How and When to Cite in a Paper

Citations have the same three elements regardless of source: author, publication year, and page or paragraph number. The page or paragraph number where you find information is required for all quotations but is optional for paraphrased information. Citations in your paper are necessary to provide credit to the proper sources; failure to cite properly could result in plagiarism Some good guidelines for citing your work are to cite anything that includes actual statistics or figures (i.e., "50% of the population believes..."). It is not necessary to cite common knowledge (i.e., you do not need to cite that the Earth is round). You will credit a source in each sentence that references material from a source