Items you will need Microsoft PowerPoint

Citation information

Citation style guide

When constructing a PowerPoint presentation, you are likely to use information gathered from sources outside of your own knowledge. Just as in an academic paper, it is necessary to include citations when using information collected from outside sources. Luckily, there is a simple way to credit your sources in a slide show.

Open the slide containing the material that needs to be cited. Identify its location on the individual slide, and make room for a new text box by rearranging or resizing the slide's components.

Insert a new text box on the page by clicking "Insert" and then "Text Box." Then click on your slide and drag your mouse to draw the text box.

Enter the citation information into the text box by clicking inside of it and then typing the citation. The format of your citation is determined by the citation style you are using; the most frequently used styles are MLA, APA, AMA, Turabian and Chicago. Different disciplines have preferred styles—the social sciences, for example, prefer to use APA. For help with these styles, reference a style guide, such as the "MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers."

Add a bibliography slide to the very end of your presentation, listing all of your sources together. Add a text box and enter your list of citations into it. It is a good idea to type this list in a program like Word and then copy and paste it. There are also many useful bibliography generators available on the Internet. The format of this list is directly determined by the style you are employing. Depending on the number of sources, it may fill up more than one slide.