College for America Citation Guidelines

This program uses workforce-appropriate citations based on the Harvard (author-date) system.

What is a citation?
A citation is a sign to your readers that an idea has come from or has been influenced by
another source. Examples of sources include books, websites, images, videos, newspaper
articles, or any other resource that provides reliable information.

Why do I need citations?

Citations accomplish three important goals:
Making your ideas Showing readers where Helping you avoid academic
more credible ideas came from honesty issues

How do I cite my sources?

To properly cite, you need to do two things:
Include a reference list at Add in-text citations
the end of your work within your work

What should my citations include?

Reference List
For each source that you cite, you need to include the author’s name, the publication year,
the title of the source, and the location of the source in a References section at the end of
your work.

Name of (Publication Title of the Location of Author, A. (2019). Title of source.

Author. Year). source. the source http://webaddressofyoursource.com

In Text Citations
Following each instance of borrowed material within your work, you need to include the
author’s last name and the publication year in parentheses.

Last name of
Publication Year (Author, 2019)
Author,

List icon, by Shmidt Sergey, is licensed under CC BY 3.0.

Citation icon, by Alice Design, is licensed under CC BY 3.0.
What if . . .
. . . the source is a video, image, graph, blog post, printed book, or other type of resource?
 For this program, all sources are cited the exact same way. Use as much information as possible
in the standard format.
Author, A. (2019). Title of source. http://webaddressofyoursource.com
(Author, 2019)

. . . the source has multiple authors?

 For two or three authors, list all authors using commas and an ampersand (&).
Author, A., Writer, B., & Poet, C. (2019). Title of source.
http://webaddressofyoursource.com
(Author, Writer, & Poet, 2019)
 For more than three authors, list the first author followed by et al.
Author, A., et al. (2019). Title of source. http://webaddressofyoursource.com
(Author et al., 2019)

. . . the source has no specific authors listed but was created by an organization?
 Use the organization in place of the author’s name.
Acme Widget. (2019). Title of source. http://webaddressofyoursource.com
(Acme Widget, 2019)

. . . the source has no authors or organization listed?

 Move the title to the beginning of the citation.
Title of source. (2019). http://webaddressofyoursource.com
(Title of source, 2019)

. . . the source does not list a publication year?

 Use n.d. to indicate that no date is included.
Author, A. (n.d.). Title of source. http://webaddressofyoursource.com
(Author, n.d.)

. . . the source does not have a title?

 Use a brief description of the source in brackets.
Author, A. (2019). [Webpage about dogs]. http://webaddressofyoursource.com
(Author, 2019)

. . . the source does not include an author, date, or title?

 Consider eliminating this source from your work, as it might not be reliable and scholarly.
However, if it must be used and no alternative is available, use a combination of the no-author,
no-year, and no-title solutions.
[Image of dog]. (n.d.). http://webaddressofyoursource.com
([Image of dog], n.d.)

Last Updated: September 2019