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Parenthetical Citations and Works Cited
Why do we cite sources?
When you write a paper, you often use and build on the work other people have researched and
compiled. It is important to give credit where credit is due. If you incorporate or refer to other people's
work in your paper, you must give credit to those authors. If you do not cite and document your
sources carefully, you run the risk of plagiarism.
See CKHS Code of Academic Integrity and Plagiarism on the CKHS Library Web site
As you are writing your paper, you give credit within the paper through Parenthetical Citations and
you give credit again at the end of your paper in a Works Cited list. The Parenthetical Citations will
match the citations you list on your Works Cited page.
Parenthetical Citations may also be called Parenthetical Documentation
What do we cite?
You need to cite/document:
Historical facts, statistical and scientific facts
Direct Quotes, see Quoting…and Parenthetical Citations on the CKHS Library Web site
Paraphrases
Summaries
Words specific or unique to the author’s research, theories
Use of an author’s argument or line of thinking
Articles or studies you refer to within your text.
Examples:
Parenthetical Citation for information used from a book
In considering the consequences of too much television “…the problem isn’t just what children watch:
it’s that they watch. Whenever children are watching television, they’re not doing something else - not
reading, not studying, not exercising and so on” (Winn 64). In other words, not doing anything
constructive.
Winn is the author of the source of the information and 64 is page number where the quote came from.
Note: If a quotation ending a sentence requires a parenthetical citation, place the sentence period after
the parentheses.
Parenthetical Citation (from above) as it would appear on the Works Cited page
Works Cited
Winn, Marie. The Plug-in Drug: Television, Computers, and Family Life. New York: Penguin Group,
2002. Print.
more ↓
Parenthetical Citation for information used from a Web site.
Rocky Reach Dam has turbines that are protective of the salmon runs. Young salmon and steelhead are
helped on their trip to the ocean by a fish by-pass system (Rocky).
Rocky is the first word of the title of the Web page. It is the first word that appears in your Works
Cited example below. NOTE: If there is an author to your web page or site, their last name would
appear within the parenthesis.
Parenthetical Citation (from above) as it would appear on the Works Cited page.
Works Cited
"Rocky Reach Hydro Project." Chelan County PUD. 2007. Chelan County Public Utility District No.1. Web.
10 March 2010.
Note: At college you may be required to follow the more strict MLA guidelines:
When you use electronic sources, you must work with whatever information is provided at the online site.
Often there is no author given for a Web site nor do they give numbers to the pages.
If no page numbers are provided, use paragraph, section, screen, or verse numbers instead and include the
standard abbreviations, if there are any. (Author, sec.#) or (Title, par. 5)
Remember to include a comma when using abbreviations in parenthetical citations.
When a source has no page numbers or any other kind of reference numbers, no numbers can be used in the
parenthetical citation. The work must be cited in its entirety.
Above information is taken from :
Girbaldi, Joseph. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. New York: Modern Language Association of America
2003.
“MLA Citations” University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The Writing Center at the University of North Carolina.
15 January 2007 < http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/mla.html>.