This presentation demonstrates and illustrates how to incorporate parenthetical citations into the body of a paper. Works Cited page is also covered, including the required elements of four different types of citations.
Hi, and welcome to When and How to Cite Your Sources, Part II. My name is Margaret Keys, and I’m a librarian and former English teacher. I’ve created this program to help you learn how to cite your sources when writing a research paper.
This program will help you learn how to construct an in-text citation, introduce you to the basics of creating a Works Cited page, and show you where to find more detailed information on MLA citation format.
Let’s quickly review the citation process: We use in-text citations to let our readers know where we found ideas or facts we mention in our research papers. These short citations point readers to the Works Cited page at the end of our paper, where we’ve listed the full citation information needed to find the resources we used.
Here’s a sample of a Works Cited page. You can see it is a type of bibliography. The difference is, a bibliography lists every information source you consulted, but a Works Cited page only lists the sources you mentioned in your paper in the in-text citations. If you read a book you didn’t end up using, then that book will not be listed in the Works Cited. Note that the Works Cited page is double-spaced and arranged with hanging indentations.
There are a few easy ways to incorporate citations into the flow of your writing: paraphrasing, using introductory phrases, and using research-oriented introductory verbs.
When you paraphrase, you write about information in your own words, explaining things to your readers as though you are an expert. You do not quote, and you do not change just a few words. You read the book or Web site you’ve found, and then you explain the information in your own words. At the end of the sentence when you first start to do that, you put the author’s name in parentheses, followed by the page number where you found the information.
Another way to introduce information you found someplace else is to mention the author’s name with an introductory phrase.
Or, you can use research-oriented verbs to introduce the author’s work.
Once you’ve written your paper and have all of your in-text citations in place, you are ready to create a Works Cited page. For this, you need to understand what information to include in a citation and how to arrange it. The following slides contain samples of full citations for a book, periodical article, Web site, and online periodical.
The information required for a book citation is Author’s Last Name, First Name. Title of the book, italicized . City where the book was published—and list the state, too, if you think the city is not well-known or has the same name as another well-known city: Publisher, and Date. The elements are arranged in that order. Notice the punctuation and capitalization. Indicate the format of the information source. The format is either print for a paper book or Web for an online or electronic book.
The basic format for an article from a magazine or journal is: Author’s Last Name, First Name. “Article Title” in quotation marks. Magazine or Journal Title, italicized Volume.issue (date): pages. The format is either Print or Web.
For a Web site, include: Author/creator/publisher (if stated). “Web page title.” Web site Title . Version number (if stated). Sponsor (if stated). Date listed on site or page. Format, which is Web. Date you visited.
For an online magazine: Author. “Article.” Name of Web site (Time). Publisher (CNN). Date of article listed on site. Medium Format. Date you visited site.
MLA not only tells you how to format your citations, but also how to format your overall paper.
Instead of a title page, create a heading on page one, in the upper left corner, with your name, your teacher’s name, the name of the class, and the date. The date needs to be European style, with Day Month Year, no commas. Also, create a running head of your last name and the page number in the upper right margin, using the header/footer function in your word processing program.
Here’s a sample first page of an essay.
You can click on this link to view a more complete sample paper.
You can visit these free Web sites or use the MLA manual for more detailed information on citing your sources. Nearly every question you can imagine will be answered in these resources.
You can also visit one of these free formatting sites to help you create a Works Cited page. Beware of your own typos. These sites will format only what you type into the blanks, so if you don’t capitalize something or spell it correctly, your citation will not be accurate. But, they do help you put each element, like the volume and issue, in the correct order.