English

Although properly citing your sources prevents you from plagiarizing the work of others, it is more helpful to think of citing as a practice of amplifying the voices of others and giving credit to how their research has influenced yours, rather than as a way to avoid punishment. Pay attention to the authors and journals you cite, and perhaps try to include a multitude of different types of voices!

Citing your sources also allows you to formally join the scholarly conversation on your topic and places your research within the context of your discipline.

MLA stands for the Modern Language Association, and their style manual and citation style is the most common in the field of English.