own uses. Every discipline has its own citation style, but these styles all have elements in common. Remember, the goal is to provide enough information for others to easily find your specific source:
- Author or authors (last name, first name)
- Date -- Year of publication, or date you accessed a website
- Title of work -- article, book chapter, encyclopedia entry
- Source -- Journal, book title, publisher or agency
- Specific identifiers -- Volume number, page numbers, web address
Examples:
Journal article -- Shergold, Ian; Lyons, Glenn; Hubers, Christa. 2015. Future mobility in an aging society - Where are we heading? Journal of Transport & Health, vol. 2 (1) p. 86-94.
Book chapter -- Tyson, Neil deGrasse. 2017. Between the galaxies. Astrophysics for people in a hurry, Chapter 4. W. W. Norton & Company, p. 62-74.
Website -- Garner, Rob, editor. 2022. NASA's Webb sheds light on galaxy evolution, black holes. NASA. https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2022/nasa-s-webb-sheds-light-on-galaxy-evolution-black-holes. Accessed Aug 27 2022.
Website -- Uranium mining in Colorado. Last edited 2022. Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_mining_in_Colorado. Accessed Jul 18 2022.