Learn about the various citation styles available, and pick one to use for your paper. There are a number of standard types of citation for print resources. Two of the most often used are American Psychological Association (APA) and Modern Language Association (MLA) style. Your teacher might also ask you to use a non-standard citation style she has devised to make checking your citations easier. Examine your assignment and see if your teacher has dictated a citation style. If not, choose the citation style most often used in your discipline. For instance, scientific articles generally use APA style.
Place citations within your text. Look up the rule for in-text citation in your citation style's handbook. Make a list of what information needs to be included in the in-text citation. For example, author's name or publication date. Find this information from the book or magazine's title page for most publications. Format this information according to your citation style's requirements, paying special attention to order and punctuation. For example, APA requires in-text citations to list the author's last name followed by a comma, the date or publication and, if the information is a direct quote, another comma and the page number. An example would be (Smith, 2005, p. 41).
Write citations for your reference or works cited list. This list is an alphabetical compilation of all the resources, print and electronic, you have consulted for your project. Examine your citation style's handbook and write down the requirements for reference list citations. Fill in information already retrieved for the in-text citations.
Obtain information not used for in-text citations, generally publication information or page numbers, from the book or other print resource, often on the title page. Format each citation and the reference or works cited page according to your citation style's requirements. In MLA style, for example, citing a book requires writers to list the following information in this order: author's name, title of the work (in italics), the place of publication, publisher, publication year and medium of publication. The following is a book citation in MLA style: Smith, John. The Novel (in italics). New York: University, 2001. Print.