Why Cite?
Using someone else's words or ideas without giving them credit is called plagiarism. Avoid plagiarism by learning to correctly cite your sources any time you borrow from someone else. Be sure to use the correct citation format for your course. The Student Handbook: Categories of Academic Dishonesty outlines how plagiarism is defined at WT.
What is Style?
Writing styles are sets of standards for:
- How to format a paper: font, margins, structure
- How to structure citations, both within the text and for the list of sources at the end of the paper
- The way a paper will be written: grammar, word usage, etc.
- What counts as evidence in a discipline
Ask your professor what style you should be using! Use the resources bellow for more information.
General Citation Information
The purpose of citation is to make sure that you give credit to others for their ideas, and to allow your readers to explore those ideas further.
Every citation style will share some basic features:
- journal articles are identified by author(s), article title, journal title, date of publication, volume and issue, and page numbers
- books are identified by author(s), publication date, publisher and place of publications, and possibly page and chapter numbers.
The differences among styles are how each of these information pieces is formatted, and the sequence in which they are arranged.
Engineering publications tend to have specific styles for different sub-disciplines.