This slideshow is designed to help students check whether they have included the necessary citations within their paper and also attempts to help them ensure that they are properly formatted using MLA Style.

1. RoughDraftCheck:
MLAParentheticalandIn-TextCitations

2. 2
StepOne
In order to more clearly see where citations are for this rough draft
check, you may want to color-code your writing.
I like to make the text for any information gathered from an
outside source red. I like to make the citations blue. I prefer to
make my analysis green, and I make transition and topic
sentences orange.
This will allow you to pinpoint where each exists and to ensure that
each are present.

3. 3
Look everywhere in your paper!
● You may have information that you need to cite in your introduction. For
instance, if you included a statistic or a famous quote, you would need to cite
them.
● In the main body of your paper, you are sure to have consulted expert
resources. These may be in the form of direct quotes or summarized
information from your sources.
● In your conclusion, you may have included another famous quote!
Citations may exist anywhere in your paper!
WhereshouldIcolor-code?

4. RedandBlue
Must always go
together.
If you have used red
text to indicate
information from an
outside source and
if you used the color
blue to indicate your
citations, red and
blue must always be
near each other
since information
from outside
sources must
always be cited.
Green
Orange
These transition and topic
sentences that you have
colored orange must always
end paragraphs and should
also begin paragraphs (unless
it immediately follows a hook)
Most often cushions red and blue
In order to write a quality research
paper, you must analyze the content
you have chosen from your sources
to guide your reader to better
understanding your thesis
statement. When we check to
ensure our paper includes this, we
color-code the text green.

5. 5
If you have text from an outside source
that does not have corresponding
citations, please add them now.
In NoodleTools, do this by finding your source, selecting Options and choosing In-Text Reference.
As long as you formatted your cells properly, this will bring up a properly formatted parenthetical citation
that you can copy and paste into your paper.

6. 6
If you have summarized information from the resource in one or
more sentences, place the parenthetical citation at the end of
your last summarization sentence and before your analysis of the
content.
If you have a direct quote (taken word for word from the resource)
please make sure it is in quotation marks and place the
parenthetical citation right after the direct quote.
WheredoIplacethem?

7. Regarding Direct Quotes
7
If you have used direct quotes, make sure that you are using
only the portion that actually helps and supports your
paper. The rest of the sentence(s) can be discarded.
If you are citing more than four lines of directly quoted text,
remember that you need to format them using block
quotations.

8. Now we are
ready to check
our citations!
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9. First, let’s check our punctuation
9
● Check that all of your periods placed outside of your citations
Example: ...the end of my sentence (Adams). Versus ...the end of my
sentence. (Adams).
If you have period in both places, you accidentally have created
two separate sentences. You only want one sentence with the
parenthetical citation included within that sentence.
● One exception to this is if you have included a direct quote which ends in a question mark or
exclamation point. Then it will look like this:
Example: ...the end of my sentence? (Adams).
● Another exception is if you used block quotations (for a direct quote of five or more lines.
Then it would look like this:
Example: ...the end of my sentence. (Adams)

10. Next, let’s find all citations that have an
author’s last name
10
● Check to see that, for one author, you have their last name
within a set of parentheses
Example: (Adams)
● For two authors, do you have one last name, the word
“and”, and then the next last name within parenthesis?
Example: (Adams and Miller)
● For three or more authors, do you have the first last name
with the words “et al.” following the first last name within
parenthesis?
Example: (Adams et al.)

11. For in-text citations that include an author’s
last name
11
● Did you provide a lead-in to communicate the author’s
credentials?
Example: “According to Bill Harder, a qualitative/survey
research methodologist at American University, …” versus
“According to Frank Bruni, …”?
● Does your author have highly academic credentials that
offer merit to your paper?
Example: Frank Bruni is actually a journalist for The New York
Times. While this position is highly coveted and prestigious, it
does not offer academic merit to your paper. Therefore, the
citation should be switched to a parenthetical citation.

12. Now, let’s look for any that do not include
author names
12
You must see either an article title or a book title within the parenthesis.
If you do not, something is wrong with your citation and must be fixed.
Don’t panic, this is very common and easy to fix.
1. Scan all citations
2. Look to see if they have author names included
3. Look to see if they have article or book titles included
4. Make a comment for yourself on your document on any that
don’t fit these two situations indicating that you will need
to fix them up

13. In a citation generator like NoodleTools, you
can edit the mistake if you’ve accidentally
placed something in the author cell that isn’t
actually an author. For instance:
● a group like History.com staff
● a Website name (such as CNN)
You would just edit the entry and hit save.
Remember to grab the new citation that will
generate and remember that you will need
to print a new Works Cited list to represent
the change.
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14. For articles with no authors
14
● Check that you have the title of the article within
quotation marks within the parentheses
Example: (“Genocide in Darfur”)
● Is the article title shortened to three or less words?
Example (“The Case”) versus (“The Case for Quality
Homework”)

15. For books with no authors
15
● Check that you have the title of the book italicized. Did you
remember to include the page number?
Example: (Genocide in Darfur 55)
● Is your book title shortened to three or less words?
Example: (Behave: The Biology 27) versus (Behave: The Biology of
Humans at our Best and Worst 27)
● Are your page numbers formatted properly within the citation?
Example: (Genocide in Darfur 55) versus (Genocide in Darfur [Page
Number 55])

16. For in-text citations that do not include an
author’s last name
16
● Did you provide a lead-in to your sentence for a source with no
author?
Example: “According to Healthline, …”
If so, not only is this source not academic enough for an in-text citation,
but you have not included the proper information required for a citation
(website names never qualify as a proper citation element). You will want
to remove this in-text citation and use a parenthetical citation instead and
be sure to only include an author last name or an article title within.
● Did you provide a lead-in to your sentence for a source with no
author but it is a highly qualified and academic source?
If so, that is acceptable, just create a strong lead-in to the document title
that justifies its inclusion as an in-text citation.

17. Speaking of in-text citations
17
Please remember that if you
were required to use page
numbers in your citations and
you chose to use an in-text
citation, the page number(s)
must still be included within the
sentence parenthetically at the
end.
Once an in-text citation
provides the sufficient
information that would
have been included
parenthetically, you no
longer need to include a
parenthetical citation.
In-text citations should
be used minimally. No
more than 20% of all
citations should be in-
text.

18. 18
Now,let’scheckcapitalization!
● did you remember to capitalize your information properly for MLA Style
within all citations? In the case below, not enough words in the title are
capitalized.
Example: (Behave: The Biology 27) versus (Behave: the biology 27)
● Did you accidentally completely use caps in the author name or title?
Example: (ADAMS) versus (Adams)
Note: MLA requires that prepositions and conjunctions within titles are lower case
while the remaining words are capitalized.
This confuses me! Honestly, I need to use the yellow triangle tool in
NoodleTools all the time to help me properly format my capitalization. If
you don’t have NoodleTools, it may help to pull up a website that lists
prepositions and conjunctions. These are sometimes used with the
distinction “major words” and “minor words” - you would capitalize all
‘major words” and make all “minor words lowercase.

19. 19
DUPLICATEAuthororSourceNames
Scan your Works Cited now quickly to ensure that you don’t have two authors with the same last name.
If so, you will need to include the first initial of each of their first names before their last name with a
period after the capitalized initial.
Example: (A. Adams) and (B. Adams)
Look to your Works Cited again quickly and ensure that you don’t have two sources with no author that
have the same exact title. If so, you will need to add to the parenthetical citation to differentiate between
them. The next part of the citation will go in brackets within the citation.
Example: (“Abraham Lincoln” [History]) and (“Abraham Lincoln” [Biography])

20. 20
Haveyouusedinformationfrommultiplesourcesinthesamesentence?
It is ok to have more than one if you have synthesized information
within the same sentence or small group of sentences but if that is
so, you must cite both and separate them with a semicolon.
Example: (“Body Image”; “Perception of Self”).
Also, If you ever have two sources cited within the same
parenthetical citation, look to ensure that they represent two or
more unique thoughts. Otherwise only one source was necessary
to use.

21. 21
At this point, you may want to select all of the text within your
paper and ensure it is Times New Roman 12 point font and black
text.
Final Step
Congratulations! You are done!

22. Thanks!
Any questions?
Youcan findme at
khornberger@palisadessd.org
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23. Credits
Special thanksto allthepeople who made and
released theseawesome resources forfree:
✢ Presentationtemplate by SlidesCarnival
✢ Photographsby Unsplash
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