A citation describes an information source by providing its
- Author(s) or editor(s)
- Title(s) (e.g., article, journal, book, book chapter, web page, etc.)
- Publication information (place of publication, publisher, date), and/or
- Point of access (database, URL, date accessed)
There are numberous reasons for citing sources, including:
- avoiding plagiarism (a form of academic misconduct
- adding credibility to your paper or project
- increasing the ability to find your information sources
If you don't want to do citations "by hand," there are various citation tools you can use, such as Zotero or EndNote.
Cite Source, from Trinity College Library, provides examples using the main citation styles.