Writing: Style Guides and Citation Management

This guide brings together resources for formatting academic writing as well as resources for keeping track of and citing any information gathered for papers, projects, and presentations of any type.

In this guide:

• Getting Started
  • ​About this guide
  • Formatting Writing and Citations
  • Citation Tools
  • Avoiding Plagiarism
  • Citing AI 
• Citation Management Software

Collect all necessary details from the source, such as:

• Author(s) or organization name
• Title of the document or article
• Publication date
• Publisher or journal name
• Page numbers (if applicable)
• DOI, URL, or other unique identifiers

You will use that information to format your citation for your reference list or bibliography that is found at the end of your paper.  Please see the video below for more information and a first-hand look at building a reference list!

There are a number of citation styles that your in-text and reference list (or bibliography) citations can be formatted in. The main three are Chicago, MLA, and APA. APA is most often used in the social sciences, including the business disciplines. The following style guides are likely to be useful to the Darden community.  In particular, the Harvard Business School Citation Guide [PDF] contains guidance on citing specialized business information resources including cases, SEC filings, analyst reports, presentations, and news sources as well as scholarly papers and information found in the databases the Camp Library subscribes to.

Formatting a Citation

Use the rules of the chosen citation style to organize the details. Examples:

• APA: Author, A. A. (Year). Title of work. Publisher.
• MLA: Author Last Name, First Name. Title of Book. Publisher, Year.
• Chicago: Author. Title of Book. Place: Publisher, Year.

Insert In-Text Citations

Provide brief references within your text:

• Parenthetical (e.g., (Smith, 2022))
• Footnotes or endnotes (depending on the style).

Add a Reference List or Bibliography

At the end of your document, list all sources cited, formatted according to the chosen style.

Resources to help you format your in-text and reference list citations.

Plagiarism is "the act of using another person's words or ideas without giving credit to that person."¹  Examples of plagiarism include:​

• copying someone else's words without using quotation marks and crediting the source it came from;
• paraphrasing or summarizing someone else's words without citing the source;
• quoting someone inaccurately;
• restating someone's original or specialized ideas without citing the source;
• accidentally or intentionally misrepresenting someone else's words or ideas;
• citing the wrong source; or
• pretending someone else's work is your own.

Note: Text isn't the only thing that can be plagiarized. You also must credit the sources of images, graphics, charts, drawings, video, music, etc.²

Self-plagiarism is also a form of plagiarism.   The US Department of Health and Human Service's Office of Research Integrity's section on self-plagiarism states: "In writing, self-plagiarism occurs when authors use their own previously written work or data in a "new" written product without letting the reader know the material has appeared elsewhere" (emphasis added).³

Watch this short video that describes what plagiarism is and gives insightful examples of what constitutes plagiarism.

¹ "Plagiarism," Merriam-Webster, accessed September 17. 2015, http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/plagiarism.

² Becki DeMartini, "What is Plagiarism?" Brigham Young University--Hawaii Library, accessed September 17, 2015, http://libguides.byuh.edu/c.php?g=292028&p=1945331.

³ "Self Plagiarism," US Department of Health and Human Services Office of Research Integrity, accessed September 17, 2015, http://ori.hhs.gov/plagiarism-13.