Hi godfather93,
Well ... here's how it goes ...
In order to determine the oxidation state of a metal, one has 2 know the charge present on it ...
Metals are electropositive in nature ... given a Periodic Table one can easily determine the charge on any metal owing to its position ...
Take Potassium for example -
* The Potassium ion K
+ will have an oxidation state of +1
* The atom of Potassium will have an oxidation state of 0 -- since it hasn't turned into a cation as yet
Similarly, for ... say Calcium --
Oxidation State will be +2 ... but remember -- this is for the Calcium ion, not the atom.
Hope this helped !!
ap105