Research is a conversation, and citations are the way new scholars find out who is talking about a particular subject. Before talking about the mechanics of citation, it's important to acknowledge why we cite: to show gratitude for others' ideas, to confer authority to our own work, and to see who else is a part of a larger scholarly conversation.
That said, within the current landscape of American research, there are many discipline-specific styles, and Hood undergraduates often must switch between APA, MLA, Chicago/Turabian, and depending on their discipline, IEEE (Computer Science), ASA (Sociology), CSE (Biology), APSA (Political Science), or others--often within the same semester.
For students in this situation, it's helpful when expectations and instructions are clear, and when students have all the necessary tools to be successful. Although citation generators are helpful starting points, they often provide bibliographic entries that aren't exactly right. We're more than happy to talk with you about how to help students use (and understand the limitations of) the tools that automate this process.