How to Cite Paper Due & Electronic Inspiration LLC.

We encourage you to use all of our resources for help in writing your own great papers, just remember to cite your sources. Proper citation is not just an academic formality — it is a core skill that protects your academic integrity and demonstrates that you can engage responsibly with outside material. Whether you are drawing on one of our example essays, an article from our writing tools library, or any other outside resource, knowing exactly how and when to credit your sources will save you from unnecessary trouble down the line.

When to Cite a Source

While there are certainly times that people intentionally cheat, you might be surprised to learn that plagiarism is often accidental or inadvertent. That is because many people do not know when they should cite a source. In fact, academic integrity offices at universities across the country consistently report that unintentional plagiarism — not deliberate cheating — accounts for a significant share of academic misconduct cases. Students who understand the rules before they start writing are far less likely to find themselves in that situation. Here are times when you should definitely cite a source:

1. If you are providing a direct quotation. Obviously, if you are using resources for your paper, you are going to be using some of the same words that you find in your source material, and you do not need to cite every word you use. However, if you are picking up a unique combination of words from the source material or even using a single word that is unique to a source, make sure and cite your source. This is especially relevant when working with specialized or technical vocabulary that originated with a particular author or publication.
2. If you are pulling facts, including statistics, from a source. A good way to gauge this is to consider whether information would be considered common knowledge; if not, go ahead and cite it. For example, a statistic about graduation rates, median incomes, or research findings would almost always need a citation, because that data came from someone's original research or reporting. When in doubt, cite — your instructor will always appreciate a well-sourced paper over a thinly sourced one.
3. If you are pulling a unique idea, explanation, or interpretation from the source, cite it, even if you are paraphrasing the information. Paraphrasing is not a workaround for citation — it simply means you are restating someone else's original thinking in your own words, and the original thinker still deserves credit. A good rule of thumb is this: if you would not have reached the same conclusion without reading that source, you need to cite it.
4. If you use the same plan or structure as a source. This can be important to keep in mind for Paperdue.com example essays, because you may follow example structures. Our essays are designed to model effective organization, and if you adopt the same organizational approach — the same sequence of arguments, the same section breakdown — it is good practice to acknowledge the source of that structure, even when the words are entirely your own.
5. If you are reproducing or closely adapting an image, table, chart, or figure from a source. Visual material is often overlooked when students think about citation, but any graph, diagram, or data visualization that you did not create yourself needs to be credited to its original source, using the same citation style you are applying throughout your paper.
6. If you are referencing an idea you encountered in an online resource, including websites, databases, or digital writing tools. In 2026, students draw on a much wider range of digital sources than ever before, and the same citation rules apply to web-based content as to print material. Just because something is freely available online does not mean it is in the public domain or free of attribution requirements.

Taking a moment before you begin drafting to flag your notes with source information — author, title, URL, and the date you accessed the material — will make the citation process far smoother when you sit down to finalize your paper. Many students find it helpful to keep a running reference list in a separate document as they research, so nothing gets lost or forgotten by the time they reach the revision stage.

How to Cite a Paperdue.com Essay or Article

Here we will show you how to cite our example essay, How to Create a Good Literature Review, available from https://www.paperdue.com/tools-for-writing/creating-a-good-literature-review, in three of the most popular citation styles: APA, MLA, and Chicago. These three formats cover the vast majority of academic assignments across disciplines — APA is most common in the social and behavioral sciences, MLA is the standard in humanities courses, and Chicago is widely used in history, arts, and some professional fields. Knowing how to format a citation in all three keeps you prepared for any course you might be taking.

The Paperdue.com website is owned by Electronic Inspiration, LLC., which is important information to have when citing your sources. Because our essays and articles do not always carry a single named author in the traditional sense, the organization name — Electronic Inspiration, LLC. — functions as the author in each of the citation formats shown below. This is a common and fully accepted practice across all three major style guides when individual authorship is not indicated.

It is also worth noting that citation style guides are updated periodically by the organizations that maintain them. As of 2026, the current editions in use are the APA 7th Edition (released by the American Psychological Association), the MLA 9th Edition (released by the Modern Language Association), and the Chicago Manual of Style 18th Edition (released by the University of Chicago Press). The examples below reflect the formatting conventions of these current editions. If your instructor specifies a particular edition, always defer to that guidance over any general examples you find online.

Examples:

APA

Electronic Inspiration, LLC. (n.d.). How to create a good literature review. Retrieved August 19, 2019, from: https://www.paperdue.com/tools-for-writing/creating-a-good-literature-review

When using APA 7th Edition format for a website with no clear publication date — as is the case with many web pages — "(n.d.)" (meaning "no date") is placed where the year would normally appear. You should still include a retrieval date for pages whose content may change over time, which is exactly the situation with most web-based resources. If the page you are citing has a clear "last updated" or "published on" date visible on the site, you may use that date in place of "(n.d.)"

MLA

Electronic Inspiration, LLC. "How to Create a Good Literature Review." Paperdue.com. https://www.paperdue.com/tools-for-writing/creating-a-good-literature-review. Accessed 19 August 2019.

MLA 9th Edition places a strong emphasis on the "accessed" date for web sources precisely because online content can be revised, moved, or removed at any time. When you adapt this citation for your own use, replace "19 August 2019" with the actual date on which you personally visited the page and retrieved the information. MLA also now recommends including a DOI or stable URL whenever one is available, which is why the full link is included in the example above.

Chicago

Electronic Inspiration, LLC. "How to Create a Good Literature Review." Paperdue.com. Accessed August 19, 2019. https://www.paperdue.com/tools-for-writing/creating-a-good-literature-review

Chicago style, particularly in its Notes-Bibliography system (most common in humanities), formats website citations similarly to the other styles but places the "Accessed" date after the site name and before the URL. Chicago also offers an Author-Date system that is closer in feel to APA; if your instructor or department uses Author-Date Chicago, consult the Chicago Manual of Style 18th Edition for the precise formatting differences.

Now that you know the basic format for citing a Paperdue.com essay in each of the three major academic styles, you can easily substitute in other articles. Just be sure to include the correct title, the link to that example essay, and the date you retrieve the essay! Keeping those three pieces of information at hand each time you consult one of our resources means you will always have everything you need to build a clean, complete citation — no scrambling at the last minute before a deadline.

Finally, remember that citation managers and reference tools — such as Zotero, Mendeley, and others widely used by students in 2026 — can help you organize your sources as you research. These tools can auto-generate citations in APA, MLA, Chicago, and dozens of other formats. However, always review auto-generated citations carefully before submitting your work, as these tools occasionally make formatting errors, especially with web sources that lack complete metadata. A quick manual check against the examples above is always a smart final step.