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Citation Guide: Citation Generators

An Introduction to Citation Tools

When you have a lot of references for a project (or a lot of projects with references), there exists a category of software to make your life easier. Sometimes known as "citation tools" or "reference management software," these applications make keeping track of your PDFs, citations, and bibliographies easy.

Free Citation Generators (from Niche Academy)

Popular Citation Generators

A citation generator is a tool that exists to assist you with the creation of a bibliographic citation. Most tools focus on creating the citation for your bibliography (works cited or reference page); fewer tools include help with formatting parenthetical or in-text citations. 

Many credible websites and library databases include citation generators for each source. Examples include:

If the source doesn't include a citation generator, there are many other tools online that you can use for citation assistance. Click on the tabs above to learn more about a few of these tools. 

BibMe logo

FREE?

  • Citation creation can be done for free in the major styles.
  • A BibMe Pro plan is available with additional features such as plagiarism checking

CITATION STYLES

  • MLA, APA, Chicago

TYPES OF SOURCES

  • Book, magazine, newspaper, website, journal, film, other

OTHER FEATURES

  • Will look up and generate citation based upon website, book title, etc. using WorldCat
  • Includes a parenthetical citation feature

EasyBib by imagine easy

FREE?

  • You can create MLA citations without paying. For other citation styles, you'll need a membership. 

CITATION STYLES

  • MLA is available for free
  • APA, Harvard, Chicago, and more require a premium membership

TYPES OF SOURCES

  • Website, book, newspaper, journal, database, and more

OTHER FEATURES

  • Will look up and generate citation based upon website url, book title, etc. 

KnightCite logo

FREE?

  • You can create citations for free without creating an account
  • You can create a free account to get additional features like saving and organizing citations

CITATION STYLES

  • MLA, APA, Chicago

TYPES OF SOURCES

  • Book, anthology, periodical, multimedia, communication, online only, etc

OTHER FEATURES

  • Requires you to fill in all information for your source

Mendeley is a free reference manager that allows you to search citation styles, create bibliographies, as well as share and collaborate with other Mendeley users. 

Visit this guide's Mendeley tab to learn more.

Zotero

Zotero [zoh-TAIR-oh] is a free, easy-to-use tool to help you collect, organize, cite, and share your research sources.  It lives right where you do your work—in the web browser itself.

Visit this guide's Zotero tab to learn more.

Many citation generators exist, including these and others highlighted here.