MLA and APA Citations: Home

Use your own words and ideas

• Use quotation marks and cite the source if you repeat another’s exact words
• Cite if you adapt a chart or paraphrase a sentence (paraphrasing is when you state someone else’s ideas in your own words)
• Avoid using others’ work with minor changes:

Using synonyms (e.g.: using “less” for “fewer”)

Reversing the order of a sentence

• You don't have to cite "common knowledge," but it must be commonly known.

Common knowledge: Abraham Lincoln was the U.S. President during the Civil War.

Not common knowledge: There were 51,000 casualties at the Battle of Gettysburg.

Common knowledge: Joseph Stalin was born in Georgia.

Not common knowledge: Stalin was poisoned*.

     *Jonathan Brent, Vladimir Naumov. Stalin's Last Crime : The Plot Against the Jewish Doctors, 1948-1953.    HarperCollins, 2003