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Guides on citation styles and academic writing.
What Are In-Text Citations and Why Do They Matter?
A plain-English guide to in-text citations — what they are, what they contain, why they matter, and how they work across APA, MLA, Chicago, and numbered styles like ACS, AMA, and IEEE.
Why Citing Sources Matters (and How to Do It Effortlessly with CiteGenie)
The five real purposes of citations — credibility, plagiarism, transparency, scholarly dialogue, originality — and why a streamlined citation workflow matters as much as the references themselves.
Peer-Reviewed Sources: How to Find and Identify Them
What peer review actually is, how to verify a journal is peer-reviewed using Ulrichsweb and the DOAJ, where to find peer-reviewed articles by discipline, and how to spot predatory journals before you cite them.
How to Summarize an Academic Paper
The reading order that makes summarising fast, the IMRAD structure most empirical papers follow, and a five-sentence template for annotated bibliographies and reading notes.
How to Paraphrase Without Plagiarizing
Why synonym swapping still counts as plagiarism, and a reliable four-step technique for rewriting sources in your own words. Includes worked examples and citation rules for paraphrases.
How to Write a Literature Review: A Step-by-Step Guide
Scope, search, synthesis matrix, structure, and draft — the full workflow for turning a pile of PDFs into a literature review that makes an argument rather than listing summaries.
How to Find Credible Sources for a Research Paper
Where to search, how to evaluate what you find, and how to avoid low-quality references. Covers peer-reviewed databases, Google Scholar tactics, and the CRAAP test for source evaluation.
Optica Citation Style: A Complete Guide
How to cite sources in Optica (OSA) style — the square-bracket numbered system used across optics, photonics, and optical engineering. Covers journal articles, books, conference papers, and websites with format examples.
APA Citation Style: A Complete Guide
How to cite sources in APA style — the author-date system used across psychology, education, and the social sciences. Covers journal articles, books, websites, and reports with format examples for the 7th edition.
AMA Citation Style: A Complete Guide
How to cite sources in AMA style — the superscript-numbered system used across medicine, nursing, and the health sciences. Covers journal articles, books, websites, and reports with format examples.
ACS Citation Format: A Complete Guide
How to cite sources in ACS style — the numbered citation system used across chemistry and the physical sciences. Covers journal articles, books, websites, and theses with format examples.
In-Text Citations vs. References: What Is the Difference?
The difference between the short marker inside your text and the full entry at the end of the paper — and how they work together across APA, MLA, and Chicago.