MLA Style Documentation
Giving credit where credit
is due!
You do need to cite when…
• Words or ideas presented in a magazine, book,
newspaper, song, TV program, movie, Web page,
computer program, letter, advertisement, or any other
medium
• Information you gain through interviewing or conversing
with another person, face to face, over the phone, or in
writing
• When you copy the exact words or a unique phrase
• When you reprint any diagrams, illustrations, charts,
pictures, or other visual materials
• When you reuse or repost any electronically-available
media, including images, audio, video, or other media
• Bottom line, document any words, ideas, or other
productions that originate somewhere outside of you.
You don’t need to cite when…
• Writing your own lived experiences, your own observations
and insights, your own thoughts, and your own conclusions
about a subject
• When you are writing up your own results obtained through
lab or field experiments
• When you use your own artwork, digital photographs, video,
audio, etc.
• When you are using "common knowledge," things like
folklore, common sense observations, myths, urban legends,
and historical events (but not historical documents)
• When you are using generally-accepted facts, e.g., pollution is
bad for the environment, including facts that are accepted
within particular discourse communities, e.g., in the field of
composition studies, "writing is a process" is a generallyaccepted fact.
Common Knowledge
• Generally speaking, you can regard something
as common knowledge if you find the same
information undocumented in at least five
credible sources. Additionally, it might be
common knowledge if you think the information
you're presenting is something your readers will
already know, or something that a person could
easily find in general reference sources. But
when in doubt, cite; if the citation turns out to be
unnecessary, your teacher or editor will tell you.
Turnitin
• Computer program that tells us (teacher
and student) when something is
plagiarized!
• WE WILL BE MESSING WITH THIS
AFTER I’VE HAD TRAINING!!!
Direct Quotes
• Keep the source author's name in the same sentence as
the quote. Use signal phrases!
• Mark the quote with quotation marks, or set it off from
your text in its own block, per the style guide your paper
follows
• Quote no more material than is necessary; if a short
phrase from a source will suffice, don't quote an entire
paragraph
• To shorten quotes by removing extra information, use
ellipsis points (...) to indicate omitted text, keeping in
mind that:
– MLA style requires ellipsis points to appear in brackets, e.g., [...].
– three ellipsis points indicates an in-sentence ellipsis, and four
points for an ellipsis between two sentences
Direct Quotes
• To give context to a quote or otherwise add wording to it,
place added words in brackets, []; be careful not to
editorialize or make any additions that skew the original
meaning of the quote—do that in your main text, e.g.,
– OK: Kozol claims there are "savage inequalities" in our
educational system, which is obvious.
– WRONG: Kozol claims there are "[obvious] savage inequalities"
in our educational system.
• Use quotes that will have the most rhetorical,
argumentative impact in your paper; too many direct
quotes from sources may weaken your credibility, as
though you have nothing to say yourself, and will
certainly interfere with your style
Direct Quotes
• When should I quote?
– When a passage or point is
particularly well-written!!!
– To include a particularly authoritative
source
Direct Quotes
• How should I quote?
– All quotes must be introduced, discussed, and
woven into the text. Use signal phrases!
• MLA Sample Essay – 2nd paragraph of page 2
– As you revise, make sure you don't have
two quotes end-to-end.
– A good rule of thumb: Don't let your quotes
exceed 25% of your text.
Paraphrasing and Summarizing
• Use a signal phrase that credits the source somewhere in the
paraphrase or summary, e.g., According to Jonathan Kozol,
....
• If you're having trouble summarizing, try writing your
paraphrase or summary of a text without looking at the
original, relying only on your memory and notes
• Check your paraphrase or summary against the original text;
correct any errors in content accuracy, and be sure to use
quotation marks to set off any exact phrases from the original
text
• Check your paraphrase or summary against sentence and
paragraph structure, as copying those is also considered
plagiarism.
• Put quotation marks around any unique words or phrases that
you cannot or do not want to change, e.g., "savage
inequalities" exist throughout our educational system (Kozol).
Owl at Purdue On-Line Writing Lab
• http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/res
earch/r_quotprsum.html
THE RULE OF THUMB
• 25% direct quotes…
• 75% paraphrases and summaries
of secondary sources AND your
own thought process!
Parenthetical Citations
• Mrs. Hansen also calls these in-text citations.
• Parenthetical = parenthesis = Either or both
of the upright curved lines, ( ), used to mark
off explanatory or qualifying remarks in
writing
• Citation = The act of citing.
– A quoting of an authoritative or secondary
source for substantiation.
– A source so cited; a quotation.
Parenthetical Citations
• MLA format follows the author-page method of
citation. This means that the author's last name
and the page number(s) from which the
quotation is taken must appear in the text, and a
complete reference should appear on your
Works Cited page.
• Organized crime increased due to Prohibition
and the Jazz Age (Boardman 130).
Parenthetical Citations
• The author’s name may appear in the sentence
itself or in the parentheses following the
quotation or paraphrase, but the page numbers
should always appear in the parentheses not in
the text.
• Signal phrase = when you mention author’s
name in the sentence.
• According to Jon Boardman, the author of
America and the Jazz Age, organized crime
increased during Prohibition and the Jazz Age
(130).
Parenthetical Citations
• If you are citing an unpaginated source (a
magazine article off of any of the library
databases), then cite only the author’s
name or, if author is not listed, then cite
the title.
– One of the first union racketeers, Big Tim
Murphy, was gunned down on his doorstep
(Kelly).
Parenthetical Citations
• Unpaginated Source: If you give the
author credit with a signal phrase, then no
citation is needed.
– Kelly describes what probably happened to
Big Tim: “The car rolled down this quiet
street. Tim saw it too late. But he knew. He
must have felt he was in a dream himself as
he turned and began to run toward his front
door.”
Parenthetical Citations
• If the work you are making reference to has no
author, use an abbreviated version of the work's
title. For non-print sources, such as films, TV
series, pictures, or other media, or electronic
sources, include the name that begins the entry on
the Works Cited page.
• “Outrage over the death of the two officers was so
great that an angry mob stormed the Santa Rosa
Jail that night and, in a replay of San Francisco's
vigilantism of 70 years earlier, lynched the three
suspects” (“Police Work in the 1920s”).
Parenthetical Citations
• Quote within a quote. Sometimes you may have
to use an indirect quotation. An indirect
quotation is a quotation used in a secondary
source. For such indirect quotations, use "qtd.
in" to indicate the source.
– “Al Capone once said: ’When I sell liquor, they call it
bootlegging…When my patrons serve it on silver
trays on Lake Shore Drive, they call it hospitality’”
(qtd. in Kelly).
– Note: I omitted “Al said” and so I used …
– If you don’t use Capone’s name in a signal phrase,
then parenthetical citation will look like this: (Capone
qtd. in Kelly).
Paragraph with only one source
Organized crime increased due to Prohibition and
the Jazz Age (Boardman 130). Al Capone rise in
Chicago is a prime example. He went from petty thief
to murderer within a year (131). Soon after he sidestepped this murder charge, John Torrio took notice of
Capone’s physical strength and intelligence (132).
Boardman states: “By mid-1922 Capone ranked as
Torrio's number two man and eventually became a full
partner in the saloons, gambling houses, and brothels”
(133). Boardman continues by suggesting Capone’s
“inheritance” of “The Outfit” was part luck but definitely
speedy. Torrio’s death allowed Capone to catapult to
the top of the organization (134).
Paragraph with two sources
According to Jon Boardman, the author of America
and the Jazz Age, organized crime increased during
Prohibition and the Jazz Age; in particular Al Capone
started his climb to the top (130). 1922 saw the rise of Al
Capone as John Torrio’s “number two man” (133). In
addition, Big Tim Murphy shot onto the scene as one of
the first union racketeers (Kelly). Stan Kelly, who wrote
“Murphy’s Rise and Fall” suggests that Big Tim Murphy
created an enterprise of his whole that rivaled Capone,
but only briefly. Kelly describes what probably happened
to Big Tim: “The car rolled down this quiet street. Tim
saw it too late. But he knew. He must have felt he was
in a dream himself as he turned and began to run toward
his front door.” Capone was never convicted of this
murder (Boardman 136).
Long Quotes
• Over three lines
• See example in sample research paper
pages 2-3.
More examples
• ..\Writing\Samples of parenthetical
citations.doc
Works Cited
• The works cited list should appear at the end of
your essay.
• It provides the information necessary for a reader
to locate and be able to read any sources you cite
in the essay.
• Each source you cite in the essay must appear in
your works-cited list; likewise, each entry in the
works-cited list must be cited in your text.
• Here are some guidelines for preparing your works
cited list.
Works Cited
• Begin your works cited list on a separate page from the text
of the essay under the label Works Cited (with no quotation
marks, underlining, etc.), which should be centered at the
top of the page.
• Make the first line of each entry in your list flush left with the
margin. Subsequent lines in each entry should be indented
one-half inch. This is known as a hanging indent.
• Double space all entries, with no skipped spaces between
entries.
• Keep in mind that underlining and italics are equivalent; use
italics if available.
• Alphabetize the list of works cited by the first word in each
entry (usually the author's last name but could be the title if
no author is listed).
Works Cited Entry (BOOK)
Boardman, Fon. America and the Jazz Age.
New York: H. Z. Walck, 1968.
Works Cited Entry (Facts.com)
"Can Television Educate?" 07 Aug. 1998.
Facts.com. Facts on File News Service.
Watertown High School Lib. 11 Dec.
2006. http://www.2facts.com
Works Cited entry (elibrary)
• Johnson, Marilou. "The Impact of Television and
Directions for Controlling what Children
View." Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic
Media. 01 Oct 2001. eLibrary. ProQuest
Information and Learning Company.
Watertown High School Lib. 05 Sept 2006
http://elibrary.bigchalk.com
Works Cited Entry (Infotrac)
Kelly, Jack. “Gangster City.” American
Heritage April 1995. InfoTrac. Gale
Group Databases. Watertown High
School Lib. 11 Apr. 2005
http://infotrac.galegroup.com/menu.
Works Cited Entry (Proquest)
Zaslow, Barry. “Gangsters and Goldiggers.”
Library Journal. 1 Nov. 2003.
ProQuest. ProQuest Information and
Learning Company. Watertown High
School Lib. 11 Apr. 2005
http://proquest.umi.com
Works Cited Entry (Website)
“Police Work in the 1920s.” 17 Dec. 1999.
Virtual Museum of the City of San
Francisco. 11 Apr. 2005
http://www.sfmuseum.org/sfpd/sfpd3.html
Works Cited (Essay in an
anthology)
Edelman, Rob. “The Godfather.” Bowling,
Beatniks, and Bell-bottoms. Sara and
Tom Pendergast, Eds. Detroit: Thomson
Gale, 2002.
Works Cited (Interview)
• Schorr, Daniel. Interview. Weekend
Edition. National Public Radio.
WEVO, Concord, MA. 26 Mar. 1998.
• Muster, Astrid. Telephone Interview. 12
December 2006.
• Within the text, cite the person’s last name
and that’s all (Muster).
Format for Works Cited
• ..\Writing\Works Cited.doc
Format for first page
• ..\Writing\MLA format example.doc