How to Do Library Research

This page provides general information on citations, including how to identify the citation elements of a library source. For help with APA formatting and writing, explore the resources available in the Writing Center.

What is a Citation?

A citation is a direct quote, paraphrase, or summary of someone else’s information in a work written by someone else. When you write a paper and reference someone else’s work, you must cite them as a source.

Why Should I Cite?

Citing your sources is important for several reasons:

• It gives credit to the author(s) who influenced your work.
• It enhances your research by using credible sources.
• It helps your readers locate the source material.
• It helps you avoid plagiarism.

Note! Plagiarism can be intentional and unintentional. Plagiarism occurs when you fail to properly acknowledge an author's work in your paper, effectively claiming their work as your own. If you do not cite your sources, you may face a charge of plagiarism under Chamberlain University's Academic Integrity Policy. Refer to the section on plagiarism (pages 31-32) for more details on what qualifies as plagiarism at the University.

When Do I Cite?

In-text citations are required whenever you quote, paraphrase, or summarize information or ideas from an author’s work in your paper.

• Direct quoting is when you use more than one of the referenced author’s words.
• Paraphrasing or summarizing is when you use your own words to describe the referenced author’s ideas.

To create a citation for a source, you first need to know what type of source it is. You can identify the type of source by becoming familiar with the parts of a citation. If you cannot find the necessary information in the database result, open the document to determine the type of source.

Consider the images of a record from CINAHL below. You can see:

• The title [1]
• The authors/creators [2]
• The name of the journal [3]
• The publication date [4]
• The volume and issue [5]
• The page numbers [6]

With this information, you have everything you need to create an accurate citation. If the source includes a DOI, the reference may need that for completeness. Check your reference manual for guidelines on citing articles, books, newspapers, and more.

RefWorks is the premier citation management tool of ProQuest's ExLibris Knowledge Center. To use this tool, you will have to create an account. 

Create a RefWorks Account

1. Go to the library homepage.
2. Select the R in the Databases A to Z alphabetical list below the library search box.
3. Select RefWorks from the alphabetical list. 
4. From the login page, select Create Account. Make sure to use your Chamberlain email address to set up an account.
5. After you fill out the required information, you should receive a confirmation email with a link. Select the link to activate your account. 

Once you create an account, you can:

• Build and manage citations
• Collect, manage, and organize full-text documents
• Collaborate by sharing collections 
• Import citations from EBSCO, ProQuest, and OVID, or perform an RIS import from PubMed