Your best choice is the one assigned or requested by your instructor. If none was assigned, ask your instructor to recommend one. If it's entirely up to you, Chicago Documentation Style and MLA are the two formats most commonly used in scholarly writing in the arts & humanities, while APA is the style most often used in the social sciences (see 'Citing APA Style' in middle column of this page):
RefWorks is a bibliography manager that allows you to create your own personal database of citations. As you use these references in writing your papers, RefWorks' tools and features enable you to automatically format the paper and the bibliography in seconds.
Preferred formats for citations can vary among scholarly disciplines, departments, professors, or individual journal publishers.
The citation standard used most often in the social sciences was devised for the American Psychological Association and is known as 'APA style'.
Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.). (2010). Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association.
Call number: BF 76.7 .P83 2010
[Available for in-library use, Gunnin & Cooper Reference shelves]
***What's New in the 6th Edition - dealing with new technologies & formats [14 min. tutorial]
APA Resources Online:
Get it from the source: APA Style resources from the American Psychological Association.
The libraries at the University of Pennsylvania offer generous online guidance for:
Citing within your text:
http://gethelp.library.upenn.edu/PORT/documentation/APAintext.html
Citations in a reference list (or bibliography):
http://gethelp.library.upenn.edu/PORT/documentation/APAbibliography.html
Duke University provides an excellent two-track guide to citation formats:
In-text: http://library.duke.edu/research/citing/within/apa.html
Reference list: http://library.duke.edu/research/citing/workscited/index.html
The Owl is an all-around writing & citation guide from the Writing Center at Purdue University:
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/index.html
Includes guidance on in-text and reference list format for a range of resource types.
This APA FAQ gives specific directions for a wider range of formats, including electronic stuff, government documents, and maps:
http://www.bellevue.edu/current-students/learning-labs/writing-center/faqs/apa-faqs.aspx
The Style Wizard - Input the specifics and it formats a citation in your style of choice:
Plagiarism:
1. Is not illegal. It's less about ‘intellectual property’ than about character, personal standards, and common sense.
2. Is patently D-U-M-B -- properly acknowledging the foundations upon which your own work is built only makes you look smarter. Citing sources is professional, scholarly, and improves your grade. There is no downside to doing the right thing, whereas the penalties for plagiarism are severe and long-term.