Prep School Library: Citation Help

Good question! You may have heard differing opinions on citation generators from your teachers over the years. Some teachers encourage their use, some consider it a form of cheating. Of course, if your teacher tells you not to use them--don't! It's not worth losing the points. 

Overall, citation generators are fairly accurate at creating basic bibliographies. They tend to create errors when presented with tricky or complicated situations. If you can't tell if your citation is correct or not, you won't be able to catch these errors and you might lose points. 

The best generators out there are the scholarly ones: Noodletools, Refworks, etc. They can also help keep your research organized. But remember to check their work using a resource like Purdue Owl before finishing your works cited page.

First time using Noodletools? Head over to my.noodletools.com/logon/signin and click "register". 

Click the right box under "about you" and enter your graduation information, if applicable. You will be asked to make a username and password--I recommend using your CGPS email/password for this account, or something otherwise easy to remember. Click register and you're good to go!

	MLA stands for Modern Language Association Website: mla.org
	APA stands for American Psychological Association Website: apa.org

These groups created citation styles, which are agreed upon rules for how to reference sources in our work. The associations produce style guides which helps writers format their work and cite appropriately. 

One of the best citation resources on the internet is Purdue Owl. There, you'll find pretty much anything you could want to know about all manner of citations, paper formatting and bibliographies. Check out Ms. F's tutorial to get the most from this site.

Bookmark owl.purdue.edu today!!