Documenting
Scholarly Essays and Books
A research paper must always acknowledge borrowed quotations,
paraphrases, facts, and ideas. Such acknowledgments are common practice in all
scholarly discourse. For example, if you mention in your paper that the richest
1% of
· If your readers are interested in studying this subject, they can use your references as a starting point.
· If they doubt your facts or interpretations, they can look them up.
· If they suspect that you plagiarized (used somebody else's words as if they were yours or claimed someone else’s ideas as your own), they can find you out.
You may be able to help your readers by adopting a uniform
style of citing sources. There are several such styles, all equally valid and
all equally arbitrary, but
By
1992 the global shield had lost 5% of its ozone. By then, the world's nations
agreed to advance the virtual phaseout date (1996 for
rich countries, 2006 for poor) and to replace CFCs with somewhat less
destructive materials (Asimov and Pohl 129-133).
Here the author makes the statement that somewhat less destructive materials could replace CFCs. The source of this information is pages 129 through 133 in a work written by Asimov and Pohl. To find more details about this work, we go to the end of the essay from which this excerpt had been taken, where we find a "Works Cited" section. The surnames of the first authors are arranged alphabetically, so we look under "Asimov" and find the entry:
Asimov, Isaac, and Frederick Pohl. Our Angry Earth.
The first author's surname is Asimov and the second's is
Pohl. Their first names are Isaac and Frederick. The book from which the cited
information has been taken is Our Angry Earth.
It was published in the city of
Note that the names of books, journals, and newspapers are italicized. If you don't have a printer with an italic font, you should instead underline the book's title, as follows:
Asimov, Isaac, and Frederick Pohl. Our Angry Earth.
So far, we’ve only touched book citations. You will need to cite other sources as well. Here are a few of the most common cases (taken from http://webster.commnet.edu/mla.htm):
ESSAY OR ARTICLE
IN A COLLECTION OR ANTHOLOGY
|
Works Cited |
|
|
Hennessy, Margot C. "Listening to the Secret Mother:
Reading J.E.Wideman's 
Brothers
and Keepers." American Women's
Autobiography: Fea(s)ts of Memory. Ed. Margo Culley.
|
In-text Citation |
|
|
Wideman, like the woman autobiographer, has to investigate
the silences of culture in order to inscribe the story of his people (Hennessy
306).
Scholarly
Journal Article
|
Works Cited |
|
|
Christie, John S. "Fathers and Virgins: Garcia
Marquez's Faulknerian Chronicle of a Death
Foretold." Latin American
Literary Review 13.3 (1993): 21-29.
|
In-text Citation |
|
|
The
combination of these large patterns of similarity is particularly useful in examining
Chronicle of a Death Foretold since both writers break down narrative authority
through innovative use of multiple perspectives (Christie 22).
This is all you need to know for this class. . To be sure, this doesn’t cover all contingencies, so if unsure, follow a sensible format which is more or less consistent with the above. Alternatively, you may identify the relevant format in each particular case by consulting Prof. Darling’s examples (see below).
SAMPLE PAGE: Works Cited
Anderson, J. "Keats in
n. pag.
Online. EBSCO.
Angier, Natalie. "Chemists
Learn Why Vegetables are Good for You." New
York Times 13 Apr. 1993,
late ed.: C1. New York Times Ondisc.
CD-ROM.
UMI-Proquest. Oct. 1993.
Anzaldua, Gloria. Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza.
Spinsters/
Aunt Lute, 1987.
Astin, Alexander W. Achieving
Educational Excellence.
Jossey-Bass, 1985.
Burka, Lauren P. "A
Hypertext History of Multi-User Dimensions." MUD
History.
URL:
http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/lpb/mud-history.html (
Christie, John S.
"Fathers and Virgins: Garcia Marquez's Faulknerian
Chronicle
of a Death Foretold."
Latin American Literary Review 13.3 (Fall 1993): 21-29.
Creation vs. Evolution:
"
Wilson, PBS Video, 1982. (MLA) 58 min.
Darling, Charles. "The
Decadence: The 1890s." Humanities Division Lecture
Series.
Feinberg, Joe. "Freedom and Behavior Control." Encyclopedia of
Bio-ethics,
I, 93-101. (MLA)
Hennessy, Margot C.
"Listening to the Secret Mother: Reading J.E. Wideman's
Brothers
and Keepers." American Women's Autobiography: Fea(s)ts
of Memory. Ed.
Margo Culley.
302-314.
Jones, V.S., M.E. Eakle,
and C.W. Foerster. A History
of Newspapers.
"Money."
Mumford, Lewis. The
Highway and the City.
and World, 1963.
- - -. Highways Around the World.
Orchestra. CD-ROM.
Pepin, Ronald E. Literature
of Satire in the Twelfth Century.
Edwin Mellen
Press, 1988.
Pikarsky, M. and Christensen, D.
Urban Transportation Policy and
Management.
"The
Political Problems of Arms-Treaty Verification." Technology Review
May/June 1986: 34-47.
Redford, Robert. Personal Interview.
Schneider, Pamela. Interview. Seniors: What Keeps Us Going.
With Linda
Storrow. Natl. Public Radio. WNYC.
Seabrook,
Richard H. C. "Community and Progress." cybermind@jefferson.village.
virginia.edu
(
Shaw, Webb. "Professionals
are Required to Report Abuse."
Beacon Journal,
Welfare and Social Problems,
1984, 51: D12-14, fiche).
Sixty Minutes. CBS. WFSB,
Government
Printing Office, 1990.
"
1993: A5.
"What's a
Hoatzin?" Newsweek
Williams, Larry. "Powerful
Urban Drama Builds in
Rev. of
Ten Indians, by Madison Smartt Bell.
The whole thing, let me make it clear, is a good idea carried too far. The reader cares for one thing only: being able to effortlessly find the reference in question, wherever it may be. The reader knows not the MLA or APA style, in most cases, and couldn't care less. Nowadays, one doesn't need to know where a book was published, yet over and over academic writers are being forced by editors of scholarly journals to add that information to their essays. One does not need to know the name of the publisher--this is in fact thinly disguised advertising. The date is important, but the reader can recognize the date wherever it may appear. So don't spend too much time on this aspect of your essay.
But, if you are a perfectionist, and wish to follow the High Priesthood’s injunctions for any citing contingency under the sun, you have two options. First, if you have more money than you can use, please feel free to spend $25 on Joseph Gibaldi’s MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing, 2nd edition. A bit less comprehensive source, but adequate and free, is Prof. Charles Darling’s useful and elegantly organized site (from which some of the material above has been taken): http://webster.commnet.edu/mla.htm.
William Hogarth: Scholars
Listening to a Lecture
Back to
Senior Essay, Main Page
<span style="background-color: rgb(0,0,0); color: rgb(255,255,0)"></span>