Providing citation information for the reader of a document is important for several reasons:
It gives scholars who read papers a way to locate and review the sources of information, it gives credit to the ideas and thoughts of the author of the source materials, it allows the writer to avoid plagiarism, and it shows the reader of the document that research was done on the subject. Finally, citing other work supports your ideas and theories.
Citations, for the five previously listed reasons, should be clear and easy for the reader to locate and obtain if they are so inclined. The goal of this LibGuide is to ensure that the elements necessary for one to locate materials that you note in your paper may be located for further reading or examination.