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MESAS MESAS 200W/HIST 296W Middle Eastern Civilization: From the Mamluks to Modernity (Main)

Why cite your sources?

You cite your sources:

  • to give credit to those people whose ideas/words you are using in your paper so that you don't plagiarize
  • to distinguish other people's ideas/words from your own ideas and words.
  • to make your argument stronger. Doing research on an issue strengthens your position, because it shows you have engaged with some of the other positions on your topic and incorporated them into your thinking.
  • to allow your readers to verify your claims and to get more information from the source materials.

Plagiarism is presenting another person’s words and/or ideas as your own words/ideas – either deliberately OR unintentionally.

To avoid plagiarism, give credit in your paper to the person whose words and/or ideas you have made use of. In other words, cite your sources. You must cite any source that contributed significantly to the ideas in your own paper, even if you don't quote directly from that source.

See Plagiarism Prevention from OnlineColleges.net for more information.

Style Mannual

MLA Style ( Handbook for Writers of Research Paper)

APA Style (Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association)

Chicago Style (The Chicago Manual of Style Online)

For more guidance, please review Citing Your Sources Guide.

Emory Writing Center

The Emory Writing Center aims to:

  • foster the development of writers of all levels, abilities, and disciplines;
  • support reflection and research about writing, tutoring and teaching;
  • model a multiliteracies pedagogy that draws on the strengths of students working across multiple languages, dialects, and modes.

Using Zotero

Zotero, a Firefox add-on, collects, manages, and cites research sources. Zotero allows you to attach PDFs, notes and images to your citations, organize them into collections for different projects, and create bibliographies using Word or Open Office.

Using EndNote

EndNote is a program that makes it possible to collect and organize references in a database and instantly create properly formatted bibliographies.