Why Cite?

Citing your sources is important for a number of reasons:

• It shows how your research builds on the research of others.
• It allows your readers to locate the sources you used.
• It gives you the information you need to go back and find sources you used previously when you need them for future research.
• It is an important part of Academic Integrity. Using another person’s ideas or words without indicating via a citation where you found them is plagiarism. Possible consequences include a failing grade for the assignment, a failing grade for the course and termination from the college.
• Empire State College faculty members have access to Turnitin, a text-comparison tool that identifies similarities between the text in your papers and the millions of texts already in Turnitin’s constanty-growing database of articles, documents and papers.
  • Academic Integrity at Empire State College
  • Plagiarism and How To Avoid It – guidelines for Empire State College students written by Prof. Herb Shapiro of the Writing Center.
  • The Academic Integrity Seminar’s Recommended Readings – a valuable collection of online articles and web sites concerning academic integrity in higher education.