Citing or documenting the sources used in your research serves three purposes: It gives proper credit to the authors of the words or ideas that you incorporated into your paper. It allows those who are reading your work to locate your sources, in order to learn more about the ideas that you include in your paper.
Similarly one may ask, what are the ways in citing sources?
There are four common methods of referring to a source document in the text of an essay, thesis or assignment. These methods are direct quotation from another source, paraphasing or summarising material, and citing the whole of a source document.
Accordingly, what is the purpose of the citation?
The purpose of a citation is usually to provide support or evidence for what you are saying; it tells the reader where this support or evidence can be found, and it typically does this by providing a reference to a bibliography, a list of detailed bibliographic information provided at the end of your document.