INDIANA UNIVERSITY BLOOMINGTON
Writing Tutorial Services
Citing Sources
What to Cite
Another person’s ideas, theory, opinions, or beliefs that are not yours.
Another person’s ideas, theory, opinions or beliefs that are also yours but you want to demonstrate that you have researched the information or you want to provide support for them.
Facts that are not widely known or not familiar to your audience.
Claims that are arguable: an author presents as fact a claim that may or may not be true.
Images, statistics, charts, tables, graphs, photographs, illustrations and other visual sources
Direct Quotes – exactly word for word including spelling and punctuation; everything must be exactly as it appears in the source.
Partial Quotes
Paraphrases
When in doubt -- Do
What NOT to Cite
Common Knowledge: information known by most readers.
–Local or regional knowledge shared by your audience
–Shared experiences: coursework and lectures shared by members of the same class
-Information repeatedly occurring in at least five different sources with no attribution
–Common factual information found in an almanac (book of facts), dictionary or general encyclopedia.
Your own field research (original study), original findings or original surveys
