citations and works cited page research essentials

Citations and Works Cited Page

Research Essentials

Free powerpoint template: www.brainybetty.com2

Weave research into your paper.

– Any research information that you use must be directly related to the point you’ve just made.

• Don’t let research take over your paper– Use pertinent ideas as support.– Supports what you say, but doesn’t say

it for you.


Using Relevant and Reliable Sources• A relevant source

– Contains information that directly relates to and supports your argument.

– Contains the most recent, updated information.

• A reliable source– Contains information from a scholarly,

reputable, expert, or objective (unbiased) source.


Using Sources to Add Detail• Make general comments more

specific.

• Give specific examples that illustrate your main points.

• Present expert opinions.

5

What is Plagiarism?

• Presenting another person’s ideas or words as if they were your own.

• Submitting as your work a paper that you did not write.

• Deliberately incorporating the work of other people into your own writing without using documentation to credit those sources.

• Being unaware of what information to document and how to do so correctly.

Free powerpoint template: www.brainybetty.com


Documentation

• You must acknowledge your sources using internal documentation.

• Mark the exact place in your paper where you have “used” a source & provide a parenthetical citation.

• Provide bibliographical information for your reader to locate this same source on a works cited page.


What do you NOT need to document?• Common knowledge: information

that most high school educated people know.

• Your own ideas.


What MUST be documented?• Information that you gain through a

source and use as support in your paper in the form of :

–Quotes–Paraphrases


How to Document

• Keep track of citation information as you conduct research.

• Mark locations where research is inserted into your paper.

• Know how to use Citation Machine or an Online Source or use a style manual


Guidelines for Quotations

• Always use your own words to introduce a source. • Quotations must fit smoothly with your own

grammar, style, and logic.• Quotations must be punctuated correctly! • Citing the author’s name and title of the work as

you introduce the quotation helps create a context for the quotation.

• Referring to the author’s credentials as part of the introduction to the quotation gives additional authority to your argument.


Remember if you Paraphrase…

– You must completely reword your source, not merely change a couple of minor words.

– The paraphrase must sound like you, not your source.

– Even though you’ve paraphrased, you still must attribute the idea to your source through documentation. You must cite the source.

12

What a Citation Does…

• The citation summarizes bibliographic data to provide your reader (teacher) information to locate the book, website, or magazine that you used:– Author (if given)– Title of article, webpage, or entry– Publication information (publisher, website,

magazine title, date, location)– Medium (Print, Web, etc.)– Date of access



In Text Citation

• MLA uses in-text citations (parenthetical documentation or parenthetical references) to credit sources within the text of a research paper.

• The basic format for a parenthetical citation is to include the author’s last name and page number in parenthesis following the quoted or paraphrased passage (Smith 10). At the end of the sentence and followed by a period.

• A corresponding list of Works Cited must appear at the end of the paper.

14

Internal Documentation

• If the author’s name is mentioned in the attribution, it does not need to be repeated in the parenthetical citation; in this case, only list the page number.

– L. A. Police Chief Matt Sundeen notes that drivers with cell phones place an estimated 98,000 emergency calls each day and that the phones “often reduce emergency response times and actually save lives” (1).




• If the author’s last name is not mentioned in the attribution, then it must be included in the parenthetical citation.

– According to the L. A. Chief of Police, drivers with cell phones place an estimated 98,000 emergency calls each day and the phones “often reduce emergency response times and actually save lives” (Sundeen 1).

16


• If the source has no author, then the default is to credit the title of the article in the attribution or parenthetical citation.– According to the article “Gun Control Laws,”

many people support the plan to limit the number of guns a person can own (12).

– An article in Newsweek reveals that many people support the plan to limit the number of guns a person can own (“Gun Control Laws” 12).



For any type of citation, you must use the following MLA rules:

– Do not use the word page or the abbreviation p. or pp.

– Do not place a comma between the last name & page #.

– If using article title, title must be enclosed in quotation marks.

– Place the sentence period after the closing parenthesis.

– If a quotation ends the sentence, insert the closing quotation marks before the parentheses.



• Your in-text citations or parenthetical references must correspond exactly with the list of sources on your Works Cited page.

– For each source cited in your paper, you must have a matching entry on the Works Cited page.

– For each entry on the Works Cited page, you must have a matching citation in the paper.


Where Do I Put the Citations?• Include a parenthetical

reference at the end of the sentence, paragraph, or section that uses information from that source.

• Place the reference before the period if at the end of a sentence.


What is a Works Cited page?• The works cited page is an alphabetical

listing of all cited sources for your research. This list could include books, websites, databases, interviews, and any other source of information used (alphabetical by author’s last name).

• Remember that if you use someone else’s ideas, words, quotes, data, or other information, you must cite your source.


MLA Format/Guidelines for Works Cited Page

– Put the page on a separate sheet at the end of the paper.

– Title the page Works Cited.• The title should be placed in the center of

the page, 1-inch from the top.• Do not use quotation marks, underlining,

italics, or bold type for the title.– Double-space the entire list/page.


Works Cited Format/Guidelines

– List only the sources you cite in your paper.– Alphabetize the list by authors’ last names.

• For works with multiple authors, invert only the first author’s name.

• For works with no author, alphabetize using the first word in the title of the article.

– Indent the second and all subsequent lines five spaces. (This is known as hanging indent style.)


Works Cited Format/Guidelines

– Capitalize the first word and all other words in a title except articles, coordinating conj., and prepositions.

– Underline or italicize (be consistent!) titles of books and names of journals, magazines, and newspapers.

– Put in quotation marks titles of articles within journals, magazines, and newspapers.


Citation Machine

• http://citationmachine.net

http://citationmachine.net/


Seeing the Connection between the Citation and the Works Cited page

The parenthetical reference should match the first word of the entry in your works cited page.

citations and works cited page research essentials

Documents

research information

updated information

bibliographical information

online source

reader teacher information

objective unbiased source

citation doesthe citation

parenthetical citation