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Picture of a roll of stickers that say "Citation Needed"
(Wikimedia Commons, n.d.)

Do you need to get or create citations, but aren’t sure how to get them quickly? Himmelfarb Library has resources that can help you get and create the citations you need for your resources. 

Citations are a means of giving proper credit to the sources you use, allow your audience to look up the sources you use, and add credibility and transparency to your work. In addition, failing to cite your sources is plagiarism, and can have serious consequences to your academic and professional career. Himmelfarb Librarian Tom Harrod provides an excellent explanation about why it’s important to cite your sources in this Why Cite video.

Many of Himmelfarb’s resources provide citations with the click of a button! Himmelfarb’s library catalog, which can be searched by using the search bar on the library’s homepage, provides citations for most of our resources by simply clicking the citation button. You can then select your desired citation style, and copy and paste the citation to your document.

Screenshot of a citation provided by Himmelfarb's library catalog.

Many Himmelfarb databases including PubMed, Scopus, CINAHL, and AccessMedicine also provide citations for resources. While these automatically generated citations are extremely convenient and can be a great time-saver, it’s important to double check citations before including them in your work. You may find that the formatting is slightly off and corrections may be necessary.

Do you need an easy place to gather, manage, store and share your citations and bibliography? RefWorks may be the tool for you! It’s easy to upload documents and bibliographic information to your RefWorks library. The Reference Citation Manager allows you to import citations and format your paper. If you are new to RefWorks and want to learn more about using this tool, be sure to watch our Introduction to RefWorks video taught by Himmelfarb Librarian Paul Levett.

Are you ready to tackle creating your own citations from scratch? Or perhaps you need to check to make sure those automatically generated citations are formatted correctly. Himmelfarb’s APA, AMA, Harvard citation style guides are excellent tools for creating citations or checking formatting of existing citations. We also have citation tutorials available to provide additional help. 

Himmelfarb even has resources to help with more complicated citation needs. Do you have a list of citations in one format, but need to convert them into a different format? Learn how to change between citation styles with Himmelfarb Librarian Stacy Brody in our From AMA to APA: Quickly Changing Citation Styles video. Do you want to learn how to use citations to find related articles, identify influential articles, or track the impact of your own work? Learn how to use citations to accomplish these goals with Himmelfarb Librarian Tom Harrod in this Tracking Citations with Scopus video.

Whether you just need a quick citation to a journal article or book, need to create a citation from scratch, need a tool like RefWorks to help you organize your resources and format your paper, or want to watch a short tutorial on one of many different citation related topics, Himmelfarb is here to help! Still have questions about citations? Contact us through the Ask Us feature on our website, or email us at himmelfarb@gwu.edu

Stacks of files and paperwork.
Photo by Wesley Tingey on Unsplash

Do you struggle with keeping your citations organized for papers or articles that you are writing? One of the most challenging aspects of the publication process can be documenting and organizing references and citations. Himmelfarb Library has a short webinar that can help you choose the right citation management tool.

In this Citation Organization for Beginners webinar, Reference and Instruction Librarian Paul Levett, explores how bibliographic management tools can simplify the process of documenting and organizing references and citations. These tools also ensure that you adhere to formatting styles such as APA or AMA. Paul examines bibliographic management tools such as RefWorks, EndNote and more to show you how to use these resources quickly and effectively. This webinar compares the features of bibliographic management tools, and provides considerations to think about when deciding which tool is best suited to your needs.

Check out all eight sessions of Himmelfarb’s Get Yourself Published, Promote Your Research series to learn more about a range of scholarly communication topics!

Citation ManagementOn Friday May 8 at noon EST, the next course in Himmelfarb Library's 2020 Scholarly Communications series will be released! Citation Organization for Beginners with Paul Levett will be useful if you're in the market for a citation management tool or already using one and want to know about your options.

One of the most challenging aspects of the publication process can be documenting and organizing references and citations. In this webinar, Paul Levett will explore how bibliographic management tools can simplify this work and ensure that you adhere to formatting styles such as APA or AMA. Paul will examine bibliographic management tools such as RefWorks, EndNote and more to show you how to use these resources quickly and effectively.

Citation Organization for Beginners will be available from Himmelfarb Library's YouTube Channel.  Check out the sessions previously released in our 2020 Scholarly Communications Series!

citation neededThe next time that you need citation help, consider using one of Himmelfarb Library's citation guides on APA Citation Style, AMA Citation Style or Harvard Citation Style.  These three Research Guides, created and maintained by Gisela Butera, are extremely popular.

Gisela created the APA citation guide near the end of 2009 and since then it's been viewed nearly 3 million times.  Her AMA citation guide was created several years later and is building steadily toward 2 million uses.  Gisela's guide to the Harvard Citation Style is less used, but only comparatively as users still access it 80 times or more each month.

Each of these citation style guides provides you with the basics of reference list and in-text citations for multiple publications types including journal articles, books, book chapters, etc.  These guides also provide users additional information on formatting papers per the citation style and avoiding plagiarism.

 

Image citation: www.futureatlas.com (2010). Citation needed [image].  Available at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/87913776@N00/5129607997/