Works Cited Page and Parenthetical Citations

Why Do We Need to Use a Work Cited and In-Text Citations?

Allows readers to find your sources easily

Gives you credibility as a writer

Protects you against plagiarism

Readers Can Find Your Sources

Citing your sources allows readers to locate the publication information of your source material. This is of great value for researchers who may want to locate your sources for their own research projects.

Establishing Credibility

The proper use of MLA style shows the credibility of writers; such writers show accountability to their source material.

Avoiding Plagiarism

Proper citation of your sources can help you avoid plagiarism, which is a serious offense. It may result in anything from failure of the assignment to expulsion from school.

A Works Cited Page is…

A complete list of every source that you make reference to in your essay

Provides the information necessary for a reader to locate and retrieve any sources cited in your essay.

Put in alphabetical order!

A Sample Works Cited Page

Smith 12Works Cited

Dickens, Charles. Bleak House. 1852-1853. New York: Penguin,

1985.

---. David Copperfield. 1849-1850. New York: Houghton Mifflin

Company, 1958.

Miller, J. Hillis. Charles Dickens: The World and His Novels.

Bloomington: U of Indiana P, 1958.

Zwerdling, Alex. “Esther Summerson Rehabilitated.” PMLA 88 (May

1973): 429-439.

Works Cited

Most citations should contain the following basic information:

Author’s nameTitle of workPublication

informationPage Numbers

When Should You Use Parenthetical Citations?

When quoting any words that are not your own Quoting means to repeat another source word for

word, using quotation marksWhen summarizing facts and ideas from a

source Summarizing means to take ideas from a large

passage of another source and condense them, using your own words

When paraphrasing a source Paraphrasing means to use the ideas from another

source but change the phrasing into your own words

What goes into a Parenthetical Citation?

You need the author's last name and the page number(s) from the text which the quotation is taken from.

Continued…

The author's name: may appear in one of two places: 1) in the sentence itself or 2) in parentheses following the quotation or paraphraseThe page number(s): should always appear in the parentheses following the quotation, summary, or paraphrase, not in the text of your sentence.

Direct Quotes

Wordsworth stated that Romantic poetry was marked by “a spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” (263). Why don’t we need to include the authors name in the parenthesis?

Romantic poetry is characterized by the “spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” (Wordsworth 263). Notice that the period comes AFTER the parenthesis!

Notice that the author’s name and the page number is only separated by a space, not a comma.

Purdue University Writing Lab

Summarized/ Paraphrased Info

Wordsworth explored the role of emotion in the creative process (263). Why don’t we need to include the authors name in the parenthesis?

The Romantic period was defined by focusing on emotions within the creative process (Wordsworth 309).

Purdue University Writing Lab

The Grammar of Citations

Direct Quotation: “Quoted material” (Author’s last name Page

number).

Paraphrase: Paraphrased sentence / passage (Author’s

last name Page number).

GOOD V BAD GAME!

Purdue University Writing Lab

In Death and Justice, Edward Koch argues, "life is precious, and the death penalty helps to affirm this fact (857)."

BAD!

Quotation marks should be before the parenthesis (after the quote is finished)

The New York Yankees have won 26 World Series titles, which is more than any other team (Smith 31).

GOOD!

Author and page number in the citationPeriod in the right spot

The University of Illinois is the founding member of the Big Ten Conference (Harris, 12).

BAD!

There is not a comma in between the author’s last name and the page number

According to the book critique Ben Kendrick, “the Hunger Games became the next big thing for young adult fiction readers” (40).

GOOD!

Only need the page number because the author is mentioned in the sentence

Period in the right spotQuotations end before the citation

In one of William Shakespeare most famous plays, Hamlet said, “ To be or not to be? That is the question” (Shakespeare 102).

BAD!

Don’t need to put Shakespeare’s last name in the citation because it is already in the sentence.

One study revealed that by 1991, two-thirds of all mothers under eighteen were in the labor force (107).

BAD!

Missing the author in the parenthetical citation – the author is not mentioned in the sentence.