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Literature Reviews and Annotated Bibliographies

Purpose of Citations, When and What to Cite?

Why Cite?

There are four main reasons:

  • To acknowledge the author(s) of the work that you used to wirte your paper.
  • To provide context to your research and demonstrate that your paper is well-researched.
  • To allow readers to find the original source and learn more about some aspects you mentioned briefly in the document.
  • To enable further research by letting others discover what has already been explored and written about on a topic.

What and When to Cite?

You should always cite other people's words, ideas, and other intellectual property that you use in your papers or that influence your ideas. This includes but isn't limited to books, journal articles, web pages, reports, data, statistics, speeches, lectures, personal interviews, etc. You should cite whenever you:

  • use a direct quote
  • paraphrase
  • summarize
  • use facts or statistics that are relatively less known or relate directly to your argument.

Citation Tools

Academic Integrity and Plagarism

Academic integrity, student cheating, and plagiarism are of utmost importance to university faculty, administrators, writing center and tutoring staff, librarians, and academic advisors. The short, straightforward definitions of academic integrity and plagiarism are meant to assist persons interested in understanding more about these issues.

Academic Integrity:
Most sources define academic integrity as the foundation for academic life.  It is the manner in which you behave in an academic environment when you do research, write a paper, or create a project. This academic process's five fundamental values are honesty, trust, respect, fairness, and responsibility. Academic integrity is the commitment to live by these values. Plagiarism is an aspect of academic integrity in that using another's ideas, words, theories, illustrations, graphics, opinions, or facts without giving credit is dishonest.
 
Plagiarism:
To use, steal, or represent the ideas, words, or products of another as your own ideas, words, or products. Use of someone else's ideas, words, or products without giving credit to the author or originator is considered plagiarism.

When using or quoting word for word the words of another person it must be acknowledged.  Summarizing or paraphrasing the words or ideas of another without giving that person credit is also plagiarism.

Subjects: General, History

The ASU Library acknowledges the twenty-three Native Nations that have inhabited this land for centuries. Arizona State University's four campuses are located in the Salt River Valley on ancestral territories of Indigenous peoples, including the Akimel O’odham (Pima) and Pee Posh (Maricopa) Indian Communities, whose care and keeping of these lands allows us to be here today. ASU Library acknowledges the sovereignty of these nations and seeks to foster an environment of success and possibility for Native American students and patrons. We are advocates for the incorporation of Indigenous knowledge systems and research methodologies within contemporary library practice. ASU Library welcomes members of the Akimel O’odham and Pee Posh, and all Native nations to the Library.