MLA and APA Citation Tips and Tricks

MLA and APA are two formats used when writing research papers. They are closely related and the instructor will usually determine which formatting to be used when writing your paper. MLA is most commonly used in English class research papers while APA is most commonly used in Science research.

It is important to know how to correctly site sources in these two ways in order to prevent being accused of plagiarism. We have posted below some tricks, tips, and tutorials on how to properly site your sources, where to find your sources, and certain things to be aware of as you are going through the writing process.

Where to Find Sources

With the internet being readily available there are thousands of places to obtain your research and sources; however, be careful where you get your information from. Places like Wikipedia and Wiki Pages are considered open sources which means the general public can go in and change the information, therefore information found on these sites could be inaccurate.

Although Wikipedia isn’t a good place to take your information from, it can be a good starting point. The bottom of the Wikipedia page for your topic will have a list of sources that the author used and you can use those sources to go and obtain your information.

Things To Consider

• The most reliable websites to go to for information are domains that end in .gov and .org as opposed to .com because they are government and organization websites and they will have the most accurate facts and information that you are looking for.
• When you begin writing your paper and you use a source, you have the option of quoting the source or paraphrasing. It is sometimes better and easier to paraphrase a source instead of quoting because you can use proper syntax and easily compare two sentences through paraphrasing.
• Citation and Formatting Tools - If you are ever unsure of how to format your paper for MLA or APA, there are templates that you can use in Word; click new document and in the templates, search for MLA or APA. It has proper formatting and tips for writing your paper correctly. A tutorial on how to use this feature follows

Citation Tutorial

Add a new citation and source to a document:
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Adding a new citation to your document means that you also start a new source that shows up in the bibliography.

1. Under the References tab, look at the Citations & Bibliography group, then click the arrow next to Style.

2. The most common styles for citations and sources are APA and MLA, choose the one you wish to use.

3. When inserting a citation, click at the end of the sentence you wish to cite.

4. Under the References tab, find the Citations & Bibliography group, and then click Insert Citation.

5. Do one of the following:

• Click Add New Source to add the source information.
• Click Add New Placeholder to add a place holder. The purpose of a place holder is so that you can create a citation and fill in the source information later. A question mark shows up next to placeholder sources in Source Manager.

6. By clicking the arrow next to Type of source, you can start to fill in the source information.  An example of different type of sources include: a book, a report, or a Web site.
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Insert the bibliography information for the source

• On the references tab, under citations & Bibliography, click the “bibliography” option.
• Choose the desired format for your reference page from the drop down menu.
• All of your sources will be listed and you may move the references text box as needed.

Remember to always cite your sources!  Being accused of plagiarism is a very serious offense at most schools.  With all the resources available to help you cite, it is easy to stay out of trouble.