Mechanical Engineering

When you find some useful ideas in your research and want to use them in your paper, whether they are from books, government documents, magazine or journal articles, non-print materials, Internet sources, TV interviews, or other forms of materials, you need to let your readers know the sources of these ideas, i.e., provide proper reference to each source that you have used, because:

• it is an ethical practice and is part of academic honesty
• the credit belongs to the author or creator of the sources
• this will enable readers to locate the original sources and learn more about the subject
• it shows your effort in locating and exploring the sources and, in turn, provides credibility to your own writing
• using the ideas of others without acknowledging the authors is plagiarism.

A citation is formatted in accordance with a recognized, appropriate citation style. As preferences for citation style vary, you should ask your professor or instructor which style you should use.

The following are some commonly used citation styles:

• ACS [used in Chemistry and Physical Sciences]
• APA [widely used in Social Sciences]
• Chicago [widely used in Natural and Social Sciences and many other disciplines]
• CSE [used in Natural and Applied Sciences]
• Harvard [widely used in Social Sciences]
• IEEE [used by IEEE Transactions, Journals, and Letters; Engineering]
• MLA [widely used in Humanities]
• OSCOLA [widely used in law schools]