Guides: Economics: Citation Tools

Citing Sources

The primary reasons for citing sources in a research paper are to give credit to the authors whose work you have drawn upon and to allow readers to track down your sources, should they wish to do so.

There are many style guides for formatting citations and creating bibliographies. APA and Chicago are frequently used in economics, but you may be called upon to use others.

See the box at the right for tools to help you format citations and bibliographies.

Citation Tools

Purdue OWL
Purdue's OWL (Online Writing Lab) provides guides to MLA, APA, and Chicago styles, as well as advice on research, writing and citation.
How To Cite Data (MSU Library)
A concise page with helpful tips on citing your data and examples from three official style guides (APA, MLA, and Chicago). Includes information about how to cite tables, datasets, and citing within text. From Michigan State University Libraries.

RefWorks This link opens in a new window
RefWorks is an online research management, writing, and collaboration tool designed to help researchers gather, manage, store, and share information and generate citations and bibliographies.

Zotero
Zotero is a free tool designed to help you gather, manage and share information about books, articles, web pages and other digital objects that you are using in your research, and to generate citations and bibliographies. Zotero is a Mozilla browser plugin. You can choose to gather your data on your hard drive (if you are working mainly from one computer), or on a flash drive or a network (if you frequently access your data at multiple workstations).

Interested in using generative AI tools like ChatGPT and Elicit?

*Reminder: Check your syllabus or ask your professor before using generative AI tools for an assignment.*

AI Tools Can be Helpful With:		Be More Cautious with AI Tools if You:
Writing Models		Need very recent information
Suggesting Synonyms		Do not have previous knowledge of a topic
Copy Editing		Are concerned about potential plagiarism or copyright violations
Brainstorming		Need to perform complex mathematics
Summarizing*		Are unsure if you're permitted to use AI tools in your research or writing
Translation		Are concerned about the electrical energy use in running these tools

*Be aware of the copyright restrictions of any content you upload to an AI tool.

For more information on using generative AI resources in your research, visit our Research Guide.