It's important to cite your sources for a variety of reasons. Citing your sources:
Now you know why it's important to cite, check out the flow chart below for information on when to cite.
Discussions around how and when to cite sources happen regularly in university settings, but we rarely consider who is being cited. And yet, in our current systems of Western academia, citation metrics have huge impacts on people's career advancement at all levels.
It's important to recognize that there are systemic inequities with regards to the under-representation of minoritized scholars. Citation justice aims to begin addressing this problem by inviting us to diversify the range of sources we engage with and cite.
Not only do underrepresented scholars benefit from citation justice, but students to as well! Increasing diversity in syllabi, lectures, and reading lists can promote a sense of belonging among students, which can lead to profound impacts on student success and engagement.
Check out the Citation Justice in STEMM guide for more information about why this is important and how to do it!
"...just as citational practices have the potential to reinforce power structures, they also have
tremendous potential to undo them." (Andrea Eidinger, 2023)
Citations describe information resources (ex. journal articles, books, web pages, etc.) in a standard format. Citations styles differ in how they present information, but they all include the following basic elements: the title of the resource, who wrote it (author and/or editor), when it was published, where and by whom it was published (journal name, city, host of web page, etc.).
The McGill Library Citation Guide has loads of additional information including choosing a style based on your subject, information about citation managemenet software including EndNote and Zotero, and an FAQ on Citing and Referencing.
Below are some basic examples of citations in APA 7 style for different types of resources. The APA official site has a much more extensive list of examples.
Grady, J. S., Her, M., Moreno, G., Perez, C., & Yelinek, J. (2019). Emotions in storybooks: A comparison of storybooks that represent ethnic and racial groups in the United States. Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 8(3), 207–217. https://doi.org/10.1037/ppm0000185
Carey, B. (2019, March 22). Can we get better at forgetting? The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/22/health/memory-forgetting-psychology.html
Hannah-Jones, N. (Host). (2019, September 13). How the bad blood started (No. 4) [Audio podcast episode]. In 1619. The New York Times. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-4-how-the-bad-blood-started/id1476928106?i=1000449718223
Mack, R., & Spake, G. (2018). Citing open source images and formatting references for presentations [PowerPoint slides]. Canvas@FNU. https://fnu.onelogin.com/login
National Cancer Institute. (2019). Taking time: Support for people with cancer (NIH Publication No. 18-2059). U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health. https://www.cancer.gov/publications/patient-education/takingtime.pdf
Oil painting. (2019, December 8). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Oil_painting&oldid=929802398
ex. We spoke with Anna Grant (Haida Nation, lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, personal communication, April 2019) about traditional understandings of the world by First Nations Peoples in Canada. She described . . .
McGill Libraries • Questions? Ask us!
Privacy notice