Much writing at the college level requires you to make use of source material that others have written. While the general idea involved in source citation is always to give credit to another author for using his/her words and ideas, the discipline in which you are writing will dictate the form such a citation will take.

Note: The publishing company Bedford St. Martins offers a very helpful automated bibliography generator at http://bedfordstmartins.com/bbibliographer/

Following are links to the most popular citation methods. Generally, your instructor will tell you which format to use; alternatively, some instructors allow you to use any format as long as you use that format consistently:

MLA Format:
St. Cloud State University Website
http://leo.stcloudstate.edu/catalogue.html#cite
Honolulu Community College
http://honolulu.hawaii.edu/legacylib/mlahcc.html


APA Format:
APA Citation Style Homepage
http://www.apastyle.org
Ohio State University
http://library.osu.edu/sites/guides/apagd.php


ASA Format:
American Sociological Association Quick Style Guide
http://www.asanet.org/cs/root/topnav/sociology_depts/quick_style_guide


Chicago Style and Turabian (while not interchangeable, there is very little difference between these two styles):
Chicago Style Home Page
http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html
Chicago Style/Turabian comparison
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Chicago-Turabianstyle.pdf


General Information on Source Citation:
Research and Documentation Online by Diana Hacker
http://www.dianahacker.com/resdoc/
Johns Hopkins University Library
http://www.library.jhu.edu/researchhelp/general/citing/index.html
Northeastern Illinois University Library
http://www.neiu.edu/~neiulib/reference/citations.html