Citing sources in your academic essay

1
Citing sources in your academic essay

• Helping your readers see you as credible

2
What citations rules do you already recognize?

• Take a look at this sample essay, and personally
  formulate the most important 10 citation rules

3
MLA citation is a two part process

• The signal phrases and parenthetical
  citations you insert into the flow of your paper
  at EVERY point where youve used sources
• The Works Cited list at the end of your
  paperMLAs version of a bibliography

4
Citing as you go along

• Introduce each quote or paraphrase with a signal
  phrase and end it with a page number (Eschholz,
  Rosa, and Clark 663).
• According to playwright Kay Cook, Drama helps us
  revise our view of the world (14).
• As Cook later notes, Plays by beginning writers
  often depend on talk instead of action (18).
• The playwright argues that even novices can
  write a good play (32).

5
Clarifying a few points

• If you dont mention the authors name in the
  signal phrase, include it in the parenthetical
  citation (Cook 12).
• If there is no author listed, cite by the title
  of the piece you are looking at. Put it in
  quotation marks if it is part of a larger book,
  magazine, newspaper or website. Dont cite by the
  larger source (book, magazine, newspaper, etc.)
  if the name of the article is available (The
  Young Playwright 12).

6
Clarifying a few more points

• If you are looking at an electronic source that
  doesnt show a page number that corresponds to a
  physical copy of that article in a real magazine
  etc., cite by paragraph number (par. 4).
• Draw from a variety of sources as you support
  your points. Citing a lot of material from a few
  pages or several links or from one or two
  websites will make your research look weak.
  Citing sources without listed authors will do the
  same.

7
Clarifying a few more points

• When you are citing someone quoting or
  paraphrasing another author, indicate the
  original source in the signal phrase and
  reference where you found the quote in the
  parenthetical citation.
• Playwright Kay Cook says, Pacing is essential to
  successful drama (qtd. in Simon 27).

8
Quoting means using the original wording exactly
as you found it.

• Save the parenthetical citation for the end of a
  continuous quotation as long as it is all from
  one page. If you change page numbers or sources
  show where one reference ends with a
  parenthetical citation.
• The only difference between citing paraphrases
  and quotations is that you can limit citations of
  paraphrases to once per paragraph as long as you
  are not changing page numbers.

9
Using long quotations

• Indent 10 spaces quotations of more than three
  lines dont use quotation marks around such
  quotations. Insert the page number after the
  final mark of punctuation.

10
Example of a long quote

• Skin, philosopher Suzanne Langer says, is a
  multi potential sense organ that develops in
  contact with a dangerous world
• As soon as a tissue is exposed to the inorganic
  world (which may have other organisms in it, that
  are, however, no part of the individual in
  question), that tissue meets with emergencies.
  (423)

11
Some finer points

• Use . . . to indicate material that youve left
  out of the middle of a sentence. When youve left
  out material at the end of a sentence use . . .
  .
• Use square brackets to add your own words or to
  indicate an eror sic that showed up in the
  original quotation.

12
Paraphrasing

• Change the wording and the sentence structure of
  a paraphrase as much as possible (Eschholz, Rosa,
  and Clark 662).
• If you cant paraphrase some distinctive phrases,
  put quotations marks around the directly quoted
  wording.
• Cite paraphrases as you do quotations.