Defining Terms
Acknowledging Sources, Citations, and Bibliographies
To acknowledge a source means that you provide unique identifying information about the source. A source might be a book, an article, a web site, a photo, an image, a personal interview, a map, an email, etc. Creative work is often called intellectual property. The defining rule of using information ethically is to respect the intellectual property of others by acknowledging the source of the information.
Acknowledging a source is sometimes called citing a source.
A citation, or bibliographic citation, is all the information needed to describe a source. Information in citations should follow a specific format, which you'll learn about later in this series of tutorials.
When you make a list of one or more bibliographic citations, you create a Bibliography. Sometimes the Bibliography is called Works Cited, References, or Sources.
You must acknowledge sources in all of your projects, regardless of the source or the type of project you use it in. Projects include written papers, speeches, poster projects, PowerPoints, group projects, pamphlets, booklets, web sites, etc.