Citations: Overview

Citations serve an important purpose in academia for many reasons. Four of the most obvious and widely accepted reasons are the following:

1. An acknowledgement of work essential to your research and academic growth.
2. An indicator to others of your resource’s location in academia.
3. As recognition of someone else’s ideas and thoughts.
4. As a means to trace the history of knowledge and the evolution of ideas. 

As a Soka student, you work hard to brainstorm, research, write, and produce quality academic work. You would not want somebody else to steal your hard work and present it as their own. This is why it is necessary to cite your sources, so you are not the individual stealing someone else’s ideas and presenting them as your own. When in doubt, give the author a shout out – cite it! 

There are four key times when you need to cite information:

1. Direct Quotations = When you are using the exact words that someone else said, place these in quotation marks.
   • Example: "The latest poll figures indicate that the SUA library is the best library in the world!" (Wilson 25).
2. Paraphrasing & Summarizing = Explaining someone else's ideas in your own words. 
   • Example: Most of the students and faculty feel the SUA library is a great place to get information for their research (Wilson 25). 
3. Data & Statistics = Any numerical figures or data created by someone else. 
   • Example: 75% of the Soka community rated the Ikeda Library as "excellent" in the 2020 annual survey (Wilson 25).
4. Images = Any visual medium including photos, graphs, art, etc.
   • Example:

(Tirrell, 2021)