1. Follow the format your professor suggests.

2. Ask your professor what to use if no format was assigned.

3. If you have no advice from your professor, try these:

Humanities (especially literature or languages): MLA (Modern Language Association)

Social sciences (especially psychology and behavioral science): APA (American Psychological Association)

Physical and natural sciences: CSE (Council of Scientific Editors)

General: Turabian is used by students in all disciplines. It is designed to complement the Chicago Manual of Style, but is simpler and easier to use.

Chicago Manual of Style: Chicago is used by scholarly writers in all disciplines. It contains two separate styles: one for writers in literature, history and the arts, and one for writers in the physical, natural and social sciences.

There are many resources to help you build your citiations.

1.  Virtually all of our databases will automatically build a citation for a source you choose.  Check on the source page for "Cite" or check the database's help feature for instructions

2.  You may use an online citation builder, such as Citation Machine, NCSU Libraries' Citation Builder, or EasyBib.  A word of caution:  most free citation builders will only support MLA., APA, and Chicago styles.

3.  Microsoft Word (versions 2007 and forward) have an on-board citation builder and organizer.  Click the "References" tab at the top of your Word document, and the citations toolbar will pop up.  

4.  The Reference Desk at the RJT Library has print copies of handbooks and style guides for all of the most popular citation styles.  Come see us for assistance!

Tiger Online Writing Lab

Purdue Owl Online Writing Lab (OWL) 

Purdue Owl: APA Formatting and Style Guide

Purdue Owl: MLA Formatting and Style Guide

Purdue Owl: Avoiding Plagiarism

APA Citation style Tutorial

Crash Course in Copyright (University of Texas at Austin)