Citing your sources
Footnotes are not just busy work. It's very important that you give credit where credit is due by citing where you found specific pieces of information. If you don't cite your sources, you are implying that you are the creator and discoverer of that information, and obviously that's not the case most of the time.
It's fine to cite these kinds of literature in your assignments, papers, and lab reports:
You should generally NOT cite things like this:
Citation Style
When it comes to formatting your references in your papers and reports, you should use the accepted "style" for that discipline. Styles vary quite a bit, but in chemistry you will typically use the ACS Style Guide as your rule book. The Guide is available as an e-book, as well as on reserve in the Chemistry Library. Links to various examples based on it can be found on our Style Guides page.
