Citation Guides and Style Manuals

These resources provide instruction for citing various types of sources and for formatting text for various types of research papers and other publications.

Citing Your Sources: A Brief Guide to MLA * APA * Chicago Styles

This free, downloadable brochure provides a brief guide to the basics of the three most popular styles and lists major resources. Hard copies are available at the Reference Desk on the First Floor of Willis Library.

Scholarly and Professional Style Manuals

Guide to recommended styles of universities, publishing houses, and professional organizations.

Citing Legal Materials/Legal Style Manuals

Lawyers and scholars of the law have developed their own methods of citing statutes, regulations, court cases, law reviews, and other legal materials in such documents as court briefs and law journals. Some other general style manuals have also developed specific rules for citing legal materials in scholarly research papers.

Citing Government Documents/Government Agency Style Manuals

Government documents often present special problems in creating citations. For example, a government document may not have a personal author, or the publication date or title may not be clear. They differ widely in purpose, style, and content, and the standard style manuals may not give examples for citing all these formats in a consistent fashion. For this reason, several authors and government agencies have developed manuals specifically addressing the problems of citation peculiar to government publications.

Citing Maps

Many style manuals provide guidance on formatting maps that are used as illustrations in a paper or publication, but they may not be clear about the specifics of citing maps that are used as sources. This guide lists sources that provide instructions on how to cite maps, atlases, and other cartographic materials in scholarly research papers.

Citing Music Sources/Music Style Manuals

How to cite sources typically used in writing about music. Also how to format a music-related research paper.

Citing Electronic Publications

Although a citation to a publication in electronic format follows basically the same principles as a citation to a paper document, citing electronic publications presents its own peculiar challenges. This page includes uides to citing electronic sources and to writing for electronic publication.

Editing in Style: What Stylebooks Can and Can’t Do

This archive of a panel discussion sponsored by the American Copy Editors Society in 2002 provides advice on how to compile and maintain a local stylebook.