Research Citations

Citations

This page provides useful resources and tools for managing citations in your work, along with best practices and why citations are essential for building trust and credibility.

Citation Resources

The following resources will help you generate and format citations correctly for your research:

• NPS Citation Guide – This guide includes citations for intelligence, operational, and administrative documents, providing an APA format reference.
• APA Student Template – A Word document template designed to help students format their citations properly.
• ZBib – A free and simple citation generator that can be used to create various citation styles.
• Citation Machine – Another online tool that helps generate citations quickly in multiple styles, including APA.

Reference Management

Here are tools and services designed for managing references and ensuring you can retrieve cited content even if the original source changes or is removed:

• Zotero – A popular reference manager that allows you to store, organize, and generate citations.
• Vortimo – A tool that automatically saves all web pages you visit locally on your hard drive as they appear in your browser. Great for storing research and sources that may not be available later.
  • Message Vortimo – If you are a student, Vortimo may offer you a free license for their tool.
• HTTrack – A tool for copying and saving entire websites exactly as they appear. This is useful for ensuring your sources are preserved in case of future changes.
  • Submit a page for archive – You can submit pages to be archived on the Internet Archive, allowing future access to important references.

The Importance of Citations

Citations are crucial for two key reasons:

1. Trust and Credibility – By citing sources, you demonstrate that you have conducted thorough research, supporting your statements with factual information. This builds trust with your readers, as they can verify your work and rely on its accuracy. 2. Knowledge Management – Citations contribute to the broader body of knowledge by documenting your research sources. This ensures that others can trace your findings, build upon your work, and avoid the loss of important information.

For more details on why citations are necessary, see Cite: A Writer's Perspective.

What Needs to Be Cited?

For further clarification on what constitutes common knowledge versus what requires citation, refer to the NPS Common Knowledge PDF.