Do
I have to cite material that I've gotten from Web?
Yes, if you intend to use it. All material on the World Wide Web
and the Internet requires citation when the material when used in
research papers. These materials include databases, e-texts (the
texts of books found online), e-zines (electronic magazines), electronic
journals and periodicals, newsgroups, web pages, and even e-mail.
Why
should I use paraphrases and quotations in my work?
Quotations and paraphrases help you to clarify your meaning and
support your ideas by providing examples and proof.
So,
essentially everything in my paper has to be cited?
No, not everything requires citation. Your own ideas and
observations, compilation of facts, as well as result of your own
experiments, and any knowledge that is common to everyone, such
as, John Glenn was the first man to orbit the Earth (just about
everyone knows that!)
Let's
see... so, another person's ideas and words have to be cited. Anything
else?
You are also
required to cite:
Special words that someone
else has coined:
| Lawrence
defines “utilitarianize” as the ability to renew resources by
recycling trash. (Lawrence 78). |
Diagrams
that you did not generate, style formats, or any arrangement of ideas
that you did not invent. If you're not sure whether to cite it or
not, play it safe - cite the information.
Where
should citations show up in my paper?
Citations for the work can appear in the body of the paper in the
form of footnotes or parenthetical citation. Footnotes
appear at the bottom of your page. Within the text a number will
appear in superscript and correspond to a note at the very bottom
of your page.
Note the example
of a footnote below. Pay close attention to the punctuation marks.
:
Some word-processing programs will automatically format footnotes.
| 15 Author's Last Name, Author's
First Name. Title of Book: Subtitle of Book . (City
where the work was published: Name of publisher and be sure
to leave TWO spaces after the city, year of publication) page
of excerpt. |
Parenthetical
citation is the preferred form of citation. Notice that the documentation
appears in parentheses at the conclusion the sentence:
| Once the battle was concluded, the
treaty, written in 1403, ensured peace for all nations (Castiglioni
124) . |
Notice
that in parenthetical citation, the last name of the author who
wrote the referenced work and the page number are given. Full documentation
for the reference, including publication information, will appear
on the “Works Cited” page.
What
is the Works Cited page? Where does that show up?
No matter what form they take in the body of the paper, cited works
must also appear at the end of your paper. The Works Cited page
should be the last page of your paper, like the bibliography. Notice
that the sources are listed alphabetically usually by the author's
last name.
|
Castiglioni, Baldesar. The Book of the
Courtier. Trans. C. S. Singleton. New
York: Anchor Books, 1959.
Montaigne,
Michel de Montaigne. Selections from the Essays. Ed.
Donald M. Frame.
Illinois: AHM Publishing Co., 1973 .
Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. Ed. David Bevington.
New York: Bantam Books,
1980.
|
Notice the above
sources are all books with only one author. There are different
ways to document books with several authors, books with editors,
books in a volume, essays, editions, reprints, interviews, encyclopedias,
newspapers, etc... Check your MLA Handbook (4th edition) for the
proper way to document different types of sources. The “Crib notes”
below will give you the proper MLA citation format for the most
common types of source.
There's even some info. online about MLA Style. Open your
browser and head for these addresses on the Web.
|
