9 Websites and Games to Teach Students How to Cite Sources in Essays

I teach English language learners at the college level. They often turn in essays, which I have to make sure are accurately attributed and cited in their papers and projects. The web is full of resources for helping students format their essays correctly in MLA, APA and Chicago style. Below are several websites to help students learn how to cite their essays in MLA, APA, and Chicago style formats. For more ideas on how to use web tools and apps to enhance student writing skills check out our webinar recordings, Teaching Writing to Digital Learners and Teaching Writing with Digital Tools.

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Citation Websites, Apps, and Tools

  • Google Scholar is a search engine for students that provides scholarly articles on topics students type in keywords to find. Many of the scholarly articles are free and students can click to get  MLA, APA, or Chicago style citation.  Students simply copy and paste into a reference page.
  • The Owl of Purdue is a site that provides writing guides for MLA, APA, Chicago, and AMA style formatting. Students can see examples of papers formatted in these styles. They can look at examples of in-text citations and formatting a Works Cited page.
  • Cite This For Me is a Chrome extension and website to help students easily cite sources in MLA, APA, or Harvard style formats. I often use the free extension which allows students to click on any website and quickly cite the source.
  • The Citation Machine is a website where students can easily cite sources in MLA, APA, or Chicago style formats. Students choose between the auto-fill and manual entry mode.
  • RefMe and EasyBib are two free apps and websites for quick and easy citation.  Students simply scan the isbn codes of any book or magazine and the citation is created for them.

Your students can test their citation skills with these engaging sites:

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