History 103 Introduction to East Asian History: China (Fall 2025) : Citing and Evaluating Resources

Citing Sources - resources and examples of citation styles

UW-Madison Writing Center's Writer's Handbook has tips on citation styles (APA, Chicago, CBE, MLA, etc.).

Information on how to avoid plagiarism from UW-Madison's Writing Center.

Use citation managers to organize your references and create bibliographies.

Citation managers help you collect references and files from online databases, share references with others, and format citations and bibliographies. The following tools are supported by UW-Madison Libraries.

EndNote
EndNote is desktop citation management software. It may be more appropriate if you are writing for publication.
EndNote Basic
EndNote Basic is a Web-based citation manager free to UW-Madison staff and students that can be used as a standalone citation manager or in conjunction with EndNote Desktop.
Mendeley
Mendeley is a free, Web and desktop-based citation manager and academic networking tool. Free version comes with 1GB storage space and private group up to 3 members.
Zotero
Zotero is an open source citation manager and academic social networking tool. Two versions include a Firefox browser extension and Zotero standalone that works with other browsers.
Compare Citation Managers

Evaluation Tools

Evaluating sources for reliability and usefulness - Tip sheet (PDF)
Peer review in three minutes (Video)
- Explains what peer review is
- From North Carolina State University libraries
Identifying scholarly articles - Tip sheet

Is it a primary source?

The following research guides contain descriptions of primary sources.