Skip to Main Content
Libraries
askus Ask us
 

Using citation generators to help with the research and writing process

This guide highlights some recommended citation generators and how to use them.

Limitations

While convenient to have a citation generating tool readily available as you search Google Scholar, there are some limitations: 

  • The Google Scholar citation generator only offers a handful of citation styles, but luckily they are the most common ones used at UVic -- APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, and Vancouver Style.
  • You can only capture one citation at a time.
  • It only generates citations for your reference list/bibliography, it does not provide in-text citations.
  • As with most citation generators, you must double-check the citation generated is correct.  (For example, if you look at the APA-formatted citation on the screenshot, you will notice there is a formatting error in the article title.  The word 'review' after the colon, should be capitalized. In addition, the DOI is missing.  If you were to use this citation, you would need to fix it in your document.)

Google Scholar's citation generator

If you are using Google Scholar for your research, you can use its built-in citation generator.

Generating a citation for an item

  1. Once you have found an item you would like to cite, click on the quotation mark symbol located below each search result. 

image showing the quotation mark symbol in google scholar for citing

  1. A pop-up window will appear showing you the citation in some of the most common formats.  Simply copy/paste the citation style of your choice.

image showing the citation styles google scholar supports

  1. Repeat these steps for any additional items you want to cite.
Creative Commons License
This work by The University of Victoria Libraries is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License unless otherwise indicated when material has been used from other sources.