Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship & Benjamin Mays Library Research Guide

Citation is an important element in research and creating new knowledge: crediting the scholarship that you're building on, and creating a path for your readers to follow your process. Academic fields vary in the citation styles used. You can familiarize yourself with a few of the major citation styles by referring to the manuals below:

Humanities

• Chicago-Style Citation Quick Guide online

• MLA Style Quick Guide and MLA guidelines from the OWL at Purdue

Social Sciences

• APA guidelines from the OWL at Purdue; also consult the APA Style Tutorials (available through July 1, 2010)

Zotero is the freely available tool we recommend, developed specifically for academic research, that helps you collect, manage, annotate, and cite your sources. 

Zotero's features give you the the ability to attach PDFs, notes, and images to your references, arrange your sources into collections for different projects, and tag them for easy searching. Insert citations to Word or Google Docs as you write and create a formatted bibliography or works cited page with one click.

Check out our Zotero "step by step" guide to try it out yourself.

Amherst College Writing Center

Need to hone your writing or oral presentation skills? Amherst College's Writing Center Associates are available to work with you to discuss your specific writing project. Contact them at writing@amherst.edu.