Every time you use an idea or quote from a source you read, you must give credit to that source. If you do not, you are plagiarizing the work of the author. Plagiarism is at best unethical and at worst illegal, and if you get caught by a professor plagiarizing the work of another--even by accident--the professor can fail your paper or your work for the entire course. The professor can even try to have you expelled from the university. So be careful! Do not give a professor the opportunity to accuse you of cheating.
Some examples of plagiarism include (but are not limited to) using an idea from another writer without citing the writer, using a quote as if it is your own text, submitting work you wrote for another assignment as new work, "borrowing" ideas or text from classmates or fellow students, or cutting and pasting information off of the Internet without citing it.
There are many ways to cite a source. Each discipline has its own way of citing a source in a document. Two of the more popular ways of citing sources are to use the MLA format (English) or the APA (psychology) format. As you settle on a major, it is your responsibility to ask professors and graduate students from that department what the preferred method of citation is.
This handout describes the MLA format, which is the official format of the Modern Language Association. The MLA format uses a combination of internal citations (citations that tell us the author's name and the page number in the text of a paper) and a works cited page (the traditional bibliography of the books, articles, and Internet resources you refer to in the paper).
What is an "internal citation"?
An internal citation is a citation made within the text of a paper that provides the reader enough information so that if they want to find the source of a particular piece of information, they can read the internal citation, flip to the works cited page, and finally find everything they need in order to go to the library and look up the source. An example might look like this:
He also says that "the rise of the global population may lead to a serious risk of mass starvation" (Smith 93), suggesting that people who ignore the recent increase in the global birthrate may be in error.
Notice the parenthetical citation: the author's name and the page number of the quote appear in parenthesis after the quote before the next piece of punctuation. There are no commas inside the parenthesis, no "p," "pp," or "pg" for "page," and there is a space between the end quote mark and the open parenthesis mark. The parenthetical citation gives us enough information to flip to the back of the paper and find the article by Smith in the works cited page.
Notice, however, that the parenthetical citation comes after the end quote but right before the subsequent punctuation mark. If there are words between the end of the quote and the punctuation, we put the citation after these words but before the next punctuation:
He said that "the rise of the global population may lead to a serious risk of mass starvation" despite knowing his statement did not have any scientific proof to support it (Smith 93).
In this example, grammatically we do not need any punctuation after the quote, so we wait to put our parenthetical citation in front of the period that comes later. By placing the citation next to the punctuation, we do not interrupt the flow of the sentence. Instead, since the brain takes a mental pause at the punctuation, placing the citation next to the punctuation mark allows the reader to read the entire sentence more easily.
It is traditional to introduce the author of a work that supplies a significant fact or quotation that you spend a lot of time talking about. Normally the author is introduced the first time you mention him or her and the work in a sentence, not in the parenthetical citation. From that point on, you can simply place the last name inside the parenthesis (or you can continue to mention the writer in the sentence; the choice is yours). Thus, we could have a sentence like this:
According to James Smith, "the rise of the global population may lead to a serious risk of mass starvation" (93).
Or
According to James Smith's essay, "Too Many Babies," "the rise of the global population may lead to a serious risk of mass starvation" (93).
Or
In his essay "Too Many Babies," James Smith argues that "the rise of the global population may lead to a serious risk of mass starvation" (93).
Notice that in each of these sentences, a signal phrase gives either the name of the author, the name of the article, or both. Since the sentence contains the information we need in order to find the work in the works cited, we do not have to repeat the name in the parenthetical citation.
In A Pocket Style Manual, Diana Hacker offers these words as possible roots of signal phrases: "admits, agrees, argues, asserts, believes, claims, compares, confirms, contends, declares, denies, emphasizes, insists, notes, observes, points out, reasons, refutes, rejects, reports, responds, suggests, thinks, [and] writes" (87). There are more words like these, but these should help you to develop a sense of what should be done to introduce a quote with a signal phrase.
Finally, when you quote something directly, you should never attempt to make the quote its own sentence. A quote needs to be a part of a larger sentence. If you aren't sure how to make a quote a part of a larger sentence, try writing a complete sentence as an introduction and use a colon to add the quote, like this:
James Smith cautions us about the rising birthrate throughout the world: "the rise of the global population may lead to a serious risk of mass starvation" (93).
How do I format a works cited page?
Start a new page in the document (in WordPerfect, hit CONTROL-ENTER) and then center the phrase "Works Cited" at the top of the page. Continue to double space the text and do not turn off the page numbering. Enter your first citation using the FORMAT --> PARAGRAPH --> HANGING INDENT command to give your individual citations that hanging indent look. Alphabetize the articles by the author's last names. In the event that there are two or mor last names listed as author, write the citation in the order they are given in the book or article.
For a book, it looks like this:
Thus, a common writing textbook would be cited like this:
For an article, it looks like this:
Thus, an article (made up as an example) might look like this:
A story, essay, or article in an anthology (a collection):
Thus, an essay by Garrett Hardin in the anthology Write to Be Read would be cited this way:
If a work has two or more authors, list them in the order they appear in the book or article, inverting the author's name but listing the next authors with their first name, middle name, and then family name. Place an "and" between the next to last and last writer's names:
While this handout is not complete, it does offer the basics for citing a work. For more complete details, check the following sources:
