Citing Media

1) Readers of your paper or research should be able to find where you got your information, even if your information came from online videos, podcasts, or social media. If you use or refer to images, sound, or music, your readers should be able to find those sources. By citing your sources, you give your readers a chance to utilize those same resources out of interest, or even to check your facts. 

All citation styles, e.g. MLA and APA, try to include all the information needed for someone to track down that source.

2) You need to give credit to the creators/authors of the information you use. This is key to academic integrity and to avoid plagiarism.

     Guide to Avoiding Plagiarism

Once you get the hang of it, citing your sources will be the easiest part of completing your research papers and assignments. However, citing unusual sources like multimedia and different types of social media can sometimes be tricky. One reason is that these new types of media are now so accessible, the style guidelines are just starting to catch up.

This guide is intended to help you cite these types of sources in MLA (Modern Language Association), APA (American Psychological Association) and Turabian styles. Use the tabs above to navigate by citation style and source type.

The guides listed in the box on the right will help you cite the more common sources, like books and journals (both in print and electronic), websites, etc.

Still need help?

Contact your Library staff directly.

Citation Style Guides:

• MLA Citation Style Guide

• APA Citation Style Guide

• Turabian Style Guide

You can also take a look at the following sites for more help:

• Purdue OWL MLA Formatting and Style Guide

• Purdue OWL APA Formatting and Style Guide

• Turabian Citation Quick Guide

Library Hours

Student IDs are available in the libraries and at the Smithfield Center!