DOCUMENTING YOUR SOURCES
Each time that you use information from your note cards, you should document your source.
Documentation is the information in the report that tells the reader what source you used to find that
information. You should document all borrowed information, whether quoting directly, paraphrasing, or
summarizing! If you are using a direct quotation, you should write a lead-in statement that introduces
the material, and if needed, a follow-up statement to indicate your reason for using that material.
The method of documentation that is most widely used in schools in called parenthetical documentation.
To use parenthetical documentation, enclose a brief reference in parentheses. The reference, which is
called a parenthetical citation, usually consists of an author’s name and a page number:
Ex. – The government also passed an act stating that the United States could begin trading with Britain and
France once they stopped violating Americans’ rights at sea (Morris 14).
The process of placing the citation in your report is called citing a source. A parenthetical citation
contains just enough information to help the reader locate sources on the Works Cited page at the end of
your paper. The Works Cited page consists of the bibliographic information for each of the sources that
you CITED or USED in the paper.
Preparing Parenthetical Citations
Using parenthetical citations to document your sources helps your readers identify them easily. The
following guidelines will help you cite your sources properly.
1. Basic citation – Place the citation at the end of the sentence containing the material you are
documenting. The citation should appear after the last word of the sentence, but before the punctuation
(period, exclamation point, question mark):
Ex. -- The Native Americans who lived in the West and South were allies of Britain and a threat to the
settlers (Marrin 15).
2. Basic citation with the author’s name in the text. If the name of the author is stated in the sentence,
then you only need to give the page number:
Ex. – According to Nardo, Americans were also outraged when Britain ruled that no neutral nation could
trade with any European nation except by using British ports (17).
3. Citation of a LONG QUOTE – When documenting a long quotation that is set off from the text (any
quote longer than 3 lines), place the citation after the end punctuation:
Ex. – Historians agree that impressment was one of the most important causes of America’s anger with
Great Britain:
The impressment of American sailors into the service of the Royal Navy … was a much larger causal factor
of the war than often interpreted … and it was an incredible blow to American national honor and pride.
United States sovereignty was being challenged, and the American people felt that they needed to stand up
to the challenge. (Gallagher)
4. Citations of multiple works by one author. If the Works Cited list contains more than one work by an
author, then include a shortened version of the title – usually one to four words. When shortening a title,
drop any first words like a, an, or the, and begin with the word that the full title is alphabetized by. So, for
example Amateurs to Arms!: A Military History of the War of 1812 might become Amateurs or Amateurs to
Arms.
Ex.: -- President Madison stated that the peace treaty was “highly honorable to the United States” (Etling,
Amateurs 327).
5. Citation of an anonymous work – When citing an anonymous work (one for which no author is
identified), give the title or a shortened version of the title, followed by the page number, if appropriate.
Make sure that the first word in a shortened title is the word by which the work is alphabetized in the
Works Cited list.
Ex. – The agreement was that each side would release all prisoners and would return all property that
belonged to the other side (“Treaty”).
6. Citation of a work by two or three authors – When citing a work by two or three authors, give the
authors’ last names and the page number.
Ex. – The only people who suffered from the embargo were the Americans (McKay and Berg 84).
7. Citation of a quotation appearing in another source – When citing a statement that is quoted by your
source, use the abbreviation qtd. in.
Ex. – The British approach to the peace talks was simple and direct: “Our demands may be couched in a
single word – Submission!” (qtd. in Greenblatt 110).
Documentation Practice/Model
For both of the following passages, paraphrase the information and cite the information using MLA
parenthetical format.
The Winning of the West Reconsidered
Brian W. Dippe
The Wilson Quarterly, Summer 1990.
(From page 23)
It did not take a prophet to discern a pattern in all this, but Turner reached beyond the obvious. Frontiering, he
argued, was not merely a colorful phase of American history. It had actually shaped the American character. On the
frontier, environment prevailed over inherited culture. The frontier promoted individualism, self-reliance, practicality
optimism, and a democratic spirit that rejected hereditary constraints. In Turner’s reading of U.S. history, the significance
of the frontier was simply enormous. To understand American history, one had to understand western history. Whatever
distinguished Americans as a people, Turner believed, could be attributed to the cumulative experience of westering:
“What the Mediterranean Sea was to the Greeks, breaking the bond of custom, offering new experiences, calling out new
institutions and activities, that, and more, the ever retreating frontier has been to the United States.”
“Columbus, the Indians, and Human Progress” excerpted from a People's History of the United States
by Howard Zinn
sex and labor. (From page 12)
Because of Columbus's exaggerated report and promises, his second expedition was given seventeen ships and
more than twelve hundred men. The aim was clear: slaves and gold. They went from island to island in the Caribbean,
taking Indians as captives. But as word spread of the Europeans' intent they found more and more empty villages. On
Haiti, they found that the sailors left behind at Fort Navidad had been killed in a battle with the Indians, after they had
roamed the island in gangs looking for gold, taking women and children as slaves for