It's important to include citations in your essay for this sole reason: to show your reader and prove your facts to them and that you are not making up untrue things. For example, if I said,"Turtles are endangered." There is no way to know if that is true other than to cite your text. "I found this on National Geographic in 2016 by Allison Lee." That's an example of a citation and why you should use them.
