You must cite your source of information any time you use another person’s ideas, opinion or theory. You must also provide citations for any facts, statistics, graphs, or drawings that are not common knowledge. Quotations of another person's actual spoken or written word and paraphrases of another person's spoken or written words must also be cited.
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When searching in a database, critical thinking skills are essential. Don't waste time and paper! Spend a few minutes reviewing the citation and/or abstract information and consider the following details:
Author: who wrote this and what are his/her credentials and affiliations?
Source: is this a scholarly, professional, popular, or trade publication?
Publisher: who produced this? government? university? corporation?
Date: when was this published?
Audience: for whom is this written? general public? scholars? practitioners?
Purpose: are the findings clearly stated? Are there clear biases?
Data: is methodology explained? Are charts, graphs, illustrations clearly presented?
Conclusions: do the findings support the thesis?
References: are there footnotes and citations leading to related work?
Compare: how does this article compare with other articles in this field?
