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ICS Gateway Course: Citing and Organizing Sources

ICS 195: Comparative Approaches to Global Issues

Citing Sources

Style manuals are guides that tell you where/how to properly cite sources. Style manuals vary by discipline. The most common style manuals are:

For more information on APA, MLA, and Chicago Manual of Style conventions, check out the Purdue Online Writing Lab's guide to Research and Citation Resources.

 

Avoiding Plagiarism


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Tips on how to avoid plagiarism

Understanding Citations

Image courtesy William H. Hannon Library (Loyola Marymount University)

Note (*) that journal titles are often abbreviated.  In most cases, you will need the full title to search for the journal in the online catalog or as an e-journal. Try:

  • Selecting a link for the "full citation" or "complete reference" in an online source
  • Selecting the link for a database's source list, and then looking for your journal title
  • Looking in the beginning of a print journal, book or periodical index, as there may be an abbreviations list
  • Looking in the book Periodical Title Abbreviations, available at the Perkins Reference Desk and Lilly Ready Reference
  • All That JAS: Journal Abbreviation Sources provides links for the natural and social sciences, law, and philosophy.

Organizing References

Citation tools allow you to save and organize your research. They also let you create formatted bibliographies.To find the right tool for you, check out this citation tool comparison chart.

RefWorks logo

A personal citation library designed to directly import references from multiple databases. In Refworks you can organize and manage your citations, share them with colleagues, and format bibliographies.

Zotero

Downloadable as a standalone program or a Firefox extension, Zotero is designed to store content in any format, including PDFs, images, audio and video files, and snapshots of web pages. Zotero operates with thousands of sites, and automatically indexes your library for ease of access.

Downloadable as a standalone program from OIT, EndNote is a powerful citation tool for organizing your research and creating formatted citations. In addition to the standalone option, you can create an EndNote Web account.