ENGR 101 APA Citation guide: When to Cite

When to Cite?

• Whenever you directly quote someone else’s work, you should cite it within quotation marks. Usually direct quotes of more than one word should be in quotation marks.
• Whenever you paraphrase (rephrasing in your own words) or summarize someone else’s work you should cite it (but not in quotation marks).
• All sources that you use should be cited – not just books and journal articles but also websites, videos, TV programs, photographs and even interviews.
• Remember to cite any figures, statistical tables and data so that the researcher knows where you got the information and that you did not generate the data yourself.  Usually you will provide a “caption” number the table and note the source.
• If you are not sure, err on the side of caution and cite it!

When not to cite?

Information that is common knowledge does not have to be cited.  Here are some guidelines

• Information you have seen in several books, papers or websites
• Information your lecturer expects everyone in your class to know already
• Well-known historical events, geographical and scientific facts
• Something that 'everybody knows'

Examples:

California State University-Long Beach is one of the bigger campuses in the California State University (CSU) system (no citation necessary).

California State University-Long Beach established in 1949 with a current enrollment of 32,000 is one of the bigger campuses in the …   (citation necessary).