How do I cite a source in an essay


According to me, citation is only necessary if you are quoting something or writing the exact lines from a book or any other source. If you are reading, researching and writing things in your own words, you don't necessarily need to cite. Citation is also done if you want the reader to refer to a particular book or source for more information.


You have to cite everything that you take from external resources be it a quote or an idea or even a dictionary definition. If you read an explanation of a theory in a book then you write this in your essay using your own words, you still have to cite it in-text and in the reference page. Otherwise it would be considered plagiarism. So be careful.

If a source uses a labeling or numbering system other than page numbers, such as a script or poetry, precede the citation with said label. When citing a poem, for instance, the parenthetical would begin with the word “line”, and then the line number or range. For example, the examination of William Blake’s poem “The Tyger” would be cited as such:

How to Cite Sources in an Essay

If you're wondering how to write an academic essay with references, look no further. In this article, we'll discuss how to use in-text citations and references, including how to cite a website, how to cite a book, and how to cite a Tweet, according to various style guides.

You might need to cite sources when writing a paper that references other sources. For example, when writing an essay, you may use information from other works, such as books, articles, or websites. You must then inform readers where this information came from. Failure to do so, even accidentally, is plagiarism—passing off another person's work as your own.

In APA format, references to a source should mention the author’s name and give the publication year of the source. You would normally give the year in parentheses. You may give the author’s name in the parentheses, too, or include it in your sentence. (If you include the name in your sentence, give the year directly after; if you put the name and year in parentheses, put them at the end of the sentence where you quote or paraphrase the source.) Here are two very simple examples of how this might look:

So, could you please give me some suggestions on how to go about writing original essays without having to add in-text citations to virtually everything because you feel that everything you know about the topic does not come from you, but from your research/reading of outside sources?


How to Do EVIDENCE & CITATIONS in Essays

Learning how to write an academic essay with references and how to use in-text citations will allow you to cite authors who have made similar arguments. This helps show that your argument is objective and not entirely based on personal biases.

MLA In-text Citations and Sample Essay 9th Edition

Page numbers are always required, but additional citation information can help literary scholars, who may have a different edition of a classic work, like Marx and Engels's The Communist Manifesto. In such cases, give the page number of your edition (making sure the edition is listed in your Works Cited page, of course) followed by a semicolon, and then the appropriate abbreviations for volume (vol.), book (bk.), part (pt.), chapter (ch.), section (sec.), or paragraph (par.). For example:

How to Write an Academic Essay with References and Citations

Maybe I just shouldn't write essays without having original points or ideas about the topic that can be supported with citations of some extra sources. But I don't know, I can't wrap my head around this problem with originality.

How to Reference in an Essay (3 Simple Tips)

When you cite a work that appears inside a larger source (for instance, an article in a periodical or an essay in a collection), cite the author of the internal source (i.e., the article or essay). For example, to cite Albert Einstein's article "A Brief Outline of the Theory of Relativity," which was published in Nature in 1921, you might write something like this:

Essay Writing] How to write an in-text citation in MLA format ..

The alternative to “in-text” citations are footnotes, which give publication information at the bottom of the page. This guide describes Chicago style footnotes (and only one aspect of Chicago style—see and for more information). With footnotes, you are not required to mention the author, page, or year directly in your sentence. You only need to include the footnote number and to put the author and page number at the bottom of the page. But you might include one or more of these details directly in your sentence, anyway, depending on what you were trying to emphasize about the quotation. Below are some simple examples of what it might look like to introduce a source using footnote style. The references are to a band called “Rage Against the Machine,” whose music has an explicitly political message.

How to use citations in essays

Sometimes more information is necessary to identify the source from which a quotation is taken. For instance, if two or more authors have the same last name, provide both authors' first initials (or even the authors' full name if different authors share initials) in your citation. For example: