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Citing Your Sources

The Usefulness of Tools & A Word of Caution

In this and the following tabs, we will briefly introduce a variety of tools you may find useful to help with citing and managing your resources. On this page, you'll get to see where citation generators are located for several popular databases we have here at NMSU. For many people, these tools relieve some of the anxiety they feel about citing their sources, and allow them the mental space to craft excellent work. However, these tools should be used with caution. There is no perfect generator, and sometimes these tools make mistakes in citations.

You'll want to note that all of the examples below assume that you have clicked on the resource to view the more detailed record for it. You'll need to do that before you'll see most of these options.

Please remember to proofread your references page and double-check your in-text citations BEFORE you turn in the final draft of your assignment.

Primo Citation Generator

By entering the more detailed record for a resource, you get more options of ways to find this resource again, including permalink and citation options.

Primo is set to generate a citation for you when you click on the "Citation" button (see the red arrow on the left). Primo definitely makes mistakes at times though (Can you spot the mistakes in the citation is provided on the left?).

Primo also allows you to send your citation to Endnote (purple arrow) and export it in formats for other citation management programs (green arrow).

Academic Search Complete/EBSCOhost Databases

Academic Search Complete also allows you to generate a citation or export it to your favorite reference management software. Remember that Academic Search Complete is an EBSCO database. Other databases provided by EBSCO will have the same features available.

Choosing the "Cite" button next to the red arrow in the photo above generates a citation. Choosing the "Export" button next to the green arrow above will allow you to send the citation information to your favorite reference management program. Although there is no specific link for Endnote here, you can choose a format that will export for that program.

Gale Databases

The Library subscribes to many Gale databases, and the layout should look very similar throughout all of these.

There are two red arrows here. The one at the top right points to the choice that will get the Citation Tools window you see to pop up. The bottom red arrow points to a citation which is already present in the record without choosing anything.

The green arrow in the box shows where to go to export your citation in whatever format you may need for citation management programs, including Endnote.

ProQuest Ebooks

The box on the left shows ProQuest Ebook Central. The library subscribes to many ProQuest databases and they'll have similar choices for citations.

The text below the red arrow allows you to choose to pop up the citation box for this book.

The purple arrow allows you to export the citation to Endnote, and the green arrow to another citation management program.

Google Scholar Citation Generator

Google Scholar allows you to generate a citation by clicking on the quotation mark icon (shown in the image to the left, below the red arrow).

It also will pull a citation for Endnote (purple arrow) and other citation management programs.

Online Citation Generators

Online citation generators are popular because of how quickly one can get to them through the internet. Merely a Google search away and user friendly, these are popular choices with students. Even though choices such as EasyBib and Citation Machine are popular, librarians and professors will encourage you to use the resources above, which tend to be more reliable and provide more options for managing your resources overall.