English Subject Guide: Citation Guides

MLA Handbook Plus

Searchable online edition of the MLA Citation Manual.

MLA Citation Guide: 8th Edition

This is a guide to the most commonly-cited types of sources. It provides information on creating Works Cited Lists as well as on creating In-Text citations.

Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL

This is a comprehensive guide to MLA citations. It contains a sample works cited page, and a sample  paper formatted in MLA style.     also has a good deal of valuable information on the research process and writing research papers.

Chicago Manual of Style

Although MLA is the standard style for humanities citations, Chicago style is sometimes used/

Library catalogs and databases are not the only way to locate good sources. Often the best way to identify sources that are pertinent to your particular topic is to use the reference lists of the relevant sources you are already using. Books or articles that appear in reference lists are works that other researchers identify as important works and are often works that you should consult as well.

In order to make effective use of reference lists, you must first be able to figure out from a citation what kind of source you are looking for: a book, a chapter in a book, a journal article, etc. You may find it surprising, but the process of identifying source types from reference lists can be challenging. The guide, "Identifying Sources in Works Cited Lists and Bibliographies" may give you techniques you can use in figuring out the kind of source you are looking for.

The process of creating a bibliography or reference list is time-consuming and tedious. Fortunately there is free software available that can take much of the tedium out of it. But beware: these citation builders are not perfect. You still need to know the principles of creating citations so that you can identify and correct the mistakes.

Citefast

Creates citations in APA, MLA and Chicago citation formats. You can export citations or an entire Works Cited List to MS Word, or simply copy and paste individual citations.  Open a free account in order to save your citations.

Zotero

A powerful, free citation builder for storing citations and building bibliographies in a large variety of formats. It can be integrated with Firefox, Chrome and Safari. Many books, databases and websites can be entered into the Zotero database simply by clicking on an icon in the address bar of your browser. There is also a standalone version that can be downloaded to your computer. You can set it up to sync so that you can use it from any device. With a pulgin, you can easily load the  bibliography you have created into World. Find out more information see "A Step-by-Step Guide for using Zotero." 

ZoteroBib

A simple tool for creating an instant bibliography without creating an account. Good for creating a one-time bibliography. You can link to it from other devices. If you want to store all your sources for an ongoing project, use Zotero, but for most purposes ZoteroBib is adequate and easier to use..