Parenthetical Citations

Giving Credit to the Researcher

• It is acceptable to use published research, but you must give the researcher credit when you quote or paraphrase his or her work in your paper.

• Why? Published work is patented. It is against the law to use other people’s work without giving them credit. It is also morally incorrect to use other people’s work without giving them the respect they deserve.

How do you indicate credit to the researcher when writing your paper?

We are learning a style of documenting research called Modern Language Association or MLA for short. (You have learned how to document your citations for your annotated bibliography MLA in previous lessons.)

You MUST provide parenthetical citations in your paper whenever you:

1. Use a direct quotation2. Paraphrase (express in your own words)

ideas that are not yours.3. Summarize in your own words other’s ideas4. Copy a map, table, chart or other diagram5. Construct a chart or diagram based on

another’s work.

You must NOT document with parenthetical citations if…

1. You arrive at an opinion independently. For example if you say snowboarding is more fun than skiing.

2. You use common knowledge like Columbus sailed west in 1492.

Making Parenthetical Citations

The information in the citation must match what is on your citation on the Works Cited page.

Citation for a book:

Doob, Penelope Reed. The Idea of the Labyrinth from Classical Antiquity through the Middle Ages: Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1990.

Parenthetical citation to match the source:(Doob 144)

General Rules for Making Citations in Text

1. It usually appears at the end of the sentence as close as possible to the material it documents, so that it does not upset the flow of the writing.

2. If the author’s name appears in sentence, then you should not repeat it in the citation. For example:

Orwell made this point earlier in “Shooting and Elephant” (65-66).

Rules continued…• Omit the author’s name in the second citation if you use the

author twice in succession.

For example:“Russians don’t call them Russian thistles, but pereketi-pole,

which means ‘roll-across-the-field’” (Frazier 190).

The next reference would read:“This began the first great eco-catastrophes” (196).

**If you cite a different author in between, you would include Frazier’s name in the next citation.

(Frazier 196)

Rules continued…

• If a direct quote appears at the end of the sentence, insert the citation between the closing quote and concluding punctuation mark.

• For example:• The writer concludes his review of Anne Tyler’s work with, “This writer is not merely good, she is wickedly good” (Updike 278).

More than four quoted lines

• In an extended quotation of more than 4 lines, indent 10 spaces, place the citation outside the ending punctuation.

For example:In A Distant Mirror, Barbara Tuchman alludes to Death: A skeleton with hourglass and scythe, in a white shroud or bare-boned, grinning at the irony of man’s fate reflected in his image. (130)

Writing on Only One Book

• If a paper is on one source, like a novel. Put the author’s name in the first citation, but then only the page number.

For example when analyzing Catcher in the Rye: In J.D. Salinger’s novel, Holden realizes adults must

let children take chances. He concludes, “If they fall off, they fall off, but it’s bad if you say anything to them” (211).

Writing a citation for a corporate author, e.g., Government Printing

Office, GPO(GPO) or (GPO 23)

• What if the work is listed without an author?

Answer: Use the title only and abbreviate.Pelicans: Are Creatures of the Cold.

Citation:(“Pelicans” 30)

or(“Pelicans”) if only one page

If your works cited has more than one work by the author…

(Chin, History 456) and (Chin, Dragons 10)

If citing a multi-volume work, give volume as well as page number(s), placing a colon between

volume and page number

(Wellek 2: 1-19)and

The citation for an entire volume looks like this:(Betzler, vol. 4)

Citations for literary works include book, chapter, verse, stanza number, or act, scene and line, instead of or in addition to the page number

(Hamlet 5.1.101)

If your works cited list contains two authors with the same last name, include the first initial of the author cited.

• (P. Morgan 42-43) P is for Percy• (R. Morgan 23) R is for Roberta.

If one work has two or three authors, include the last name

of each:(Hart, Schafer, and Marx 34)

However, if the work has three or more authors, use the last name of the first author, followed by et al., with no intervening punctuation.

(Williams et al. 109-112)

Internet Sources

When citing internet sources in text, give the author’s name and page number or paragraph, if the latter is used.

For examples:(Gordon, par.25)