A citation (or reference) is a short, multipart description of a source. A good citation will lead the reader to the source of the information.
See our video on How to Read a Citation for assistance in understanding the parts of a citation.
Each subject and discipline has different methods, or styles, of acknowledging another person's work when you write or present. Below are some links to the more common style guides. Some have been purchased by library and are available electronically.
Many electronic resources offer citation creators and there are some that are freely available on the web. Make sure you carefully edit the results because not all tools can do all styles and not all resources provide all the necessary details to cite correctly.
Most databases provided by the libraries have a "Cite" feature built in. When you are looking at the detailed information for an item, look for a link or button for citing. If the link is available,you will see a screen which provides with a citation in your preferred format that you can cut and paste into your bibliography. Just remember to verify all the information you need is included. Automatic citation generation is only as good as the details made available from the database.
