Use a citation generator
Citation Generators
With a citation generator, you enter your source bibliographic information in order to produce a citation in your selected citation style that you can copy and paste into your paper. Make sure to double-check that your generated citations are correct either with a style guide or at the Purdue Online Writing Lab.
Some library databases have built-in citation generators, where you can select a "Cite" button to get the citation for that article or book in various formats.
BibME
- Creates citations and bibliographic references for MLA, APA, Turabian, and Chicago styles
- Look up your reference by URL, title, or ISBN, then it automatically converts to a citation and bibliographic reference
- Create a free account and save your references for future use
Citation Machine
- Creates citations and bibliographic references for MLA, APA, Turabian, and Chicago styles
- Look up options for APA and MLA styles
View the Citation Machine website
CitationGenerator
- Creates citations and bibliographic reference for APA, MLA, and Chicago styles
- Consists of a live editor that allows you to highlight portions of text and automatically create citations for it
View the CitationGenerator website
EasyBib
- Creates citations and bibliographic references for MLA, APA, Turabian, and Chicago styles
- Look up your reference by URL, title, or ISBN, then it automatically converts to a citation and bibliographic reference
Citation management systems
Citation management systems allow you to download citations from various websites and databases (sometimes with the full-text article), electronically store and organize the citations, as well as insert citations and a bibliography into your paper in the format of your choice as you write your paper. If you need to manage a large number of citations or are going to need to write a lot of papers that require you to cite sources, a citation management system may make citing sources in your paper a whole lot easier. If you work collaboratively on some projects, your citations can also be shared with groups or co-authors.
The University of Nevada, Reno provides support for several free-to-use citation management tools, as well as tutorials on how to use them: