Overview
Whenever you use sources such as books, journals, or Web sites in your research papers you must give credit to the original author by properly citing the sources. Citations also help your reader find the sources again. There are a number of different citation styles, depending on the discipline in which you are working. The following links provide guidelines to using a variety of citation styles.
Quick Style Guides
Use these quick guides for examples of how to cite common types of sources in APA, MLA, CSE, and Chicago styles.
- APA Quick Citation GuidePenn State guide for APA references with examples. This is the most common style used in the social sciences.
- MLA Quick Citation GuidePenn State guide for MLA references with examples. This is the most common style used in the humanities.
- CSE Quick Citation GuidePenn State guide for CSE references with examples. This is a common style used in the sciences.
- Chicago-Style Citation Quick Guidefrom the publisher. This is a common style used in history and the humanities
Comprehensive Style Guides
- Chicago Manual of Style Online This link opens in a new windowcomplete manual available for Penn State users
Other Citation Style Guides
This is a limited list of other style guides
General Guides
- Turabian Quick Guideessentially the same as The Chicago Manual of Style with slight modifications for the needs of student writers.
- Harvard Referencing Guidefrom Monash University
- Citing Government Information GuideGovernment documents, archives, and congressional publications
- Introduction to Basic Legal CitationHarvard Bluebook style
Guides for Specific Subjects
- ACS Guide to Scholarly CommunicationThe standard writing style for cited references in chemistry.
- Quick Tips for ASA StyleSociology
- IEEE Editorial Style ManualReferences for Electrical Engineering.
- ASCE Author/Date ReferencesCivil Engineering.
- APSA Style Manual (PDF)Political Science
- Templates for Citing Indigenous Elders and Knowledge Keepersp.3 includes actual templates for APA and MLA styles that include the Nation/Community and Treaty Territory of the individual. This is an attempt to formalize something that Indigenous scholars have been doing for decades: fighting to find a better way to acknowledge their voices and knowledges within academia.