MLA Citation of Research There are various methods of formally citing research sources.  The one I teach is the MLA method.  MLA stands for Modern Language Association.  Students must use  the MLA citation format in this course.  APA format and others will not satisfy me.  And please, do not  try to use some software program that automatically does research citation!  That will virtually guarantee you a low grade! In the MLA method, there are no footnotes or endnotes.  To cite any research source, the MLA method consists of merely two parts: The parenthetical citation, which comes right after any direct quote, and The Works Cited entry, which comes as part of a separate page at the end of the paper. The most basic thing to remember, when formally citing any source, is that you must give your reader enough information to go as directly as possible to the source.  This is quite different from an informal citation, and more demanding of you, the writer.  Here is how the MLA method works, from the reader's standpoint:  The reader comes to some piece of information taken from some source the writer found during research.  After that information comes the parenthetical citation.  By itself, it does not contain everything the reader needs to lay hands on that source.  However, the parenthetical citation is like one end of a piece of string.  The other end is the entry for that source contained within the Works Cited page.  All the needed info is placed in that entry in the Works Cited page.  So while most readers do not need that info and can quickly skip past the parenthetical citation, anyone who wants to dig deeper can find everything needed in the Works Cited entry. As noted in the Research Paper Assignment, your Works Cited page will have three entries.  One will be for the short story you are interpreting (your primary source).  Another will be for the required journal article source (one secondary source).  The other entry may be another journal article, but it also may be some other kind of secondary source other than a journal article.  The most common other types are single-author books, articles in anthologies, newspaper articles, and websites.  The Parenthetical Citation: I’ll re-emphasize this later, but it is crucial to realize that when you write your paper, you must tell the reader every time you use any info gathered from sources.  You must do this whether you paraphrase it or quote directly, though in your research paper, I want direct quotes, not paraphrases.  In the MLA citation method, you tell your source with what is called a parenthetical citation.  For this paper, at the end of each quote, you will offer something like this:  (Finsterwold 47).  Here, Finsterwold would be the last name of the author, and the number is the page number (exception:  websites have no page numbers, so for a website, only the author's name is used, or if there is no author shown, then the title of the website--not the URL).  In your actual paper, what I expect to find is many parenthetical citations for your quotes from the short story you are interpreting--just as in the fiction paper--plus one or perhaps two parenthetical citations for quotes taken from each of your two secondary sources.  The Works Cited Entry: First of all, below is a "generic" entry.  This simply tells you what all to include.  The entries vary for different types of sources!  To see samples of all the more common types of entries, go to the Sample Works Cited Page link.  But here, I want to show you just what a basic entry looks like.  Since many of you will perhaps use a website entry, I am using that type here.  Note that in a Works Cited entry for a website, there are five basic items:   author, title of site, date revised, date of your access, and URL (the electronic address).  They look like this: Author's name, last name first.  Name of site, italicized.  Date posted or last revised, if shown.  Date you accessed the site  <Site address (URL) enclosed in angle brackets>. Before I show you a specific example, note the general format:  The entry must be reverse indented after the first line.  This describes how the first line is flush against your left-hand margin.  If there is more than that one line, all following lines are indented one tab stop.  If using MS Word, you may have to wrestle with your software to achieve this reverse indention.  (For help with this, go to the Course Documents section in Blackboard.)  Secondly, each item except the second date (date you accessed the site) is followed by a period.  Thirdly, note the item "Date posted or last revised."  Note that not all websites show this.  If the website does not, then show that like this:  n.d.  Now then, here is the same thing as above, but as an actual entry (borrowed from the Purdue Online Writing Lab): Felluga, Dino.  Guide to Literary and Critical Theory.  28 Nov. 2003.  30 March 2009 <http://www.cla.purdue.edu/english/theory>. In the above entry, note that the site address is on the second line, by itself.  You should not routinely do this.  But computer software is designed to keep a URL all on the same line when possible, so that created a little wider right margin.  Don't do that deliberately, but don't force your computer to break the URL into two lines, either.  In other words, if it fits on the top line, leave it there.  Here below is an entry where the author is an organization, not an individual.  Yes, I know that the sample is not for a literature-oriented site, but don't worry about that.  In such a case,  begin with the site name (not the URL!).  Note that if you visit this site, you will find that there is no colon in the title.  There, the main site title (Voodoo Choppers) and the subtitle (Handcrafted Machines) are separated graphically, meaning with different style font, different size, etc.  It is customary, though, to replace all that with a colon between title and subtitle (if there is one), as you see below: Voodoo Choppers:  Handcrafted Machines.  n.d.  30 March 2009  <http://www.voodoochoppers.com/>. Note also in the above entry how everything fits onto one line (at least on my screen!).  If your entry does that, do not artificially subdivide it to occupy more than one line.  Another important factor:  If the site has various links within it (as many do), and your source is not the main page but within one of those links, do it like this: "Machines:  One2One."  Voodoo Choppers:  Handcrafted Machines.  n.d.  30 March 2009 <http://www.voodoochoppers.com/Machines/one2one/one2one.html>. Above, note that the name of the link is set off in double quotation marks, while the name of the overall site is italicized.  Note also the most important thing, that the URL now shows the location of the precise link, not just the general website location.  See the added data in the URL? By the way, these are all actual, live links, or were on March 30, 2009. Putting the Entries Together into One Document In addition to the rules for building any single entry, there are also a few general rules to keep in mind, for the overall annotated bibliography: First, the title of your Works Cited page is always two words, Works Cited, centered on a line by themselves.  In a printed paper, this always begins on a separate page.  In your electronic submissions, insert a page break before the Works Cited.  To submit it in Blackboard, it does need to be part of the same file as your paper itself. Second, be sure that each entry is reverse indented after the first line. Third, alphabetize the entries according to the first letters of the first word, whether that word is the author's last name, as in the first example above, or part of the site title, as in the remaining examples.  Exception:  If the entry begins with the site title, and the first word of that title is A or An or The, then you alphabetize according to the next word, not that one.  You do not delete the first word; just ignore it while alphabetizing.  Example:  If the site title is The World-Famous Patty Melt by Joe, then you would alphabetize that entry under W, ignoring the first word, The. Fourth, please single-space every line in your document.  In a printed version, you would double-space, but that changes when the document is being presented and graded electronically, as in this course. Lastly, a serious warning:  Do not get careless with URLs.  They must be accurate.  I will, at the very least, check several from your document, and if I find a problem, I will check every one.  By checking, I mean that I will attempt to visit the website.  If I cannot get there, then that almost certainly means that you have mis-typed the URL.  I will give no credit for that entry! ________________________________________________________________ Remember that what I have given you above is the way to build just one specific type of entry that particularly confuses students--a website entry.  As I said above, for samples of the Works Cited entries for various types of common sources, visit the Sample Works Cited Page link.

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