Library Skills Tutorial

Retrieving Information -- Identifying Citations

A citation is reference to an information source that gives all the information necessary to accurately locate that particular source.

What is the difference between book citations and article citations?

Book citations have one or more authors or editors, a title, a place of publication, publisher, and a publication date. The publication date is usually a year (not a month and a year).

Article citations have a title for the article, as well as a title for the journal or magazine. While journal articles always have one or more authors, magazine articles are often written by staff without an author listed. They also have a volume number and page numbers. In addition to a year, article dates include a day of the week (April 30, 2001), a month (April 1997), or a season (Fall 1999).