Dance

Citation is not just a boring exercise required by your professors. It is a crucial part of the research process for four reasons:

1. Citation is how you show your work. This is how you let your readers know you have done the necessary research to write with authority about your topic.
2. Citation is how you invite others to follow. Readers should be able to use your citations to do their own research, allowing them to add, complicate, agree, or disagree. 
3. Citation is how you give credit. Your ideas are built on the work and ideas of others. Part of being an honest, ethical researcher is acknowledging what you owe to others in specific and visible ways. Citation is the most powerful way to do that.
4. Citation is a celebratory act. It provides space to honor particularly innovative or interesting work by demonstrating your engagement with it in your own writing. 

If citing has you confused, take a look at these guides for citing resources in your research paper.