Internal Documentation and Works Cited

Internal Documentation In order to avoid plagiarism, you must give credit to the originator of the thoughts or words you are using. There are several ways to do this.

A. If you are using the author’s name in the text: Tannen has argued this point (178-85). The above sentence indicates that someone named Tannen (whose work will be found on your Works Cited page) has discussed the point to which you are referring on pages 178-185 of his work. Please note that the period comes outside the parenthesis.

B. If you are not using the author’s name in the text, but in reference: This point has already been argued several times by a committee of officials (Tannen 178-95).

**If you do not have an author or the same person wrote more than one source, use either the title of the book or article. You may abbreviate. For instance, if I have Crusade for Justice and Southern Horrors, both written by Ida B. Wells, I might write: Most lynchings occurred in the Southern part of the United States (Crusade 13).

C. If you are using a direct quote and the author’s name in the text: It may be true, as Roberson maintains, that “in the appreciation of medieval art the attitude of the observer is of primary importance…” (136). Please note that the quote is skillfully worked into the text, not just plopped down in the middle of the paper. Also, the ellipses (…) indicates that this sentence continues even though the author of the research paper has chosen to use only a portion of it, and the quotation marks come immediately after the final period of the ellipses. The final period of the sentence comes immediately after the page number. If the sentence continues after the quote with your own words, you should still put the page number before the final period. Although Roberson maintains that “in the appreciation of medieval art the attitude of the observer is of primary importance…,” the artist’s interpretation also matters (136).

D. If you are using a direct quote and the author’s name in reference: It may be true that “in the appreciation of medieval art the attitude of the observer is of primary importance…” (Roberson 136).

E. If you are citing a long quotation of more than four typed lines, you must indent. No quotation marks are used, and the final period appears before the parenthetical reference. In the following example the author’s name is used in the lead-in to the quote.

Murdic states in her book that The process relies on turning old paper into pulp with water and chemicals, before spinning it in tubes to remove any heavy contaminants like staples or sand . . . Ink particles attach themselves to air bubbles and rise to the surface, where they are scraped off. The paper fibers are bleached with hydrogen peroxide. (13) You continue your paragraph without indenting after the quote is over, just like I have done here. This type of quote is not allowed in your paper .

F. If you write several sentences that paraphrase ideas in one particular work, your parenthetical reference appears after the final sentence, not after each sentence. For example:

Trotsky’s rise to power followed a rocky, difficult path. His natural intelligence, his statesmanship, and his cunning were called upon at every turn to defeat those who wished to see him fail. The skills he developed on his way to the top prepared him well for his most challenging test of all: Stalin (Terrell 112-18).

In this case, all the information came from the same source. Often students ask, “How will anyone know how much of the information between the previous reference and this reference actually came from the work cited? Some of the material presented reflects my own ideas and my own words.” The truth is, no one does know, but it does not really matter. The fact that you are giving credit to someone else when appropriate and skillfully interweaving the thoughts and words of others with your own thoughts and words is what is important. One contradiction to this is that if there is a reference after EVERY SINGLE sentence, then none of the work is your own, and that is a problem!

*If at any point you do not have page numbers, these are just omitted completely. Use the author's name only. Some examples:

Roberson states, “In the appreciation of medieval art the attitude of the observer is of primary importance…”

It may be true that “in the appreciation of medieval art the attitude of the observer is of primary importance…” (Roberson).

Works Cited Page The works cited page should list, in alphabetical order, only those works actually referred to in your paper. The works cited page comes at the end of your paper. If you have note cards from a book, but never actually use that information in your paper, you cannot include the book on your works cited page. The entries on the works cited page are never numbered. If you are using two or more works by the same author, the first entry includes the name and all subsequent entries use dashes in place of the name. Ex.

Roberson, Karen. Black, Brown, and Spotted. New York: Prentice, 1996. Print.

--. Debate in the Twenty-first Century. Chicago: Ungar, 1997. Print.

You can view a sample works cited on the next page. Last Name 6

Works Cited

Dunbar, Laurence. “We Wear the Mask.” Poems Online, Dunbar Enterprises. 2011. Web. 19

Mar. 2011. .

Esberger, Sarah. Everything You Ever Needed to Know about Writing a Research Paper.

Nashville: Awesome Publisher, 2013. Print.

Hurston, Laura. “What to do About Education.” Education Online, Education.com. 13. Feb.

2010. Web. 13 Mar. 2011. .

“Writing a Works Cited Page.” Modern Language Association, MLA.com. Dec. 2009. Web. 14

Apr. 2011. .