How to make a citation
- Choose the style your teacher or university asks for. If nobody has said, ask: marks are often lost on the wrong style rather than on missing details.
- Paste a link, DOI or ISBN into “Find a source” and press Find, or pick the type of source and type the details yourself.
- Check the citation against the source, then add it to your list. Copy one citation, copy the whole list, or download it for Word.
Every field is optional except the title or an author, so you can still cite an old handout or a page with no date. The preview updates as you type and tells you what is still missing.
Which citation style should I use?
Styles differ in where the date goes, how names are written and what is in italics. APA puts the year straight after the author and is common in psychology, education and the social sciences. MLA leads with the full author name and suits English, languages and the humanities. Harvard is an author–date style used across many UK and Australian universities. Chicago’s notes and bibliography system is popular in history and the arts.
IEEE and Vancouver number each source in the order you first cite it, so the list is not alphabetical: IEEE is used in engineering and computing, Vancouver in medicine and health. ABNT is the Brazilian standard, with authors’ surnames in capitals. You can switch styles at any time and every source in your list is redrawn in the new style.
In-text citations and the reference list
Most styles need two things: a short citation in your text, where you use an idea or a quote, and a full entry in the list at the end. The short citation points the reader to the full entry. In APA and Harvard it is the author and year, in MLA the author and page, and in IEEE or Vancouver a number.
Add a page number when you quote someone word for word. Paraphrases usually do not need one, although it helps the reader with a long book. The generator adds “p.” or “pp.” for you when your style uses them.
Citing sources out loud
In a speech or class presentation, you cite as you speak: “According to a 2023 UNICEF report…” or “As Smith argues in her book…”. Keep the name and year on your cue card next to the point, so you never have to guess on the day. Many teachers also want a reference list on the last slide or card, or handed in with your notes.
EasyPalmCards does both. In the editor, Insert > Citation puts the in-text citation into the card you are writing, and “Add as a Sources card” puts your whole list on one card at the end of the set, ready to print with the rest. Open the editor.
Check every citation
Look-ups read the details a publisher or website gives, and those are sometimes wrong or incomplete. Before you hand anything in, compare the author names, the date and the title with the source itself. APA and Harvard want titles in sentence case, with only the first word and names capitalised, while MLA and Chicago use title case: type titles the way your style asks.
Citations give credit to the people whose work you used, and they let your reader find the same source. A tidy list also shows your teacher how much research went into your work, which is often part of the mark.