How to Cite Your Essay

How to Cite Your Essay? Essay writing requires a lot of work, you have to analyze the title (or essay question), research the subject thoroughly, create an outline, and it is needless to mention you also have to develop an argument and make your point. Although you have to do a lot, careful planning is the key to composing a high-quality essay without wasting too much time. But, in an attempt to make the paper original or due to inexperience in this form of writing, it’s not unusual for students to forget to cite sources or leave out citations entirely. This is a huge mistake! Browse for some essays on Google, read them from top to bottom and you’ll see that authors cited the sources they used. Throughout this paper, I’m going to show you how to do it and make your essay more professional. What is citation? Basically, a citation is a way of informing a reader (or more of them) that a certain material in your work came from some particular source. Using citations also gives readers the information necessary to find that source again. For example, your professor may use that information to look up the accuracy of your paper. Also, if your essay is published on some website, citation allows readers to learn more about the particular subject. Why should I cite sources in my essay? One of the most frequent questions about citing sources is why to do it in the first place. Let’s be fair here; would you be happy if someone decided to use your own words and paper you published without giving credit where credit is due? You’d be mad and you would feel unappreciated. The most important reason to cite sources is that it’s the only way to avoid plagiarizing. Yes, using someone’s work without citing or giving any credit is considered plagiarism, one of the most severe offenses one can make when writing an essay (or any other type of work). There are also some other reasons to cite, including these: Citations are helpful for people who want to find out more about ideas or where they came from Not all sources are good or right and a lot of people can disagree with them. That’s why citations make a clear distinction between your words and someone else’s thus preventing you from taking the rap for some other persons bad ideas It shows the amount of research you’ve done Adds to the quality of your work What’s more, the essay is all about  developing arguments and proving your point while providing evidence to back up your claim. So, without citations, there’s no evidence. It’s simple. Even mentioning some studies or academic, scientific works isn’t enough if you don’t cite them adequately.