When you use other authors' ideas and words in your own writing, it is important to credit them - even if you do not quote their words exactly as written.
Citing your sources allows your reader to identify the works you have consulted and to understand the breadth and scope of your research. Footnotes, endnotes, and lists of works consulted provide substantiation for your own findings and ideas.
Practicing "cite as you write" and keeping track of ideas and quotations that you use in your own writing helps you to avoid plagiarism or charges of research misconduct.
Several professors in industrial engineering require the use of APA (American Psychological Association) style when citing materials.
APA uses an Author-Page or Author-Date reference system. The author and article information are placed in parenthesis within the text, commonly known as parenthetical citation. Some example:
A recent paper (Jones, p. 213) presented data ....
Holcomb stated (1999) that the conclusion reached ....
The general format for listing references is alphabetical order in the bibliography or appendix. Each reference should have enough information to clearly identify the piece being cited. The information needed generally includes:
Examples can be found at the University Libraries' web page APA Style. Several copies of the manual are located at the Mullins Library services desk.
Most databases provided by the libraries have a "Cite" feature built in. Look for a link or button for citing. If the link is available, you will see a screen which provides a citation in your preferred format that you can cut and paste into your bibliography.
Many electronic resources offer citation creators and there are some that are freely available on the web. Feel free to use the links below at your convenience.
However, make sure you carefully edit the results before you paste them into your bibliography, citation creators are not always perfect. Automatic citation generation is only as good as the details made available from the database.