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Lesson Overview: Understanding and Using Citations in Research Papers IMPORTANT: Document your sources! How do you document your sources in an APA formatted reference page? How do you cite work in the body of your paper? Examples of commonly used citations for psychology papers

IMPORTANT: Document your sources!!!

• Isn't it annoying when you look up an article and you can't find it because someone has been sloppy with their citations?
• Isn't it annoying when you do a search on an author but can't find them because their name is misspelled in the database?
• Isn't it annoying when you do a bunch of work and don't get credit for it?

Careful documentation of your sources is CRITICAL for at least the following 3 reasons.

1. Maintain Your Academic Integrity! A fundamental principle of research is that when you use ideas, facts, opinions, or quotations from other sources you must acknowledge that you are using their work. Failing to credit your sources is dishonest and qualifies as plagiarism!

2. Copyright Law Requires It! Not only is it dishonest to use someone's work without properly giving credit, the ideas, research results, opinions, and original wording are the intellectual property of the author. "Stealing" their property, without proper attribution, is a violation of copyright law.

3. Maintain Accuracy and Efficiency in Research! Careful documentation of sources helps maintain accuracy in the scientific literature. You will know who contributed what ideas or data, where those ideas or data are located, and you enable others to easily locate those sources using your accurate citations.

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