Citation: A Brief Introduction by NC State University Libraries is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US)
When you incorporate or refer to others' theories, words, ideas, or concepts in a paper or project, you must document each one using a citation.
You need to cite:
Direct quotes
Paraphrases and summaries
Words or terminology specific to or unique to the author's research, theories, or ideas
Use of an author's argument or line of thinking
Historical, statistical, or scientific facts
Graphs, drawings, or other such aggregations of information or data
Articles or studies you refer to within your text
In-text citation - limited information for a specific source that you incorporate in the body of your paper. Anything referenced in an in-text citation must have a corresponding entry on the full citations list.
Full citations - a separate listing at the end of your paper of all the sources you incorporate in your paper's body with each source's detailed and complete location information.
Citations Styles - set specific rules for creating both in-text citations and full citations. Depending on the style guide, this list has different names - Bibliography, Works Cited, References - and will follow various organizational patterns.
Source: Fundamentals of Engineering Technical Communications by Leah Wahlin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC-BY-NC-4.0)