MLA Documentation
 Quotes
 Summaries
 Paraphrases
 In-text Citations
 Three Homework
Exercises! Due Tuesday,
November 1st.
Quotations
 Perhaps the most commonly-used method of source
integration.
 Taken verbatim from the source.
 Three ways of integrating:
 Introduced with a colon
 Introduced with an attribution (“X remarks,” or “Y argues”)
 Integrated into the body of your paper and the structure of your
sentences.
Quotations (Examples)
 Original Quote: “With advocates like [Langston] Hughes,
African American women were ‘allowed’ to let loose their
sexuality as an expression of a culture not beholden to mores that
many saw as white-imposed” (Baldanzi par. 5).
 With a colon: Baldanzi demonstrates that African American women
enjoyed different social restrictions than white women: “With
advocates like [etc.] . . .” (par. 5).
 With an attribution: Concerning sexuality and race, Baldanzi argues
that “with advocates like [etc.] . . .” (par. 5).
 Integrated into the sentence: African American women did not
experience the same social restrictions on their sexuality, for “with
advocates like [etc.] . . .” (Baldanzi par. 5).
Quotations—In-text Citations
 Always used with an in-text citation:
 Quote without introduction: Author’s last name and page number
 Though it might seem strange “this, she reflected, was of a piece with all that
she knew of Clare Kendry” (Larsen 143).
 Quote with author introduction: page number
 As Nella Larsen notes in her novella Passing, “this, she reflected, was of a piece
with all that she knew of Clare Kendry” (143).
 Quote from an unauthored text: Title of piece and page number
 In response to the crisis “Divided We Fail is asking our nation's leaders to
commit to working in a bipartisan way to provide Americans with actions and
answers on health and long-term financial security” (“Divided We Fail
Congressional Pledge” par. 1).
 If your source does NOT have page numbers, you must count
paragraphs!! This means that most online sources will have to be
cited with “par. #”!
Quotations—Ellipses (. . .)
 Repeat: Ellipses are not a pause. Ellipses are not a pause.
Ellipses are NOT a pause!
 Ellipses (“. . .”) are used to omit words from the quote to make it
shorter and more powerful:
 Original Quote: “We believe Americans should have choices when it
comes to long-term care - allowing them to maintain their
independence at home or in their communities with expanded and
affordable financing options” (“The Divided We Fail Platform” par.
5).
 Edited Quote: “We believe Americans should have choices when it
comes to . . . expanded and affordable financing options” (“The
Divided We Fail Platform” par. 5).
Long Quotes
 Any quote longer than four (4)
typed lines in standard MLA format
must be formatted differently.
 Indent your quote 1”
 Do NOT include quotation marks.
 Place your in-text citation
OUTSIDE of the ending
punctuation.
 This is called a block quote.
Integrate a Quote
 Homework Exercise #1: Use the following information to
construct sentences wherein you integrate and cite the given
quote correctly. Write three sentences: one where you
integrate your quote with a colon, one with an attribution, and
one where you integrate it into the body of your sentence.
 “Women are significantly underrepresented with respect to
amount of [media] coverage, even though women represent
40% of participants nationwide in terms of sport and physical
activity.”
 Author: Mary Jo Kane
 Article: “Transcript: Playing Unfair”
 Page Number: 469 in your textbook.
Summaries
 The main idea(s) of some else’s work as stated in your own
words and ideas.
 Often much shorter than the original.
 We summarize all the time:
 Describing a movie that we just saw to someone who hasn’t
seen it yet.
 Talking about a conversation or argument we just had.
 Answering the question: “What did you do over your spring
break?”
Summaries—Citations
 Only include in-text citation if you have NOT introduced the
source. If you have already described the source you are using,
in-text citations are not necessary. Get into the habit of
introducing your sources before summarizing them.
 Make it clear that your audience is aware where your ideas stop and
your sources’ ideas begin.
 Example: Many critics have noticed the homosexual undertones in
early 20th century works by black artists. In David Blackmore’s
article “‘That Unreasonable Restless Feeling,’” the argument is made
that Nella Larsen, in her novella Passing, uses subtle language to
encode homosexual desire for both the male and female characters
of her narrative in direct opposition to Harlem Renaissance dictates
on sexuality. I would like to amend Blackmore’s argument, relating
Passing’s coded language instead to . . . (etc.)
Summaries—Citations
 Analysis of My Example from the Previous Slide:
 I introduced my source (“In David Blackmore’s article “‘That
Unreasonable Restless Feeling’”) prior to summarizing it.
 My summary was just a single sentence (“Nella Larsen, in her
novella Passing, uses subtle language to encode homosexual
desire for both the male and female characters of her narrative
in direct opposition to Harlem Renaissance dictates on
sexuality”) yet captures the article’s MAIN points.
 I clearly demonstrated where Blackmore began (by introducing
him), and where he ended (by switching to a first-person “I” in
the next sentence).
 I didn’t have to include an in-text citation for the article because
I introduced it prior to summarizing it.
Summary Activity
 Homework Exercise #2:
 Write a summary of one of the articles
from “Imagining the Ideal Body.” Write
first a sentence-long summary,
then a paragraph-long summary.
Both summaries should be of the same
article. Don’t forget to introduce your
source! Pay special attention to the
choices you have to make in these
summaries. What sorts of information
did you have to cut out? What kinds of
information did you decide to include?
Paraphrases
 Take ideas from other sources and restate them in your own
words.
 NOT the main ideas of the entire work, just sections or sentences
that you find interesting and useful that you have restated.
 In academic writing, paraphrases are often used to make
complicated, theoretical language clearer and more understandable
for the audience.
 Often ends up being longer than the original work
 Must include an in-text citation!
 Do NOT “cut and paste” your paraphrase. Changing a few
words is not an act of paraphrasing; it is an act of
plagiarism!
Paraphrase Example
 Original Quote: “[Life] is a tale / Told by an
idiot, full of sound and fury / Signifying
nothing” (Shakespeare, MacbethV.V25-7)
 Paraphrase: “I thought of something else
Shakespeare said. He said, ‘Hey, life is
pretty stupid, with lots of hubbub to
keep us busy but not really
amounting to much.’ Of course I’m
paraphrasing” (L.A. Story).
 In this paraphrase, Steve Martin takes a
serious example from Shakespeare about the
ultimate meaningless of life, and makes it
humorous without losing the original
meaning.
Paraphrase, Another Example
 Check out this site. This has a great example for what NOT
to do and what to do during a paraphrase. It’s a difficult art
to master, but with practice you can be paraphrasing like a
pro!
 http://papyr.com/hypertextbooks/comp2/samppara.htm
Paraphrase Activity
 Homework Exercise #3: Take the following quote and paraphrase it. You may use
only a section or smaller portion of the quote. Use the examples from the website
listed on the previous slide to help you decided how you want to structure this
paraphrase. This should be several sentences long! Remember to correctly cite
your paraphrase!
 I think that McDonald's has a profound effect on the way people do a lot of things I
mean it leads people to want everything fast, to have, you know, a limited attention
span so that kind of thing spills over onto, let's say, television viewing or newspaper
reading, and so you have a short attention span, you want everything fast, so you don't
have patience to read the New York Times and so you read McPaper, you read USA
today.You don't have patience to watch a lengthy newscast on a particular issue so you
watch CNN News and their little news McNugget kinds of things so it creates a kind of
mindset which seeks the same kind of thing in one setting after another. I see it in
education where you have, in a sense, a generation of students who've been raised in a
McDonaldised society, they want things fast, they want idealic nuggets from Professors,
they don't want sort of slow build up of ideas, you gotta keep them amused, you gotta
come in with the Ronald McDonald costume and quip a series of brilliant theoretical
points or else they're going to turn you off. – “Interview with George Ritzer,” One-Off
Productions. Page 573 in your textbook.
What does an Annotated Bibliography
Look Like?
 Check out my Annotated Bibliography Formatting Guide for
tips on how to format the annotated bibliography that you
will submit for this class.
 Look at the Owl at Purdue site for some examples of
annotated bibliographies.