Nursing Students Subject Guide (March 2023)

Citing your sources is a very important part of the research process. Why?

• Citations help you avoid plagiarism. As you may know, Kingsborough stands strongly against plagiarism, or using the work of others as your own. (See the CUNY Policy on Academic Integrity here.) Citing direct or indirect quotations can prevent you from inadvertently claiming another writer's work as your own. 
• Citations help you make your case. In addition to avoiding plagiarism, citing sources will make your work much stronger. Each citation stands as a piece of evidence: a citation adds to your paper by saying to the reader: "What she is arguing is backed up by the scholars in the field."
• Citations show the person who is reading how to get further information. Citations can be a great way of pointing your reader to more interesting sources on your topic. 
• Citations strike up a conversation with your source. In scholarly writing, citations are considered a form of communication between one author and another. By citing an author's work, you not only support your own argument, but you are also announcing that the sources you cited are good works of research or scholarship. It's a conversation, even though they may not know about it. 

APA Format (from the American Psychological Association) is the most common citation style used in the social sciences. You can find more information about APA style in their handbook (available through the library), the Purdue OWL, or on the APA web-site.

A number of websites are devoted to helping students and other researchers cite their work.

• Purdue OWL

  The Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) has created an extensive and very helpful resource on citation of various materials.

• Research and Documentation Online

  This resource offers recommended resources for various areas of study as well as citation instructions.

• Zotero

  This freely available research tool allows you to save your citations to an online account with the click of a button.

• KnightCite

  This service, provided by Calvin University's library, generates a MLA citation for you. Just enter in the citation information (such as author, title, edition, and year published) and click submit.

• RefWorks This link opens in a new window

  Online bibliographic management program that allows users to create a personal database of references and generate bibliographies in a variety of formats. First time users need to sign up for an account.