Writing citations shows that you have done proper research by giving credit to authors and acknowledge their ideas. You avoid plagiarism by quoting words and ideas used by other authors. Furthermore, it will allow your readers to find the sources you used by citing them accurately in footnotes or a reference list.
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Neville, C. (2010). The complete guide to referencing and avoiding plagiarism. (2nd ed.). United Kingdom: Open University Press
⇒ Citing a source means that you show, within the body of your text, that you took words, ideas, figures, images, etc. from published material.
⇒ Citations are a short way to uniquely identify a published work (e.g. book, article, chapter, website).
⇒ Citation practice varies but, depending on the type of source cited, a citation should contain all the information necessary to identify and track down the source. This can include elements like:
⇒ Citations may look different, depending on what is being cited and which style was used to create them.
• Facts, figures, ideas, or other information that is not common knowledge.
• Ideas, words, theories, or exact language that another person used in other publications.
• Publications that must be cited include: books, book chapters, articles, web pages, theses, etc.
• Another person's exact words should be quoted and cited to show proper credit.
When in doubt, be safe and cite your source!