Google Docs

Adding Citations

Adding citations
Google Docs has a tool that can create and add citations automatically. In
this lesson, you'll learn how to search and cite sources from your document
using the Explore tool in Google Docs.

To create a citation:

1. Open the Explore tool by clicking the icon at the bottom-right of the
page. Alternatively, you can go to Tools > Explore.

2. The Explore tool works just like a normal Google search. You can search
for a word or phrase, and then click on any of the links to visit the full
website.

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3. If you already know the website that you want to use, you can copy and
paste the URL into the search bar. Select the URL you want to use, then
press Ctrl+C (Windows) or Command+C (Mac) on your keyboard to copy
the URL. Place your insertion point where you want the text to appear, and
press Ctrl+V (Windows) or Command+V (Mac) on your keyboard to
 paste the URL into the search bar. Then press Enter.

4. To change the citations format, click the three dots next to Web Results.
You can choose between MLA, APA, and Chicago.

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5. To add the citation, hover over the result that you want, and click the
Quotation Mark.
 6. The citation is added as a footnote, with the proper formatting.

Limitations
Although citations are useful, they do have some limitations:

▶ You can only cite as a footnote, which means that you won’t be able to
use this tool to create your bibliography.

▶ Citations are only created for web sources. To cite books or

magazines, you still have to do it yourself. Go to Insert > Footnote
then type in the citation manually.

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