Identifying Sources in the Body of Your Paper


The examples given below for source citation are based on the MLA citation format created by the Modern Language Association and come from Werdenbormer, Stephen, and Domenick Carver, Writing Research Papers: A Guide to the Process, second edition (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1986).

In general, you will identify the sources for any idea or information discovered through research by placing a parenthetical reference ( ) at the end of the appropriate sentence, most often directly following the words being cited. Such a note will contain the page number(s) on which the information was found, plus any additional information needed to help the reader find the source on your Works Cited page, such as the author's name or the title of the work. The amount of information required in the parenthetical note depends on what you have said about the sources within the text.


1. If you have mentioned the author's name in your text, the note usually consists of just the page numbers(s) on which the information was located.

This fact let the critic Owen Thomas to conclude that Emily Dickinson "was well aware of the world outside her little room, that in fact she used the language of this outside world to create some of her best poetry" (523).

Please note that the period in the sentence comes after the ( ) and not after the quotation.

2. If you have not mentioned the author's name, then the note must include that information.

But an economist who predicted the depression of 1981 a year in advance fears the price of gold will decline slowly for at least ten years (Goodserve 143).

Note that this is a paraphrase and not a direct quotation; the citation format is the same for both. Please also note that there is no punctuation between the author's name and the page number of the citation.


3. If the author has written more than one of the sources in your Works Cited (the bibliography at the end of the paper), you note must include the particular title unless it is mentioned in your text.

Chomsky claims that all humans inherit the same basic linguistic structural framework upon which their community's particular language is fitted (Language 29-31).

The Works Cited in this case also includes Chomsky's Syntactic Structures, and since the quote came from Language, you needed to include the title so we know which text to refer to. Since the author is mentioned in the paraphrase, his name does not need to be included in the parenthetical note.


4. If the author is unknown, as in many newspaper accounts, the title must appear in the note, if not mentioned in the text. (Titles may be shortened).

Only Mayor McCarthy expressed the least optimism toward the city's fate ("Rebirth" 2).

The Works Cited Page for this source shows: "Rebirth of a City." NewsTimes (Danbury, CT) 6 Sept. 1977: 2.


5. If you quote more than four lines from a source, set the quotation off from the rest of the text by indenting ten spaces from the left margin. Then, place the parenthetical note after the final mark of punctuation, separated by two spaces. This is called block quoting.


Catton also suggests that Davis' attempt to lead his people to independence was somehow doomed to failure from the start.

He had done the best he could do in an impossible job, and if it is easy to show

where he made grievous mistakes, it is difficult to show that any other man,

given the materials available, could have done much better. He had cour-

age, integrity, tenacity, devotion to his cause, and like Old Testament Sisera,

the stars in their courses marched against him. (279)

 

Please also note that although this is a direct quotation, it does not have quotation marks around it. In block quotes, you do not use quotation marks. In addition, block quotes are double-spaced just like the body of your paper.


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