Skip to Main Content
It looks like you're using Internet Explorer 11 or older. This website works best with modern browsers such as the latest versions of Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge. If you continue with this browser, you may see unexpected results.

Using Information Responsibly for Your Assignments: Citation Formats

Introduction

What Is Citation

Citation tells readers about the sources you have used in your work. It can be found in the text or at the end of the work as a bibliography / reference list.

What is a Citation?

Watch this video to learn what is a citation and why we need citations? (1:21)

Why Do We Have to Cite

  • Acknowledge the ideas of the original authors and give them credit.
  • To avoid plagiarism.
  • To support your arguments.
  • To help readers to locate your reference for further research.

Elements of a Cited Work

Use the elements of cited works to compose a list of references at the end of your paper so that readers can retrieve the items you mention in your text.

For example, if you mention the book Ghetto at the Center of the World: Chungking Mansions, Hong Kong by Gordon Mathews in your text, you must document this source.

In-text citation (Author, Year of Publication, and Page Number in parenthesis)

In-text citation

Bibliography

Bibliography

Books

Books

Journal Articles

Journal Articles

Audio-visual Materials

Audio-visual Materials

Web Publications

Web Publications

Social Media

There exists a wealth of information closely related to our life and study in various sources of social media such as

Facebook Facebook  YouTube YouTube  Twitter Twitter  Blog  B, etc.

To cite, note the major elements of social media materials -- Author, Date, Title and Source.

 

Social Media

Examples on Citation Styles

APA

Chicago

MLA

Vancover

 

You can refer to the Citation Styles Guide for details: https://libguides.lib.cuhk.edu.hk/Citation_Styles

Librarian

Profile Photo
Learning Support
Contact:
Learning Support,
University Library,
The Chinese University of Hong Kong
(852) 3943 7305

RefWorks

Image of RefWorks

EndNote

EndNote

EndNote is a research tool and citation manager. Use it to:

  • Import and store references that you find in LibrarySearch and PDFs downloaded from journal websites or online database
  • Create bibliographies and reference lists in over 7,000 styles
  • Share references with research partners and colleagues in EndNote Web