Knight Cite Citation Generator

For all my friends who still have to write papers...
This site will help you with your cites... hehe

Knight Cite

What is KnightCite?

Compiled by Karen Jackson, KnightCite user and Class of 2009

KnightCite is an online citation generator service provided by the Hekman Library of Calvin College. This service simplifies the often tedious task of compiling an accurate bibliography in the appropriate style by formatting the given data on a source into a reliable citation, eliminating the need to memorize minute details of style for multiple kinds of sources. The service is provided free of charge by the college, and is available to members both within and outside of the Calvin community. There is no advertising on the site, and those who choose to register on the site will have the option of saving all of their citations and even multiple bibliographies to their account.

While there are currently several other citation services available on the web (some for free and others available at a cost), KnightCite was created in 2004 when comparably free and powerful enough tools were not available. The creators of KnightCite chose to develop a program for Calvin that could ensure both relevant and highly accurate results. Greg Sennema, a digital resource librarian at Calvin, explained:

 the idea of a citation generator was initially considered as a response to the complexity of properly citing electronic resources, particularly full-text articles found in the library's subscription research databases, but generally to all types of citations....4 

Thus, KnightCite was intended to be an up-to-date tool able to quickly generate citations for increasingly used electronic resources such as scholarly articles from a database. KnightCite is unique in that it can generate citations for the three main academic citation styles: Modern Language Association (MLA), American Psychological Association (APA), or Chicago Manual of Style. Print or electronic resources may be cited, as well as a wide variety of others (particularly in the MLA style) ranging from sacred texts to cartoons. Users may save all of their citations for a given project and instantly alphabetize or edit them. Citations in one bibliography can be copied into another. When a bibliography is complete, the program can export it into an rtf or word document with the appropriate format and hanging indents so it is ready to print. These features are easy-to use and accurate, so students can quickly create a bibliography page without worrying about points being marked off for syntactical details.

Increasing numbers of library and university websites have listed KnightCite as a useful bibliographic tool. The resource was profiled in the Grand Rapids Press, and has been advertised by the college to the greater public. The ultimate mission of this tool has been to provide students and faculty with a quick and simple means of citing resources with great academic accuracy and honesty. Justin Searls, the creator of KnightCite, commented:

 My only hope is that students will be able to write more complete citations by being prompted to give the information they need for a full citation, and be able to have a quick and easy interface to do that and get it done on a platform where they can generate this information quickly.4 

Glenn Remelts, library director at Calvin College, summarizes the aim of KnightCite well: "This is just our gift to the struggling students who've probably spent more time formatting their bibliographies than writing their papers."2