 Like a lot of things you do in college, citing sources asks you to take something you might already know about or do in your everyday life and take it to a new level or do it in a specific way. Citing sources is a great example because we regularly cite sources informally in everyday life. When a friend tells you something unbelievable like, well, you know our bodies are more bacteria than human, you might ask them, where did you hear that? By asking them where they got their information, you are asking your friend to cite their source. Or how many times has this happened to you? You see a great quote or image online and want to find out more. You want to know the author or artist's name or just want to find out more about the source. If it's not cited, you will have to spend time trying to get more information to identify the source yourself. In this case, a citation would have been very helpful to you. Here's a third example. We often see something that just doesn't seem right and when that happens, we want to check the original source for ourselves as part of the process of evaluation. Again, a citation would help you verify the information more easily. Based on these examples, we can come up with three basic reasons why we cite sources. Number one, citing allows you as the author to clearly let your audience know where you gathered the information you used in creating your writing, speech, website, or any other communication. The flip side of this is a courtesy to your readers who may want that information to follow up on something interesting or surprising that you included from another work. Number two, it helps support your own ideas and arguments to show the work of experts is standing behind you. Using credible sources and citing them correctly makes your ideas even more compelling and convincing and builds credibility for yourself. Number three, if you don't document where you got your information, your work will be considered plagiarism, a major academic offense. Plagiarism is taking credit for words or ideas that aren't yours. Without accurate citations, your audience will assume that all the words, phrases, and ideas in your paper are entirely your original thoughts. Proper citation practices make sure that you are not guilty of plagiarism. For more resources on citing an MLA style, see the Kirkwood Library website.