In academic writing, authors must acknowledge their sources of information. Citations are how those acknowledgements are included in your writing. Citations all provide the same basic information which helps people locate your information sources.

Include a citation when you: 

• Directly quote someone's written or spoken words. Be sure to enclose these words and/or sentences in quotations marks!
• Paraphrase spoken or written words. Paraphrase means to re-write in your own words; merely reordering or substituting words is still considered plagiarism!
• Use theories, ideas, opinions, research, etc. that are not your own.
• Use historical, statistical, or scientific facts or data that are not your own.

There is no need to cite any of the following types of information:

• Your own art, ideas, and experiences
• Generally accepted facts and common knowledge (when in doubt, cite it!)
• Results of lab experiments that you gathered yourself

Adapted from IUB, Plagiarism