Download Mess in Iraq. Tarcher, 2006. Print.

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Research Paper Information and List of Process Steps
Research papers must be more than merely informative; they must make an
argument. (Sections following this in the class pack will go into greater detail.) They
must use reputable, scholarly sources that you have evaluated following specific
guidelines. Each of the papers will have a different minimum number of sources and
minimum word count; read the instructions for the individual papers. There is no
maximum word length or number of sources. Scholarly sources are usually found in
books and scholarly (peer-reviewed) journals, not newspapers, magazines, and websites
(though these may provide you with subject matter to discuss).
You must choose topics, subject to my approval, that deal with the issues we read
about and discuss as part of this course:
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Research Paper One: the food industry in America
Research Paper Two: topic areas include advertising, corporations, media
multinationals, news media, and the Internet.
More detailed sample topics are provided online at your class’s website. The link to
your class’s home page can be found at http://www2.bakersfieldcollege.edu/gdumler.
(Handouts, lists of assigned readings, instructions for assignments, and other
supplemental information and materials are all on the online outlines for each class.)
Research papers should be balanced, unbiased, and free of logical fallacies, such as
begging the question, straw person, the fallacy of exclusion, and ad hominem fallacies
(online handouts will be provided.)
Research Paper Process Steps
The research papers will be preceded by a series of process steps, each of which must be
completed before you can move on to the next step. The class pack contains sections
detailing the instructions for some of the process steps; handouts for other process steps
can be found on the online outline and in the “Research Paper Information” section
available on the class web site.
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Research Paper Topic Proposal
Refined Topic Proposal and Tentative Thesis for Research Paper
Research Information Sets
Outline with Updated Thesis Statement
First Draft of Research Paper
Highlighted Photocopies of Sources
In addition, after each paper has been graded, there will be a mandatory individual
appointment to go over the paper to discuss revision; each paper must be revised unless
you earn a grade of 94% or higher. (Students in online classes who cannot get to campus
will arrange alternatives to face-to-face appointments with me.)
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The Argumentative Research Paper
What Is an Argumentative Research Paper?
It is a thesis-driven exploration of scholarly research on a particular subject. It
presents empirical evidence and attempts to prove conclusions about a debatable issue. A
thesis statement is (1) an assertion, not a question; (2) one sentence long; (3)
argumentative—it makes a case (you are assert an idea that people can either agree or
disagree with); and (4) specific—it will lead to a discussion of actions and possible
solutions. It will answer the following question: What do you want your readers to do?
What is the purpose of an argumentative research paper?
The purpose is to find and compile empirical evidence about a particular issue,
including problems and potential solutions; to evaluate the data; to make observations
about the data; to prove one or more points to your readers; and, ideally, provide them
with information about practical, concrete solutions to the problems discussed.
Empirical evidence is information that is acquired through research: observation,
experimentation, or a combination of both. This data is recorded and analyzed by
researchers and is a central part of the scientific method. The scientific method begins
with scientists forming questions and then acquiring the knowledge to either support or
disprove a specific theory. That is where the collection of empirical data is vitally
important. Before any piece of empirical data is collected, honest researchers carefully
design their research methods to ensure the accuracy, quality, and integrity of the data.
Phase One: Preliminary Research
Brainstorm about topics that interest you that are related to the class umbrella
topic of information competency, such as problems related to the nation’s industrialized
food system, corporate America, advertising, news media, media multinationals, and the
Internet. Do some preliminary research. At this stage, you can start with a fairly casual
search, simply using the Internet. Steer clear of blogs and opinion sites. Look for sites
sponsored by professional organizations, such as the American Academy of Pediatrics
(AAP); government organizations, like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC); “.edu sites” (the domain name “edu” is a sponsored top-level domain sponsored
by United States-affiliated institutions of higher education); and reputable research
groups, NGOs, and NPOs, like the Pew Research Center, The Center for Investigative
Reporting (CIR), and Reporters without Borders. Some reputable, nonpartisan
periodicals, like the Columbia Journalism Review (CJR), sponsored by Columbia
University's Graduate School of Journalism, have articles and resources available online.
While much of what you find on the Internet is worthless and even misleading,
there are also lots of places online where you can find information that will give you
overviews of and insights into contemporary problems relevant to the topics. See
“Evaluating Websites” later in this class pack. Websites may also direct you to primary
research on your topic that you can use in your paper. Look for information on problems
that have solutions that your readers can participate in.
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Phase Two: Framing Research Questions
Now you can start to frame research questions. One or more research questions
are essential before beginning the serious, scholarly stage of a research project. Research
questions are an organizing element for the topic under study. They focus the researcher’s
investigation into a narrow enough topic area and guide every aspect of the research
project. The research question responds to the inquiry, “What do I want to know about
my topic?” For example, if the topic is childhood obesity, the first research question
might be, “How many children in the United States are clinically obese?” Other questions
would include, “What are the main causes of childhood obesity?” “What is the impact of
obesity on children’s health? “What is the impact of childhood obesity upon people when
they reach adulthood, middle age, and old age?” “What are the economic costs to the
United States of childhood obesity?” and “What recommendations do experts who have
carefully researched the topic propose to curb childhood obesity?”
Phase Three: Begin to Craft an Argumentative Thesis
Develop a debatable position that you will use the evidence in the body of your
paper to defend. Your paper will be a series of arguments in support of an assertion that
reasonable people can agree or disagree with; your task is to anticipate opposing
viewpoints and present enough evidence from research and logical reasoning to make
your assertion—the conclusion of your arguments—as convincing as possible. Your
thesis is the reason for writing the paper: the organizing idea. You will explain, argue,
and justify your points. Since, in this class, you will be asked to examine a problem, you
must formulate a thesis that will allow you to suggest a solution that your paper will
present in detail in the body. This is a research class; you should not try to invent a
solution on your own. Evaluate the ideas of experts who have spent years researching the
topic and related issues. Find the solutions that you think are best, and present one or
more of them in your thesis.
As you think about solutions, make sure that you find ones that are plausible.
(This is why you should be conducting research into what experts suggest.) All too often,
students make suggestions that simply won’t work, either because they are not thinking
about the way people really behave, or they don’t understand the workings of a
democracy. We cannot, for example, pass laws where the government dictates what the
news media can and cannot do. We cannot pass laws that fast food restaurants must sell
only healthy food or that they must pay for advertisements promoting exercise or healthy
food. We cannot pass laws that say advertising agencies cannot use thin models. Keep in
mind that you should be trying to empower your readers—that is how change is brought
about. It is not enough to express wishful thinking over what other people and entities
should do; your thesis should suggest areas in the body of your paper where you will
discuss steps that your readers can take.
Remember that this is a tentative thesis. As you gather data, you may discover
new information that will cause you to change your original thesis; there is nothing
wrong with this—research is about discovering the most accurate information and the
best answers to problems. It should be a learning process.
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Phase Four: Begin Scholarly Research
After your topic and a tentative thesis have been approved, start doing serious
scholarly research. Keep all of your research questions in mind, including ones dealing
with recommendations for solutions. As BC students, you have access to hundreds of
scholarly, peer-reviewed journals—and all for free. Going online to the library website,
you will see a list of companies that provide databases. You can search these databases,
limiting your search to “Academic Journals,” meaning scholarly, peer-reviewed journals.
Books by reputable experts can give you a lot of information about a topic, as well.
Remember that you will have to evaluate your sources. (More information on this can be
found later in the class pack and in online handouts.)
Phase Five: Draft a Tentative Outline
The outline will help you organize your thinking about your research and
assertions. Think about the order in which you should present your research findings and
reasoning, you will include phrases summarizing your main points and supporting points,
as well as additional supporting detail. This will help you determine not only the most
effective order in which to present your data, but alert you to areas that may need more
research and support. Think again about the solutions that you propose. Are they
practical and concrete? Do you clearly present suggestions that your readers could
implement that have a chance of helping to effect change, or are you relying on wishful
thinking about what “the government” or other entities “should” do?
Phase Six: Write a First Draft
It is important to write a first draft as early as possible before the final draft is due.
Writing can itself be a way of creating and developing new ideas, but, apart from that, a
first draft will help show you what information from research you may need to add and
help you think more about your audience and the types of questions and skepticism your
imagined readers may have about your data and ideas. Before you start, re-read the class
“General Essay Guidelines.” They spell out, in detail, basic requirements about your
thesis, proper attribution of ideas, how to avoid plagiarism, use of sources and evidence,
audience, tone, style, structure, and format. As you write your first draft, keep your
tentative thesis in mind. Think again about the solutions that you propose. Are they
practical and concrete, or do they simply express wishful thinking? Would they even be
legal in the United States?
Also, don’t try to start by writing the introduction. Introductions are an overview
of what your paper is about, and they contain the thesis. Think about your thesis, but
write your body paragraphs first. The introduction may be the first part of a paper that the
audience reads, but it should be one of the last parts that you write. You can write your
introduction and your conclusion after you are satisfied with the body of the paper. They
will both be easier to write then. Remember that a conclusion sums up the points that you
have offered in defense of your thesis—it does not contain any new information.
It is important to write your first draft as early as possible because is virtually impossible
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to successfully proofread and edit a paper right after you write it. When we read a paper
we have just written, it seems very clear because we know what we meant to convey.
Our minds “helpfully” fill in gaps for us. Another reader of the paper would have a
different experience. A day or more after you write a paper, it is much easier to put
yourself in the position of a general audience member and see all sorts of gaps, confusing
material, and mistakes.
Phase Seven: Edit Early Drafts to Create a Finished Research Paper
Editing is not the same as proofreading—proofreading means looking for
mistakes in areas like format, spelling, punctuation, and grammar. With editing, you are
focusing on content—on the evidence that you are presenting and on the way that you are
presenting it and supporting your ideas. Proofreading is about looking at little details—
editing is more about looking at the big picture. Proofreading is important, but when you
look at the early drafts of your paper, you should be thinking about the depth of your
research and the persuasiveness of your arguments. You may have to go through several
drafts to create a truly successful finished research paper.
Our library lets you search for books and find scholarly journal articles online:
Evaluating Websites
Every source that you use in a paper must be evaluated, and you will be
submitting evaluations of all the sources that you use or plan to use in a paper as part of
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the research paper process steps. Since I have suggested that you use the Internet as you
collect preliminary information to choose a topic and craft a tentative thesis statement,
I’ll discuss evaluating websites here. A discussion of evaluating other types of source will
be included later in the class pack. Almost anything can be put online, so it is necessary
to critically evaluate the information you find on the web. Resources that you find on the
Internet range widely—many merely provide opinions or information in support of
specific, partisan viewpoints. A first step in evaluating an online source is to look at the
“About Us” page. Who sponsors the site? Don’t assume a scholarly, nonpartisansounding statement of purpose is always accurate—you may have to look up the
sponsoring organizations and their sponsors, too. University-sponsored sites,
organizations of professionals in different disciplines, and reputable nongovernment
organizations (NGOs) and nonprofit organizations (NPOS) are often very useful.
Following are questions that you can ask when you find websites that look like they
might provide you with useful data. Just keep in mind that scholarly, peer-reviewed
journals are among the very best sources to go to for information that you can use, as
experts have already evaluated the articles that journals publish.
Authorship
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Does the site have an author?
What are the author’s qualifications or expertise in the area?
Is the contact information for the author or the sponsor/publisher given?
What is the relationship between the author and the sponsoring institution?
Accuracy
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Is the information accurate?
Has the information been edited/fact-checked?
Is the information verifiable?
Does the site document the sources used?
If the information is historical or biographical, are the dates of events accurate?
How does the information compare with what you already know?
Currency
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Is the site up-to-date?
When was the information created or last updated?
Are the links expired or current?
Point of View
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Whose point of view/perspective is given?
Is the author simply promoting an agenda?
To what extent is the information trying to sway the opinion of the audience?
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Who sponsors the site? If a sponsoring organization is given, look at its “About
Us” section, but don’t stop there. Sponsors want to present themselves in the best
light possible; no group that intends to suppress information and promote only
biased perspectives is going to announce that.
Is there advertising on the page? If so, what kinds of things are being advertised?
What is the purpose of the Website?
Do a quick scan of the site. Can you determine its general purpose? Is it meant
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To provide research and scholarly information?
To provide educational or factual information?
To entertain?
To advertise, market or sell something?
To advocate ideas? To persuade you?
Who is the intended audience?
“URL” is an acronym for Uniform Resource Locator. It has two main components: the
protocol identifier, like “http,” and the resource name. For the URL http://example.com,
the resource name is example.com. A resource name can indicate the site’s intended
audience. Knowing this provides clues as to the site’s value and reliability.
Most common domain names
Domain Meaning
created at a college or university
.edu
Example
www.indiana.edu
.gov
created by an official U.S. federal agency or office www.federalreserve.gov
.org
varies - in most cases the site was created by a
nonprofit organization or an individual
.com
varies - in most cases the site was created by a for- www.amazon.com
profit organization
.net
varies greatly - often indicates that the site was
www.earthlink.net
created by a person, group, and so on that uses an
Internet service provider
.mil
created by the U.S. military
.in.us
created by state-supported institution of Indiana - www.monroe.lib.in.us
the .us domain requires a state code as a second
level domain
www.npr.org
www.usmc.mil
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Always look at a site’s “About Us” page.
Is It Scholarly? Tips for Critically Evaluating Sources
What is a scholarly source?
Scholarly sources (also referred to as academic, peer-reviewed, or refereed) are
written by experts in a particular field and serve to keep others interested in that field up
to date on the most recent research, findings, and news. These resources will provide the
most substantial and trustworthy information for your research and papers.
What is peer review?
When a source has been peer-reviewed, it has undergone the review and scrutiny
of a review board of colleagues in the author's field. They evaluate this source as part of
the body of research for a particular discipline and make recommendations regarding its
publication in a journal, revisions prior to publication, or, in some cases, reject its
publication.
Why use scholarly sources?
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The authority and credibility evident in scholarly sources will contribute a great
deal to the overall quality of your papers. Use of scholarly sources is an expected
attribute of academic course work.
How can you tell if a source is scholarly?
The following characteristics can help you differentiate scholarly sources from
those that are not. Be sure and look at the criteria in each category when making your
determination, rather than basing your decision on only one criterion.
Criteria
Authors
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Are authors’ names included?
Are authors’ credentials provided?
Are the credentials relevant to the information provided?
Publishers
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Who is the publisher of the information?
Is the publisher an academic institution, scholarly, or professional organization?
Is their purpose for publishing this source evident?
Audience
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Who is the intended audience of this source?
Is the language geared toward those with knowledge of a specific discipline or the
general public?
Content
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Why is the information being provided or the article written?
Are sources cited?
Are there references to other writings on this topic?
Are there charts, graphs, tables, and bibliographies included?
Are research claims documented?
Are conclusions based on evidence provided?
Timeliness (Currency)
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Is the date of publication evident?
Is currency of the information crucial to your research?
Additional tips for specific source types
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Each specific resource type will also have criteria that can be applied to that source.
Books
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Date of publication and currency
o Is the information current enough for your purposes?
o Is a historical perspective important?
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Publishers
o University press - likely to be scholarly
o Professional organizations and the U.S. Government Printing Office can
also be indicators of scholarly content.
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Are there any book reviews?
o Check sources such as Book Review Index and Contemporary Authors
(available through our library)
o
Search databases in the subject area or your topic to locate book reviews
(also available through our library)
Articles
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Is biographical information for the author provided?
Who is the publisher?
How frequently is the periodical published?
Are there advertisements I the periodical? If so, how many and what kinds of
advertisements are present? For example, is the advertising clearly geared towards
readers in a specific discipline, age group, or occupation?
For more specific guidelines in identifying periodical types, see “Is It Scholarly?
Distinguishing Periodical Types” in this class pack.
Websites
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What is the domain of the page?
Who is publishing or sponsoring the page? “Strip back” the URL to discover the
source of the page.
Is contact information for the author/publisher provided?
How recently was the page updated?
Be particularly wary of bias when viewing web pages. Anyone can create a web
page about any topic. You must verify the validity of the information.
For more specific guidelines in evaluating web pages, see “Evaluating Websites”
earlier in this class pack.
Is It Scholarly? Distinguishing Periodical Types
The following table lists some of the distinguishing characteristics among different types
of periodicals.
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CRITERIA
Purpose for
Publication
Scholarly Journals
(also called academic,
peer-reviewed, and
refereed)
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General
Characteristics
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Professional and
Trade Periodicals
Inform and report
original research
Provide in-depth
analysis of issues
related to a specific
discipline
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Lengthy articles
Citations,
bibliographies
Charts, graphs,
tables
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Popular and Special
Interest Magazines
Current trends,
news, and
research in a
specific field
Provide
employment &
career
information
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Entertain,
inform, and
persuade
without
providing indepth analysis
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Some research
articles
Statistics and
forecasts
Sources cited
Articles usually
fairly short
Sources
generally not
cited
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Frequency of
Publication
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Often quarterly
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Often monthly
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Usually
monthly or
weekly
Author
Information
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Scholars and
professors
Researchers in the
field
Author credentials
included
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Scholars
Staff writers
Freelance
journalists
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Freelance
journalists
Editorial staff
Authors may
not be identified
Generally lengthy
Focus on a narrow
subject or piece of
research
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Varying lengths
Research
articles
News from the
field
"How to"
information
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Usually short
General
information,
little detail
Language
specific to
those in a given
profession
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Common
language and
sentence
structure, no
jargon
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Article
Characteristics
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Words and
Jargon Used
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Terminology used
by scholars in the
discipline
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Research Information Sets
You will be turning in a research information set for each of the scholarly sources
that you find for your research papers. (You may use assigned readings that I have
provided the class, but you must find additional scholarly sources on your own.) Each of
the sets will be for a separate, individual source. There is no maximum number of sources
for your paper. Your sources should primarily be from scholarly journals and books.
Indicate through use of quotation marks (and indentations for quotations over four
lines) when a source’s exact wording is used so that you do not find yourself
inadvertently plagiarizing in your research paper when you use information from your
sources. Include in-text citations for your notes; that will make it easier for you when you
write the paper.
Format your document according to MLA guidelines with your name, your
professor’s name, the class, and the date in the upper left-hand corner of the first page; a
title centered on the first page above the body (just identify it as a research information
set, with the number); and your last name and page number in the upper right-hand corner
of every page. You can find an example of what a research information set should look
like on the online class outline and in the online research paper information section.
Each research information set should include these four sections:
1. An MLA-style work cited entry in exactly the format that you will be using for
your paper. For example, if you have two or more articles from one anthology,
then you should do a cross-referenced entry, meaning that you will have one entry
for the anthology and one entry in abbreviated format for the article: author, title,
editor's last name, and page numbers. (An article found in an anthology is your
source, not the anthology itself.)
2. A brief summary of the essay, article, book, or chapter of book that you use.
You may make this a rhetorical précis if you choose (instructions follow).
3. An evaluation section using an objective source and indicating what that
objective source is. This means that you are using reference guides, reviews, and
so on to evaluate sources, not giving me your opinion of the source. For help on
evaluating sources, see the section below, “Instructions for Evaluations.”
Remember, if you do not tell me where you got the information, I will not give
you credit for the evaluation.
4. Five notes, properly cited, containing information from your source (not
your own ideas) that you believe you will be able to use in your paper. Make
sure that the notes mare clearly understandable—don't offer snippets of
information that make no sense out of context. The notes can be summaries,
paraphrases, direct quotations, or any combination of the three. Just remember
that the paper itself should contain no more than 15% to 20% direct quotations.
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Instructions for Evaluations
For periodicals, you can use Magazines for Libraries (MFL), which is available in the
BC library. This will give you the reputation of the periodical, including indicating if it is
a scholarly (peer-reviewed). If the periodical is not found in Magazines for Libraries, use
the “publication information” in Gale Expanded Academic or EBSCOhost. You can also
often find out information about scholarly journals online.
A scholarly journal is, by definition, peer-reviewed by specialists in the field, so
that is relevant information for your evaluation. If the journal has an online component, it
probably has some kind of “about” section that will give you more information about the
journal itself. The article should give you credentials and university or organization
affiliations of the authors. People do not write reviews about articles, so simply indicate
that the article is from a scholarly journal and give relevant information provided for the
authors, such as degrees, disciplines, and university and professional affiliations.
For books, you should summarize reviews taken from sources like Book Review Digest
or discuss the author’s credentials and expertise with information from Contemporary
Authors. You can often find reviews in scholarly journals and in respected newspapers
and magazine that employ experts in the given areas to review books. Check Gale
Expanded Academic or EBSCOhost for a review. You can go to the library to consult the
volumes of Book Review Digest; the library has print copies. When you find information
in BRD, please indicate where BRD found the review. If you do not find a review in
BRD, use Gale Expanded Academic, EBSCOhost, or LexisNexis for reviews. Do not
assume that the comments included with a book itself are objective—people who are
trying to sell books are not objective about their products. If you can find no information
except from the book itself, tell me where you looked first (see above) and tell me that
the information is from the book.
For websites, see the section on evaluating websites earlier in this class pack. Do not use
Wikipedia (or other wikis), Yahoo! Voices, blogs, or sites run by students or amateurs.
In some cases, you will not be able to find an evaluation for a source. When that
happens, you must still indicate where you looked and the steps that you followed in your
attempt to evaluate the source. Don’t just skip that step in your research information set;
if you do, you will lose points. Ask the BC reference librarians for help when you need it.
They are extremely knowledgeable and helpful and will be happy to answer your
questions. They also conduct a number of workshops, including ones on finding and
evaluating sources, throughout the semester. You can earn extra credit by taking these
workshops.
When you turn in the final version of your research papers, you will also have to
turn in highlighted photocopies of your sources, so you should start that process as you
work on these sets. With books, all you need to copy are the sections that contain cited
information. With articles, you should copy or print out the entire article. (You do not
need to make copies of sources found in the class textbooks or handouts.) See the online
instructions for the photocopies of sources for more details. They are found on your
class’s home page in the research papers section and on the class outline.
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The Rhetorical Précis
Margaret Woodworth developed a reading/writing method called “the rhetorical
précis,” which significantly helped students at various levels, particularly in their reading
comprehension and preparation for using source materials in their own academic writing.
A rhetorical précis has only four sentences, each of which has specific guidelines:
1. Name of author, genre, and title of work, date in parentheses, a rhetorically
accurate verb (such as “asserts,” “argues,” “suggests,” or “claims”), and a “that”
clause containing the major assertion (thesis statement) of the work. Optional: an
appositive (a phrase describing the author) following the author’s name.
2. An explanation of how the author develops and/or supports the thesis, usually in
chronological order.
3. A statement of the author’s apparent purpose, followed by an “in order” phrase.
4. A description of the intended audience and/or the relationship the author
establishes with the audience. (Establishing the tone of the piece can be helpful
with this last part; see the MacFarquhar and Dionne examples.)
Examples
In the article “Who Cares if Johnny Can’t Read?” (1997), Larissa MacFarquhar
asserts that people in the US are reading more than ever despite claims to the contrary
and that we should reconsider why “experts” value certain kinds of “high culture”
reading so much. MacFarquhar supports her argument about American reading habits
with facts and statistics that compare past and present reading practices, and she
challenges common assumptions by raising questions about reading’s intrinsic value. Her
purpose is to dispel certain myths about reading in order to raise new and more important
questions about the value of reading and other media in our culture. She seems to have a
young and somewhat irreverent audience in mind, possibly college students, because her
tone is sarcastic, and she suggests that the ideas she opposes are old-fashioned positions.
1. The first sentence identifies the author (Larissa MacFarquhar), the genre (article),
the title and date, and uses an active verb (asserts) and the relative pronoun that to
explain exactly what MacFarquhar asserts.
2. The second sentence explains how the writer supports her assertions by stating, in
chronological order, that MacFarquhar first presents facts and statistics and next
challenges common assumptions by raising questions.
3. The third sentence presents the author’s purpose and why (in order to) she has set
out that purpose (or seems to have set out that purpose—not all works are explicit
about this information, and readers have to put the pieces together).
4. The final sentence identifies what appears to be the primary audience of the essay
(college students) due to her tone.
Let’s look at another example and then break it down sentence by sentence in order to
understand how the author of the précis meets the requirements.
15
In an excerpt from his book Why Americans Hate Politics (1991), reprinted in the
anthology Left, Right, and Center, edited by James Cornwell, E. J. Dionne, a Washington
Post political columnist, argues that strident ideologues on both the left and the right
shave polarized politics and crowded out serious debate and reasonable compromise
about fundamental problems. He supports his claims by providing examples of divisive
positions taken by influential leaders on each end of the political spectrum and providing
evidence of disillusionment with politics and politicians among the rank and file,
contrasting this with movements toward democracy in other parts of the world (328-45).
Dionne’s purpose is to warn readers that democracy may be failing in the United States
because of powerful special-interest groups and voter apathy in order to stimulate people
to a “back-to-basics” approach to politics that recognizes the importance of civil
discourse, compromise, and the search for common ground in order to accomplish real
and needed change. His tone is serious but also cautiously hopeful; he has in mind an
audience of intelligent, concerned people who have not become too alienated to no longer
care or believe that they can effect change.
1. “In an excerpt from his book Why Americans Hate Politics (1991), reprinted in
the anthology Left, Right, and Center, edited by James Cornwell, E. J. Dionne, a
Washington Post political columnist, argues that strident ideologues on both the
left and the right shave polarized politics and crowded out serious debate and
reasonable compromise about fundamental problems.”
Who is the author of the work? E. J. Dionne, a Washington Post political
columnist. What is the genre? It is an excerpt taken from a book written by
Dionne. What is the title and date? The excerpt itself does not have its own title,
but the book it is taken from is called Why Americans Hate Politics, and it was
published in 1991. What is the rhetorically accurate verb (what is Dionne
doing in the piece?) “asserts.” What does he “assert”? “[T]hat strident
ideologues on both the left and the right shave polarized politics and crowded out
serious debate and reasonable compromise about fundamental problems.”
2. “He supports his claims by providing examples of divisive positions taken by
influential leaders on each end of the political spectrum and providing evidence of
disillusionment with politics and politicians among the rank and file, contrasting
this with movements toward democracy in other parts of the world.”
How does the author develop or support the thesis? “[B]y providing examples
of divisive positions taken by influential leaders on each end of the political
spectrum and providing evidence of disillusionment with politics and politicians
among the rank and file, contrasting this with movements toward democracy in
other parts of the world.”
3. “Dionne’s purpose is to warn readers that democracy may be failing in the United
States because of powerful special-interest groups and voter apathy in order to
stimulate people to a ‘back-to-basics’ approach to politics that recognizes the
importance of civil discourse, compromise, and the search for common ground in
16
order to accomplish real and needed change.”
What is the author’s apparent purpose? His “purpose is to warn readers that
democracy may be failing in the United States because of powerful specialinterest groups and voter apathy”; he does this in order to “stimulate people to a
‘back-to-basics’ approach to politics that recognizes the importance of civil
discourse, compromise, and the search for common ground in order to accomplish
real and needed change.”
4. “His tone is serious but also cautiously hopeful; he has in mind an audience of
intelligent, concerned people who have not become too alienated to no longer care
or believe that they can effect change.”
Who is his intended audience? “intelligent, concerned people who have not
become too alienated to no longer care or believe that they can effect change”;
what relationship does the author establish with the audience? “[H]is tone is
serious but also cautiously hopeful,” [so he seems to want to win his readers over
to his way of thinking for their own—and the country’s—good.]
Other examples and a template for developing a rhetorical précis can be found on the
class online outline.
Here are examples of terms that can be used in a rhetorical précis:
genre
rhetorically
accurate verb
verb followed
by evidence
in order to
the author's
tone is
article
argues
comparing . . . . convince
formal
book
asserts
contrasting . . . . inform
earnest
book review
claims
defining . . . .
persuade
grave
chapter in ___
explains
describing
point out
humorous
excerpt from ___
implies
exploring . . . .
demonstrate
concerned
that
column
suggests
explaining . . . . show
informal
editorial
questions
illustrating . . . . suggest that
serious
17
Research Paper Structure
Structure and organization are integral components of an effective argumentative
research paper. No matter how intelligent the ideas, a paper lacking a strong introduction,
well-organized body paragraphs, and an insightful conclusion is not an effective paper.
The Introduction
Simply enough, the introductory paragraph introduces the argument(s) of your paper.
A well-constructed introductory paragraph immediately captures the interest of your
reader and gives appropriate background information about the paper’s topic. You want
your readers to understand why the problems that you are exploring are worthy of serious
consideration on their part. Try to imagine a general audience of diverse people with
different backgrounds and viewpoints. This paragraph might include a brief summary of
the ideas to be discussed in your paper’s body, as well as other information relevant to
your paper’s argument. The most important function of the introduction, however, is to
present a clear statement of your paper’s argument(s). This sentence is your paper’s
thesis. The thesis sentence should reflect both the position that you will argue and present
a preview of what suggestions the paper will make to readers about how they can help
provide solutions to the problem (or aspects of the problem). The most effective place for
a thesis in a college paper is the last sentence. That helps to make your point clearer and
more forceful. The preceding sentences should build up to that sentence. The following
are helpful questions for you to consider when formulating a tentative thesis sentence:



What is the argument that I am trying to convince the reader to accept?
How exactly do I expect to convince the reader that this argument is sound?
What do I want my readers to do?
While the introduction is the first part of your paper that your audience will see, it
should not be the first part that you write. Create a tentative thesis first because that is
what guides the body of your paper, but the introduction shouldn’t be written until after
you have finished the body of the paper. It is a lot easier to introduce a paper that you
have written than one that you haven’t written. The introduction and the conclusion are
like mirror images of each other, one telling your readers what you will prove, and the
other telling your readers what you have proven. You can write them both after you have
finished the paper’s first draft. (Writing tip: Do not use phrases like “This paper will be
about,” “This paper will explore,” and so on; such phrases are obvious, boring, and make
a paper look amateurish.) When you are ready to begin your introduction, some possible
questions to consider are the following:





How can I grab my readers’ attention?
Why is what I am writing about important?
What is the scope of the problems that this paper will explore?
What are some of the questions that this paper’s arguments raise?
What are some real-world applications of this paper’s arguments?
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The Body
The body of your paper contains the actual development of your paper’s
argument. Each body paragraph presents a single idea or set of related ideas that provide
support for your paper’s argument. Your paper will be composed of numerous body
paragraphs, and the paragraphs themselves should be ordered in a logical manner. Each
section discussing main points will probably involve several paragraphs. Drafting an
outline before you begin writing is a very helpful step in this process. Because each body
paragraph should be a step in your argument, you should be mindful of their overall
organization.
The first step in writing an effective body paragraph is the construction of the
topic sentence. The topic sentence may be the first sentence in the paragraph, but other
strategies include beginning with a transitional sentence linking the paragraph to the one
before it (though it is equally effective to use the last sentence of the preceding paragraph
to provide the transition), beginning with an interesting quotation, or beginning with a
rhetorical question. Just make sure that the paragraph has a clear topic sentence
somewhere. Just as the thesis sentence holds your paper together, a topic holds each
individual body paragraph together. A body paragraph’s topic sentence serves one main
purpose: clarifying the content of the paragraph and connecting it to the overall purpose
of your arguments.
A good way to test the strength of both your topic sentences and your arguments
is to construct a preliminary draft outline of your paper using only your paper’s thesis
statement and topic sentences. This outline should be a logical overview of your paper’s
arguments; all of your paper’s topic sentences should work together to support your
thesis statement. While these topic sentences would not be main headings in your
outline, they indicate the information included in subsections, and such a preliminary
draft outline is a helpful first step in creating your more formal outline, which you will be
turning in as part of your research paper process steps.
The Conclusion
The basic purpose of your paper’s conclusion is both to restate the paper’s argument
and to restate how you have supported this argument in the paper. However, your
conclusion should not simply be a copy of your introduction. The conclusion draws
together the threads of the paper’s argument and shows how the empirical evidence you
have provided from your research and the logic of your arguments has supported your
thesis, which you should reiterate. Restate the content, but with different wording for the
sake of variety. (Tip: Do not begin a conclusion with phrases like “In conclusion . . .”;
they are obvious, boring, and make a paper look amateurish.) As with your introduction,
some possible questions to consider when writing your conclusion are the following:



Why is what I am writing about important?
What are some of the questions that this paper’s arguments raise?
What are some real world applications of this paper’s arguments?
19
Research Paper Outlines
Create preliminary outlines of major points that you plan to include in a paper.
This will provide the structure and specific arguments that you are mapping out. As you
prepare an outline, you should keep in mind areas that will need more development.
The introduction and conclusion of your paper are not included in your outlines.
The thesis is a single statement that precedes the outline. Use Roman numerals to
indicate the main body sections of your paper and capital letters for the next subsections.
You must always have more than one subsection. Subsections of these are indicated with
Arabic numerals, and, if you have further subdivisions, use lower-case letters. Write
phrases or sentences that will make sense and clearly indicate what you will be talking
about. Use parallel structure—be consistent in your pattern of phrases and sentences. If
you state your first main section as an assertion, state all of the following in the same
way. If you frame your first main body section heading as a question, do the same with
the following.
Types of Outlines
The two main types of outline are the topic outline and the sentence outline. In the
topic outline, the headings are given in single words or brief phrases. In the sentence
outline, all the headings are expressed in complete sentences. For this class, topic
outlines are fine. You may do a full-sentence outline of you choose; just do not mix
phrases and sentences. Choose one approach and stay with it.
Format for Outlines
Subdivide topics by a specific system of numbers and letters, followed by a
period. Please pay careful attention to the sample on the next page so that you do not mix
up Roman and Arabic numerals, letters and numerals, and so on. Make sure that you
indent sections and subsection properly.
The only sections included in an outline cover body paragraphs, not introductions
or conclusions. There is no set number of main sections—obviously, you will have at
least two, but you may have more. Each heading and subheading must have at least two
parts. If you cannot think of two parts, than that information would simply be a
subheading of the section above it.
Include your thesis at the top of the document, before you begin the actual outline.
Remember the following:




A thesis statement is a single declarative sentence—an assertion, not a question—
that asserts what your essay will prove;
Your thesis should make an assertion that reasonable people can disagree about,
not simply state a fact (avoid simply stating something obvious);
Your thesis should indicate what your readers can do about the problem or
problems your paper will address;
Your thesis should be well supported by the body of the paper—you should be
able to convince skeptical readers, not just people who already believe as you do.
20
Outline
Thesis statement: Remember, this precedes the outline.
I. First main body section (Roman numeral)
A. First subheading (capital letter)
1. Supporting information (Arabic numeral)
a. More Detail (lowercase letter)
b. More Detail (lowercase letter)
2. Supporting information (Arabic numeral)
a. More detail (lowercase letter)
b. More detail (lowercase letter)
B. Second subheading (capital letter)
1. Supporting information (Arabic numeral)
a. More detail (lowercase letter)
b. More detail (lowercase letter)
2. Supporting information (Arabic numeral)
a. More detail (lowercase letter)
b. More detail (lowercase letter)
C. Third subheading (capital letter)
1. Supporting information (Arabic numeral)
a. More detail (lowercase letter)
b. More detail (lowercase letter)
2. Supporting information (Arabic numeral)
a. More detail (lowercase letter)
b. More detail (lowercase letter)
II. Second main body section (Roman numeral)
[sections divided like those above]
III. Third main body section (Roman numeral), etc.
There is no set number of main sections; just remember that any section and
subsection should have a minimum of two parts, but no section or subsection is limited to
just two parts. Also, the introduction and conclusion are not part of the outline because
they simply summarize what you will write about and prove, or have written about and
proven; they do not contain any information not found in the body.
21
MLA Guidelines for Paper Format
General Appearance
MLA style requires that the general appearance and basic physical layout of your paper
conform to certain guidelines. These guidelines are as follows:







Paper Size: Your paper should be printed on one side only of eight-and-a-half-by
eleven-inch white paper with one-inch margins on all sides.
Alignment: Justification is the term used to explain how the type is aligned on
your paper. Justify the lines of your paper at the left margin, don’t full-justify
them; center the title and the heading for the list of works cited in the paper.
Font Size: Choose a simple, legible font like Times New Roman, 12 point.
Sentence Spacing: MLA style recommends using only one space after terminal
punctuation marks (periods, question marks, and exclamation points).
Line Spacing: The entire paper (with the exception of content footnotes, if you
have them) should be double spaced, including your heading; indented quotations
(any quotations that are longer than four lines should be indented); any endnotes,
tables and appendices; and the works cited page or any other source lists. Don’t
add extra spaces above or below titles or in between the works cited entries.
Paragraph Spacing: Indent the first line of each paragraph one-half inch from
the left margin, and do not add extra spaces between paragraphs. Word
sometimes adds some extra space between paragraphs, but you can fix that. In the
Home tab, look for the Paragraph buttons. Click the Line Spacing button. Select
“Remove Space After Paragraph.”
Fastening: Most instructors prefer that you fasten the pages with a single staple
in the upper-left corner. Also, most instructors prefer that you do not use folders
and report covers because they must be removed prior to reading when they grade
your papers.
First Page
Title pages are no longer standard for research papers and other essays in MLA
style. Instead, use a simple personal and class identification heading followed by a
title centered above the body of your paper.
Personal and Class identification Heading
The heading appears in the upper-left corner and contains the following information;
just like the rest of the document, it should be entirely double-spaced.
1. Your full name.
2. Your professor’s name. The title “Professor” should precede his or her last
name; don’t use a first name.
3. The name of the course. Professors who teach more than one section of the same
course may also want students to follow the course name with a colon and the
22
starting time and days abbreviated to the days’ first letters, for example, English
1A: 1:00 TR; online classes can use CRNs, for example, English 1A: 71084.
4. The date the paper is due. The day should precede the month, which should not
be abbreviated, for example, 10 November 2014.
Title
The title of your essay should be carefully thought out and indicate the topic of
your paper. Avoid titles like “Research Paper One.” Your title should be double-spaced
below the heading and centered (remember not to add an extra line—the distance
between the last line of your heading and the title should be exactly the same as the
distance between each line of the heading and each line of the rest of the paper). Use the
Center Alignment icon in your toolbar to properly center the title; do not simply hit the
space bar until it looks like the title may be centered. The title should not be followed by
a period, but you can end it with a question mark if you can develop an interesting and
informative rhetorical question. Don’t italicize or underline your title or put it in bold
type or within quotation marks. (However, if you use part of a work’s title within your
own title, it should be formatted properly.)
In MLA format, books’ and journals’ titles are italicized or underlined, for
instance, and essays’ and poems’ titles are enclosed in quotation marks. MLA
recommends italics over underlining. Capitalize all words accept the following (unless
they are the first words of a title or subtitle): articles (a, an, and the), prepositions,
coordinating conjunctions, and the to in infinitives (as in “How to Capitalize Titles”). If
your title is lengthy enough to go to two or more lines, use an inverted pyramid. Here is
an example:
Gender Roles and Television: Changing Attitudes in the
United States and Great Britain
Header
In the upper right-hand corner of each page of your paper, you should provide a
header that consists of your last name, a space, and the page number positioned one-half
inch below the top of the page. This upper-right header will appear on every page of
your paper. You should not try to create this header by simply typing it in what you
judge to be the upper-right corner of each page because if you add or delete any
information, the header will no longer appear in the right place. Instead, use the
appropriate software command.
On the next page, you will see an example of what a first page should look like.
23
Doe 1
Jane Doe
Professor Dumler
English 1A: 1:00 TR
10 November 2014
Center Title of Paper
Begin your work one double-spaced line below your heading. Paragraphs should
begin with one-half inch tabbed indents. If you have any quotations of five lines or
longer, they should be indented one inch from the left margin. Drop the quotation marks.
Paper titles shouldn’t be underlined, italicized, enclosed in quotation marks, typed in all
capital letters, be in bold, be in a font larger than the rest of your work, or end with
periods.
Note the way the identification information is presented in the upper left corner of
the first page. Begin with your name, followed by “Professor” and your instructor’s last
name, followed by the class, followed by the date. Use the “header” function to insert
your last name and the correct page in the upper right corner of each page. If your
instructor teaches more than one section of the same class, he or she may ask for the days
and starting time. If this is the case, follow the class name with a colon, the starting time,
and letters indicating the days the class meets, for example, English 1A: 1:00 TR. For an
online class, use the CRN, for example, English 1A: 71084.
You will need works cited pages. Don’t create these pages in a separate
document or hit the space bar to set them off. Use “page break” to set off the page.
Everything on the works cited page should be double spaced.
24
MLA Parenthetical Citations
When You Should Use Parenthetical Citations
When you are writing a paper in MLA format, you need to indicate the sources
that you use each time you take information from any of them and, in the case of print
sources, the page numbers the information comes from. MLA papers use parenthetical
in-text citations rather than footnotes or endnotes for publication information. You must
cite all the nonfiction sources used within research papers and other essays, whether
paraphrased, summarized, or directly quoted, unless the material cited is considered
“common knowledge.” In-text citations are also used in MLA-style papers discussing
literary works to identify the page numbers for direct quotations from these works of
literature. (If you are writing about literature, you need in-text citations only for direct
quotations from the work, not for summaries of the plot, character descriptions, and other
comments about what takes place in the fictional world).
In-text citations don’t stand alone, of course. The first word in a parenthetical
citation, usually the last name of an author or the first important word or words of a work
when an author is not listed, must correspond to the first word or words that begin the
entries on your list of sources provided at the end of the paper. This way, your readers
can easily locate the full publication and other relevant information for each source that
you use in your paper. MLA style papers usually call these lists Works Cited if you
include citations only for material you used, Works Consulted if you also include
citations for material you read for background but didn’t actually incorporate into your
paper, and Sources Cited if you include material we cannot call “works,” such as
interviews and lectures.
Remember—you must document all ideas you take from nonfiction sources and
use in your papers, not just direct quotations. If you fail to do so, you are plagiarizing.
Formatting Direct Quotations
The term “direct quotation” refers to the use of a source’s exact wording. How we format
direct quotations and quoted material within quotations differs in MLA papers based on
the length of the direct quotations.
Quotations Fewer than Five Lines
Use regular quotation marks [ “ ” ] to enclose direct quotations of less than five lines (in
your paper, not the original source). Do not use the apostrophe key to indicate single
quotation marks [ ‘ ’ ] unless you are setting off material in your quotation that was
enclosed in quotation marks in the original source, as when your source is quoting
someone else or referring to an essay, poem, story, or article.
When asked the about the first poem he ever published, Raymond Carver replied, “The
25
poem was called ‘The Brass Ring,’ and it was published by a magazine in Arizona”
(Simpson and Buzzbee 78).
Quotations Five Lines or Longer
When you use a direct quotation in your paper that is five full lines or longer (in your
paper, not the original source you’re reading), you need to set off the quotation and
indent it. The list below gives the proper format for a long quotation.






Indent the entire quotation one inch.
Double space the quotation, just like the rest of the paper.
Do not change fonts or type sizes for a long quotation.
Do not use quotation marks. The indentation will indicate that this is a quotation
instead of quotation marks.
The end punctuation precedes the parenthetical citation instead of following it.
If you have quoted material within the quotation, enclose it within regular
quotation marks.
At the end of this month, two reporters will have to take the
witness stand in the trial of an alleged crime boss in New Orleans, because
a federal district court judge rejected their arguments that their testimony
would violate reporter’s privilege. At issue is an article Gordon Russell
and John Simerman wrote for the Times-Picayune in October 2012 about
an impending indictment against Telly Hankton and alleged members of
his gang (Currier).
The preceding information came from an electronic source without page numbers, so just
the author’s name is given. Note that with indented quotations, we indent a full inch form
the left margin, drop the quotation marks, and put the period at the end of the quotation,
not after the in-text citation. The top line is indented an extra half inch because it began a
paragraph. (Since this is a class pack and not a research paper, the quotation was not
double spaced.)
Placement of Parenthetical Citations
Place a citation as close to the quoted, paraphrased, or summarized material as
possible without disrupting the sentence. When material from one source and the same
page numbers is used throughout a paragraph, use one citation at the end of the paragraph
rather than a citation at the end of each sentence. However, if you have added your own
thoughts inside the paragraph, you will need multiple citations to distinguish between
your source’s ideas and your own.
In most cases, a parenthetical citation includes the author’s last name and the page
number for the information cited or just the page number if the author is identified
elsewhere in the sentence, but there are also instances when you will need to include
additional information in your citation or when an author is not named. Also, with
acceptable electronic sources increasingly available, you may not always have page
26
numbers. In these cases, having a citation with the author’s last name is a good idea even
if you have named the author earlier since it makes it clear that you are not plagiarizing
and indicates where the information from the source ends if you are paraphrasing or
summarizing rather than quoting. The following sections will give you the guidelines
for MLA in-text citations, including use of authors’ names, use of works’ names when
authors are not provided, placement of citations, and treatment of electronic sources.
Source’s Name Given in Your Sentence
Often you will introduce the author before giving the actual quotation, summary,
or paraphrase. In such cases, you need only include the page numbers in your
parenthetical citation. The reader will be able to find the author’s name in your sentence
and on the Works Cited page because you have given it in your text. In the citation, do
not use the abbreviations “p.” or “pg.” or the word “page” before the number; simply
provide the number. In the first two examples, the author is citing an author with the last
name of Zipes. Since the author is mentioned in the text of the paper, his name does not
need to appear in the citation. Notice that the sentences’ periods follow the citations;
they do not directly follow the sentences themselves. When you are quoting directly, the
closing quotation mark will precede the citation.
Paraphrased Material
Zipes argues that we really cannot absolutely separate the oral, folkloric fairy tale from
the literary fairy tale because we cannot trace stories to their origins (222).
Quoted Material
Zipes states that “This is an impossible task because there are very few if any records
with the exception of paintings, drawings, etchings, inscriptions and other cultural
artifacts that reveal how tales were told and received thousands of years ago” (222).
In the above example, note that we do not use a comma after “that.” Only use commas
before direct quotations following introductory words like “says,” “states,” “asserts,”
“questions,” “implies,” “suggests,” “argues,” and so on.
Quoted Material That Spans Two Pages
According to Pratkanis and Aronson, “Other researchers have found that unsubstantiated
evidence in a court of law can have an impact on juries, even when the judge explicitly
tells the jury to ignore the factoid” (110-11).
If the information is summarized or paraphrased instead of directly quoted, and it spans
more than one page, you would use the same paging format as indicated in the above
example.
Same Source Used More than Once in One Paragraph
27
You may quote the same source more than once in a single paragraph . As long as you do
not include any quotations from other sources or any information that you have thought
of on your own in between, you can use one parenthetical citation after the last quotation.
Separate the different page numbers with commas.
“Austen’s irony is both worldly and unworldly, finding nothing to be surprised at in
human immorality, but nothing to be cynically indulged about it either.” Her irony is
subtle and put to the task of defending the cultural and moral status quo. “One should not
be misled by Austen’s good-natured irony into imagining that she is, in the modern sense
of the word, a liberal” (Eagleton 107, 108).
Note that a comma is used between the different page numbers, not a hyphen, because the
student writing the paper is taking different quotations from different pages, not
presenting a single quotation, summary, or paraphrase that spans pages.
Source’s Name Not Given in Your Sentence
If you do not provide the name of the author in your own sentence, you will need
to provide the name in your parenthetical citation. (Later examples will show you what to
do when authors are not provided by sources). When you are taking material from
individuals who are not themselves experts in a given discipline, such as reporters who
are presenting information generated by others, you will not introduce these writers. In
other instances, you may have introduced an expert source earlier. When a source is not
identified before a quotation, paraphrase, or summary, provide the name of the source, a
space and then the page number. If a source does not give an author, use the first
important word or words of the title, properly formatted.
Paraphrased Material
Following the Thomas-Hill hearings, sexual harassment became an issue of greater
importance to the American public (Mayer and Abramson 352).
Quoted Material
“But it may have been inside the Senate itself that the hearings left their most lasting
impression” (Mayer and Abramson 352-53).
Quoted Material That Spans Two Pages
“Other researchers have found that unsubstantiated evidence in a court of law can have an
impact on juries, even when the judge explicitly tells the jury to ignore the factoid”
(Pratkanis and Aronson 110-11).
Note in the above two examples that hyphens are used between the first and last page
numbers, not commas, because the quotations span two pages; you would do the same for
28
individual sections of summarized or paraphrased material that also span more than one
page.
No Author Provided by Source
If a source does not include an author’s name, substitute a shortened form of the
title in the parenthetical citation. You can use the first important word or more; the idea
is to give as short a form of the title as you can without risking it being confused with a
similar title beginning another entry on your works cited page. Format the title words the
same way they are formatted on the works cited page; if the title is in quotation marks on
that page, it must be treated the same way in the citation, and so on.
Quoted Material from a Print Source with No Author Given
“In the post-9/11 era, many of us feel far less safe than we did before. Even before 9/11,
however, advertisers knew how to play on our fears” (“Advertising” 539).
Quoted Material from an Electronic Source with No Author Given
The American Academy of Pediatrics advocates a number of changes to make children
safe from gun violence. One suggestion is that the federal government “enact stronger
gun laws, including an effective assault weapons ban; mandatory background checks on
all firearm purchases; and a ban on high-capacity ammunition magazines” (“Federal”).
In the above example, information was taken from the web site of the American
Academy of Pediatrics. The section used was titled “Federal Policies to Keep Children
Safe.” We do not use sponsors or organizations in citations when there is no author
provided; instead, we use the first important word or words of the title, properly
formatted. Since this was an article, this means using quotation marks. “Important
words” means leaving out the parts of speech called “articles” (a, an, and the) if one of
these is the first word. (Note: These words are not moved or left out on the works cited
page, but they are ignored when alphabetizing the page’s entries.) If you used other
articles that did not provide authors that also began with the word “Federal,” you would
include more words in the citation to avoid confusion, such as “Federal Polices.”
Sometimes numbered paragraphs appear in an electronic source. In such cases, you may
use the paragraph numbers. The paragraph number should appear in your citation. After
the author’s name, you should include a comma and the abbreviation par. Do not count
paragraphs yourself—only indicate paragraphs if the source itself numbered them.
“The CIA's Publications Review Board has expressly forbidden Valerie Plame to reveal
details of her past at the Agency in her upcoming memoir, saying that she can't even say
she worked for them” (Douglas, par. 6).
Sources Quoting Other Works
29
If a source quotes someone else, indicate the quoted person’s name in your
sentence, and put the source’s name inside the citation preceded by the abbreviation for
“quoted in.” Do not use “qtd. in” if you are quoting your source’s own words; use it only
when your source is using someone else’s words.
Janet Smith pointed out that “the Grimms did not refrain from changing stories when it
suited their purposes” (qtd. in Tatar 321).
More Than One Work by the Same Author
If you are citing more than one work by an individual author, include the first
important word or words (don't use a, an, and the) of the title of the work you are citing
in addition to the author's name and relevant page number(s). Remember to underline or
use quotation marks around the title as appropriate. Separate the author's name--if you
need it in the citation--and the title with a comma:
“The term ‘neoliberalism’ suggests a system of principles that is both new and based on
classical liberal ideas: Adam Smith is revered as the patron saint” (Chomsky, Profit 19).
Two Authors with the Same Last Name
If the document uses two sources by authors with the same last name, include
each author's first name in the text or the parenthetical citation. In the example below,
Martin Amis is talking about his father, novelist Kingsley Amis, whose works are also
included in the paper:
“I am a novelist, trained to use experience for other ends. Why should I tell the story of
my life? I do it because my father is dead now, and I always knew I would have to
commemorate him. He was a writer and I am a writer; it feels like a duty to describe our
case—a literary curiosity which is also just another instance of a father and a son ”
(Amis, Martin 3).
Two or Three Authors
If the work you are citing has two or three authors, list all individual writers’ last
names. If you are citing three authors, be sure you separate each name with a comma and
use and before the last name in the list. Always keep the authors in the order in which
they are listed in their book, article, or other work. The order that authors and editors are
given in generally indicates their contributions to the work; even if their contributions are
equal, the order is agreed upon before publication, and we should be consistent in our
works cited entries.
“It would be a mistake to underestimate the significance of Frankenstein’s title page,
with its allusive subtitle” (Gilbert and Gubar 224).
30
“Even the most casual assessment of the daily flow of news reveals a complex tapestry of
issues and events” (Neuman, Just, and Crigler 39).
Four or More Authors
If a source has four or more authors, there are two ways you can write the citation.
First, you can include the first author’s last name and first name (and middle initial, if
applicable), not followed by a comma, and followed by et al. (an abbreviation of the
Latin phrase et alli, meaning “and others”) either in the text or in the parenthetical
citation.
“And some essayists are not out to change the world at all: some are completely
indifferent to immediate circumstances or practical ends” (Scholes et al. 3).
Scholes et al. point out that “some essayists are not out to change the world at all: some
are completely indifferent to immediate circumstances or practical ends” (3).
You can also name all of the authors:
“And some essayists are not out to change the world at all: some are completely
indifferent to immediate circumstances or practical ends” (Scholes, Klaus, Comley, and
Silverman 3).
Scholes, Klaus, Comley, and Silverman point out that “some essayists are not out to
change the world at all: some are completely indifferent to immediate circumstances or
practical ends” (3).
Quotations within Quotations
Enclose quoted material (or titles with quotation marks) that is within other
quoted material with single quotation marks (use the apostrophe key) unless the material
takes up five or more lines in your paper. We omit quotation marks when you indent
lengthy quotations, so you can use regular quotation marks for quotations inside longer
quotations because they won’t cause confusion about where the larger quotation ends.
According to David Riggs, “Robert Greene famously attacked Shakespeare as an ‘upstart
Crow, beautified with our feathers,’ much as Nashe had attacked Kyd” (282).
Information from More Than One Source
If you have information that comes from different sources, indicate them all,
separated by commas to indicate that the authors represent different, not coauthored,
sources.
31
Throughout the history of the folktale, no matter what their respective classes or status,
women across the social spectrum shared and modified fairy tales (Smith 172, Warner
316-17).
Other Types of Sources
As with online and other electronic sources, use an author’s name in a citation if
one is available or the first important word or words of the work if one is not—the point
to remember is that you must give the information that your readers need to find the
proper entry in the alphabetized list of works cited. If you use the title of a film to begin
a work cited entry, than the first important word or words from that title should be used,
properly formatted, as in the first example below from Who Killed the Electric Car? If
you have used a director’s name as the first word in an entry about a film, that name is
what you should use, either to introduce the material or in a citation, as in the second and
third examples, which are from the same film. If you have taken information from a
lecture or speech, use the last name of the lecturer or speaker, as in the fourth example,
which is from a “Ted Talk” by transgender model Geena Rocero.
The destruction over a decade ago of thousands of brand new, extremely efficient
prototype electric cars suggests that the auto industry’s aversion to change and its
reliance on oil have seriously delayed its ability to implement available solutions (Who).
The destruction over a decade ago of thousands of brand new, extremely efficient
prototype electric cars suggests that the auto industry’s aversion to change and its
reliance on oil have seriously delayed its ability to implement available solutions (Paine).
Chris Paine convincingly demonstrates that the destruction over a decade ago of
thousands of brand new, extremely efficient prototype electric cars suggests that the auto
industry’s aversion to change and its reliance on oil have seriously delayed its ability to
implement available solutions.
“The world makes you something that you’re not, but you know inside what you are And
that question burns in your heart: how will you become that?” (Rocero).
Notes:
32
Preparing the MLA List of Works Cited
A bibliography is a list of sources that you compile while researching a paper.
MLA style papers usually name these lists Works Cited if you include citations only for
material you used or Works Consulted if you also include citations for material you read
for background but didn’t actually incorporate into your paper. There are also Annotated
Bibliographies, which include annotations (brief summaries that may also include
evaluations) after each entry on a list of sources. If your paper includes such sources as
lectures and interviews, you should call the page Sources Cited.
Arrangement of Entries on the Works Cited Page
MLA guidelines require that you arrange all the entries on your works cited page
alphabetically, no matter what type of source you are using. Begin with the author’s
name, inverting the first and last names. If a source has more than one author, invert only
the name of the first author because that is the only name relevant to alphabetizing the
entry. You should treat authors’ names exactly as they appear on the title page of the
source you’re citing; do not use their initials unless that is how their names appear on the
title page. Do not include titles and degrees, such as Dr. or Ph.D., when you name the
authors on the works-cited page.
Works Cited Entries for Books, Works in Books, and Plays
The basic book entry is the simplest type of entry you will ever include in a works
cited list. All of the information you will need to complete this type of works cited entry
is provided on the title page of the book or on its copyright page, which generally follows
the title page. Typically, the title page provides the title and subtitle of the book, the
author(s), the city, and the publisher. On the copyright page, you’ll find the full
publication information, including the city of the publishing company, copyright dates,
and most recent year of publication.
The following list indicates most possible components for a basic book entry:
1. Author: Begin with the author’s name (first and last names reversed), followed
by a period. If there is a middle name or initial, it should follow the first name.
In the case of pseudonyms, you may add an author’s real name in brackets in
between the pen name and the period (for example, Genêt [Janet Flanner]).You
can also follow initials with the full name in brackets for clarification (for
example, Eliot, T[homas] S[terns]), but this is generally not considered necessary.
If there is more than one author, put and before the last author’s name and a
comma after the preceding author even if there are only two authors. Only
reverse the first and last names of the first author listed.
2. Title: Next, you’ll give the title, italicized. If a question mark or exclamation
point is part of the title, italicize it with the rest of the title, but do not italicize or
the period after the title. If there is a subtitle, it should be set off from the title
33
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
with a colon. If you are unsure whether a phrase beneath a title on the cover of a
book or in its title page is a subtitle or just a descriptive phrase, check the Library
of Congress cataloging-in publication data, which can be found on the copyright
page of the book. End with a period another terminal mark is part of the title.
Translator: If the book has been translated, use the abbreviation Trans. after the
title, followed by the name of the translator. (If other information is relevant, such
as the editor of a critical edition, an introduction by another author, or an
illustrator, present the names in the order given on the book's title page).
Edition: Indicate the edition after the title, abbreviated, but only if the book is not
a first edition or it is a critical or revised edition.
City of Publication: Give the city in which the book was published next (use
only the first one if more than one city is named on the title page). Do not give
the state or country unless the city is not well known or could be confused with
another city with the same name. Follow the city’s name with a colon.
Publisher: Provide the name of the publisher, almost always shortened to the
most important word if it is not a university press. For example, Alfred A. Knopf,
Inc., would be shortened to Knopf (use the last name of the individual the
company was named after, not his first); Free Press would be shorted to Free; and
Random House would be shortened to Random. If the publisher is more obscure
and there might be another press or imprint that begins with the same word, you
may include more, for example, Silver Moon Press could be shortened to Silver
Moon. For university presses, abbreviate university to U and Press to P.
University of South Carolina Press would become U of South Carolina P, and
Oxford University Press would become Oxford UP (note that periods do not
follow U or P and the letters U and P are not separated by spaces). Follow the
publisher’s name with a comma to set it off from the year of publication. You do
not need a publisher if the book was published before 1900; in such cases, give
the city, followed by a comma, followed by the year. Sometimes publishers group
books under imprints (divisions). If an imprint appears on a title page along with
the publisher’s name, state the imprint and follow it with a hyphen and the name
of the publisher. Thus, Vintage Contemporaries, a division of Random House,
Inc., would be presented as “Vintage-Random.”
Year: Look for the most recent year of publication given. If no date is provided,
use the most recent copyright date. If you cannot find any dates, use n. d. End
with a period. When you have a book that was first published many years earlier
than the edition that you have, the convention is to also include the original year
of publication after the book’s title, preceded and followed by periods. This way,
your readers will have a more accurate idea of the age of the source than they
would if you provided only the date of publication of the edition that you used.
Medium of Publication: Ccurrent MLA guidelines require the medium of
publication following the year, so follow the year of publication with the word
Print, capitalized and followed by a period, or eBook, etc., as appropriate.
Pertinent Supplementary Information: Sometimes additional information is
helpful to readers who want more information about your sources, such as the
complete number of volumes of a multi-volume set.
34
Sample MLA Works Cited Entries
A Book by a Single Author
Christie, Agatha. Why Didn't They Ask Evans? London: Collins, 1935. Print.
Diamond, Jared. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. New
York: Norton, 1999. Print.
A Book by Two or Three Authors
Always give the authors’ names in the order that they are presented in your source.
Note in the example below that only the first author’s first and last names are reversed.
Gallagher, Catherine, and Stephen Greenblatt. Practicing New Historicism. Chicago: U
of Chicago P, 2000. Print.
A Book by More Than Three Authors
When you are citing a book with four or more authors or editors, you may use et al (Latin
for et alii, which means “and others”), followed by a period, in place of the names of the
authors after the first one. You can name all of the authors if you choose to; just be
consistent and use either all their last names or et al. after the first author’s last name in
your in-text citations.
Bennett, Jeffrey O., et al. The Cosmic Perspective: Media Update. New York: Addison,
2004. Print.
Bennett, Jeffrey O., Megan O. Donahue, Nicholas Schneider, and Mark Voit. The Cosmic
Perspective: Media Update. New York: Addison, 2004. Print.
Two or More Works by the Same Author(s)
When you use more than one work by the same author or authors, use their names in the
first entry only, and use three hyphens for the works by the same authors that follow. If
the individuals named are editors, compilers, or translators, follow the three hyphens with
a comma and the correct abbreviation: ed., comp., or trans. Insert an “s” after the period
of the abbreviation if more than one individual is listed. If the order of the names of
works with multiple authors is changed, do not use the hyphens. Order is important; it
indicates the lead author of a work. If an author of a single work that you use is a coauthor of other works that you cite in your paper, do not hyphenate his or her name. You
should not combine the three hyphens with other authors’ names unless they are all the
35
authors of more than one work with the order of their names unchanged. Note that the
entries in the works cited list below are alphabetized first according to authors’ last
names, and next, for those authors, by the first important words of the titles. The numeral
9 is treated as Nine, so it precedes the entry by Chomsky beginning with the word Profit.
Rampton and Stauber’s book beginning with The Best precedes the one beginning with
Trust because B precedes T in the alphabet. The book beginning with Toxic reverses the
authors’ names, so we do not use hyphens, and Stauber follows Rampton alphabetically,
so it follows the books where Rampton is presented as the first author.
Works Cited
Chomsky, Noam. 9-11. New York: Seven Stories, 2001. Print.
---. Profit over People: Neoliberalism and Global Order. New York: Seven Stories,
1999. Print.
Herman, Edward S., and Noam Chomsky. Manufacturing Consent: The Political
Economy of the Mass Media. New York: Pantheon, 1988. Print.
Rampton, Sheldon, and John Stauber. The Best War Ever: Lies, Damned Lies, and the
Mess in Iraq. Tarcher, 2006. Print.
---. Trust Us, We're Experts! How Industry Manipulates Science and Gables with Your
Future. New York: Tarcher, 2002. Print.
Stauber, John, and Sheldon Rampton. Toxic Sludge is Good For You: Lies, Damn Lies
and the Public Relations Industry. Monroe: Common Courage, 1995. Print.
Translation
If the work was written in another language and translated, include the translator’s name
if provided, preceded by the abbreviation Trans. Note that we do not add a comma after
the first translator’s name. A comma is added before “and” when separating two names
only when authors’ names are the first components of a work cited entry.
Ellul, Jacques. Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes. Trans. Konrad Kelle
and Jean Lerner. New York: Knopf, 1965. Print.
For books that are significantly older than their publication date would indicate, you can
put the original year of publication after the book’s title. In the following example, note
36
that Robert M. Adams not only translated The Prince, he edited this particular edition of
the book, a Norton Critical edition.
Machiavelli, Niccolò. The Prince. 1513. Trans. and ed. Robert M. Adams. 2nd ed. A
Norton Critical ed. New York: 1991. Print.
Book That Is Part of a Multi-Volume Work
If the book has more than one volume and you use only one volume, list the volume.
Casanova, Jacques. The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt. Trans. Arthur
Machen. Vol. 2. New York: Putnam, 1945. Print.
You may add the total number of volumes in the work if you choose as supplementary
information at the end of the entry, but this is not a requirement.
Casanova, Jacques. The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt. Trans. Arthur
Machen. Vol. 2. New York: Putnam, 1945. Print. 6 vols.
Edition (Other Than First)
Cirlot, J. E. A Dictionary of Symbols. Trans. Jack Sage. 2nd ed. New York: Barnes,
1995. Print.
Pratkanis, Anthony, and Elliot Aronson. Age of Propaganda: The Everyday Use and
Abuse of Persuasion. Rev. ed. New York: Freeman, 2001. Print.
Book with the Title of a Book, Play or Television Series in Its Title
If a title contains another title that would ordinarily be italicized, do not italicize it.
Ward, Candace, ed. Everyman and Other Miracle and Morality Plays. New York:
Dover, 1995. Print.
In the above example Everyman is the name of a medieval play.
Levine, Elana, and Lisa Parks, eds. Undead TV: Essays on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Durham: Duke UP, 2007. Print.
37
In the previous example Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the name of a television series.
Article, Essay, Poem, Short Story, or Other Short Work from an Anthology When
It Is the Only Work from the Anthology
Use this format when you are using only a single work from an anthology (if you take
more than one work from an anthology, use cross-referencing). If you are taking an
essay, article, short story, or other work from an anthology, begin with the author of this
work. Include the title of the selection, enclosed in quotation marks. End with a period
within the closing quotation mark unless a question mark or exclamation point is part of
the title; if it is, it should also be within the closing quotation mark.
1. Author: Begin with the author’s name (first and last names reversed for the first
author), followed by a period. If there are two or more authors, use commas after
each author’s name before the last author.
2. Title of the Selection: The title of the selection will usually be given in quotation
marks following the name of the author of the selection. End with a period (unless
the title has its own terminal punctuation mark, like a question mark) within the
closing quotation mark.
3. Translator: Provide the name of a translator if there is one (or more), preceded
by Trans.
4. Title of the Book: Provide the title and subtitle, italicized, followed by a period
(unless the title has a different end punctuation mark).
5. Editor’s Name: The name of the editor of the book in which the selection
appears follows the title of the book; it is not inverted but is preceded by the
abbreviation Ed. (for “edited by,” not “editor,” so do not add an “s” if there is
more than one editor).
6. Edition: Indicate the edition before the city if the book is not a first edition.
Abbreviate the edition and the edition numbers, as in 2nd ed., 3rd ed, Rev. ed.
7. City, Publisher, and Year: Follow with the city of publication, a colon, the
shortened name of the publisher, a comma, the year, and a period, according to
the guidelines listed earlier. If more than one city is listed, provide only the first.
8. Page Numbers: Follow the publication information with the first and last page
numbers of the work. Give the complete numbers for any numbers between one
and ninety-nine, but with higher numbers, should shorten the final page number if
it falls within the same range of a hundred (100-99, 1100-200). End with a period.
9. Medium of Publication: Follow publication information with the medium of
publication, such as Print or eBook, followed by a period.
Holland, Peter. “Farce.” The Cambridge Companion to English Restoration Theatre.
Ed. Deborah Payne Fisk. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2005. 107-26. Print.
Jayaraman, Saru, and Eric Schlosser. Behind the Kitchen Door. New York: ILR, 2013.
eBook.
38
Lacan, Jacques. “The Symbolic Order.” Trans. Alan Sheridan. Literary Theory: An
Anthology. Ed. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. Rev. ed. Oxford: Blackwell,
1998. 184-89. Print.
Note: in the Behind the Kitchen Door example, the publisher’s name is ILR Press. We
drop words like “Press,” Publishers,” “Inc.,” “Company,” etc. (although we change
University Press to UP). We do not abbreviate publishers’ names to initial letters unless
the publisher’s name is already abbreviated, as in that case.
Work in a Collection of an Author’s Work
Carver, Raymond. “Gazebo.” What We Talk about When We Talk about Love. New
York: Vintage-Random, 1989. 21-29. Print.
Article, Essay, Poem, Short Story, or Other Work without an Author
When a selection does not have an author, begin with the title. Remember to alphabetize
the entry on your works cited page by the first important word (not the articles a, an, or
the, or a preposition, such as to) of the title.
“The King of the Cats.” “The King of the Cats” and Other Feline Fairy Tales. Ed. John
Richard Stephens. Boston: Faber, 1993. 24-25. Print.
“The White Cat.” The Blue Fairy Book. 1889. Ed. Andrew Lang. New York: Dover,
1965. 157-73. Print.
Introduction, Preface, Foreword, or Conclusion
If your source is an untitled introduction, preface, foreword, afterword, or conclusion,
provide the appropriate designation but do not enclose the designation in quotation marks
or italicize or underlie it. If you have a titled introduction, etc., use the title, enclosed in
quotation marks, before the name of the designation.
Ishay, Micheline R. Introduction. The History of Human Rights: From Ancient Times to
the Globalization Era. Berkeley: U of California P, 2004. 2-14. Print.
Zelazny, Roger. “Philip K. Dick.” Introduction. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
By Philip K. Dick. Del Rey-Ballantine, 1996. vii-x. Print.
39
Book, Play, or Novel in an Anthology
Books, plays, and novels that are included in anthologies are treated the same way that
shorter works, such as articles and essays, are treated; however, you should italicize or
underline the titles, not enclose them in quotation marks.
Kyd, Thomas. The Spanish Tragedy. 1592. Four Revenge Tragedies. Ed. Katherine
Eisaman Maus. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1995. 1-91. Print.
Edson, Margaret. W;t. Portable Literature: Reading, Reacting, Writing. Ed.
Laurie G. Kirszner and Stephen R. Mandell. 5th ed. Boston: Thomson, 2004.
974-1013. Print.
Note the use of a semicolon instead of the letter i in W;t. Edson deliberately spelled the
title that way, and you should not change an author’s idiosyncratic spelling.
Multiple Selections from a Single Anthology (Cross-referencing)
When you need to cite more than one selection from an anthology, it is time-consuming
and unnecessary to type the publication information for the anthology for every selection
you are listing. Instead, MLA allows you to cross-reference multiple works to an
anthology simply by using the editor’s last name in front of the work’s page numbers.
Your readers can find the rest of the publication information in the entry for the
anthology, which you will provide only once.
Please remember that we use entirely different formats when we have one work from a
single anthology instead of multiple works from the same anthology. If there is only one
work from a particular anthology, all of the publication information for the work and the
anthology will be in a single entry. If there is more than one work from a particular
anthology, you will have a cross-referenced entry for each work and a separate entry for
the anthology itself. Each entry will be in alphabetical order on the works cited page—
we do not group cross-reverenced entries under the entry for the anthology that they are
found in.
Each cross-reference typically includes the following four components:




Author.
Title of work, properly formatted.
Editor's or editors’ last names (note that this information is not followed by a
period or comma), and
Inclusive page numbers for the work.
40
If a work’s author is not given, begin with the title. If a work has a translator, the
translator’s name follows the title of the work. Do not use “Ed.” in front of the editors’
names. Do not follow a cross-referenced entry with the medium of publication since this
will be included in the entry for the anthology that it is taken from.
Underwood, Doug. “Reporting and the Push for Market-Oriented Journalism: Media
Organizations and Business.” Bennett and Entman 99-116.
There are only four components (and pay attention to the punctuation):
1. Underwood, Doug.
2. Reporting and the Push for Market-Oriented Journalism: Media Organizations
and Business.”
3. Bennett and Entman
4. 99-116.
To cite the anthology itself, provide the name(s) of the editor or compiler of the
anthology, followed by the correct abbreviations (ed. or comp., with an “s” before the
period if there is more than one individual, because “ed.” In this position is the
abbreviation for “editor,” not “edited by.”).
In the following example of a list of sources, W. Lance Bennett and Robert M.
Entman are the editors of an anthology called Mediated Politics: Communication in the
Future of Democracy. Do not begin the works cited page with an anthology unless its
editors’ last names would put it at the top of the list. Note that each entry begins flush
with the left margin.
Works Cited
Baker, C. Edwin. “Implications of Rival Visions of Electoral Campaigns.” Bennett and
Entman 342-61.
Bennett, W. Lance, and Robert M. Entman, eds. Mediated Politics: Communication in
the Future of Democracy. New York: Cambridge UP, 2004. Print.
Carpini, Michael X. Delli, and Bruce A. Williams. “Let Us Infotain You.” Bennett and
Entman 160-81.
Underwood, Doug. “Reporting and the Push for Market-Oriented Journalism: Media
Organizations and Business.” Bennett and Entman 99-116.
41
Reprinted Works
For a reprinted work, give the original publication information found for the work,
followed by the abbreviation for reprinted (Rpt.), the word in, and the publication
information for the anthology. Books that contain reprinted works do not always give
full publication information; you are responsible only for providing the publication
information that you have, in the usual order. Here are some variations that you may
encounter.
A Work Taken from a Collection by the Author
Merriam, Eve. “Tryst.” The Nixon Poems. New York: Atheneum, 1970. Rpt. in No
More Masks: An Anthology of Poems by Women. Ed. Florence Howe and Ellen
Bass. Garden City: Anchor, 1973. Print.
An Article from a Weekly Magazine Reprinted in an Anthology When the Anthology Does
Not Provide The Page Numbers of the Article
Said, Edward R. “The Clash of Ignorance.” The Nation 3 Oct. 2001. Rpt. in A Just
Response: The Nation on Terrorism, Democracy, and September 11, 2001.
Ed. Katrina Vanden Heuvel. New York: Thunder's Mouth, 2002. 233-39. Print.
Because The Nation is the title of a magazine, it should not be italicized in the book’s
title; not italicizing it sets it off from the rest of the title of the book.
An Article from a Scholarly Journal Reprinted in an Anthology
Yolen, Jane. “America’s Cinderella.” Children’s Literature in Education 8 (1977): 2129. Rpt. in Cinderella: A Casebook. Ed. Alan Dundes. Madison: U of Wisconsin
P, 1988. Print.
An Article from a Scholarly Journal Reprinted in a Critical Edition of a Work
Gurr, Andrew. “ The Tempest’s Tempest at Blackfriars.” Shakespeare Survey 41 (1989):
91-102. Rpt. in The Tempest: Sources and Contexts, Criticism, Rewritings and
Appropriations. By William Shakespeare. Ed. Peter Hulme and William H.
Sherman. Norton Critical ed. New York: Norton, 2004. 250-65. Print.
42
An Untitled Excerpt of a Chapter from a Book Reprinted in a Critical Edition
Greenaway, Peter. [“Prospero’s Books. “] Prospero’s Books: A Film of Shakespeare's
The Tempest. London: Chatto and Windus, 1991. 20-25. Rpt. in The Tempest:
Sources and Contexts, Criticism, Rewritings and Appropriations. By William
Shakespeare. Ed. Peter Hulme and William H. Sherman. Norton Critical ed.
New York: Norton, 2004. 325-31. Print.
A Chapter from a Book Reprinted in a Critical Edition
Marcus, Leah. “The Blue-Eyed Witch.” London: Routledge, 1996. 5-17. Rpt. in The
Tempest: Sources and Contexts, Criticism, Rewritings and Appropriations. By
William Shakespeare. Ed. Peter Hulme and William H. Sherman. Norton
Critical ed. New York: Norton, 2004. 286-98. Print.
Remember that when you have the title of a book, film, or play in the title of a work that
is italicized, as in the examples above, you set it off by refraining from italicizing it.
Works Cited Entries for Periodicals
Periodicals include scholarly journals (your best place to find sources),
magazines, and newspapers. In databases, the term “periodical” is used to refer to
magazines, which can be a little confusing—everything that is published periodically
(every week, month, quarter, etc.) is a periodical.
There are six main elements you typically need in a works cited entry for a
periodical: author (when provided), title of work, title of the medium the work appears
in, and publication information for that medium, page numbers, and medium of
publication. You can find the first five elements on the cover or contents page of the
periodical and on the opening page of the article you are citing.
In works-cited entries for works from periodicals, list the following elements in order:
1. Author: Begin with the author's name, when provided, last name first, followed
by a period. If there is more than one author, follow the same guidelines as for
books.
2. Title of Article: Follow with the title of the article in quotation marks, followed
by a period (or other end punctuation) within the final quotation mark.
3. Title of Periodical: Provide the name of the periodical, italicized, and not
followed by a period.
43
4. Volume and Issue for Scholarly Journals: For journals, include the volume
number followed by a decimal and the issue number. Note that it is not necessary
to write V. or vol. for volume. If a journal has volumes, simply provide that
number, not followed by a decimal. Do not provide seasons or months.
5. Date of Publication: When citing journals, list the year in parentheses following
the volume and issue, followed by a colon. Often, the journal will be published
by seasons; in this case, you need only list the year. For all other periodicals, list
the date (day, month, and year for a weekly magazine, just the month and year for
a monthly) followed by a colon. Do not enclose a magazine’s year in parentheses.
Abbreviate the names of months except for May, June, and July.
6. Page Numbers: After the colon, list the first and last page numbers of the article.
Give the complete numbers for any numbers between one and ninety-nine, but
with higher numbers, should shorten the final page number for numbers higher
than one hundred if it falls within the same range, just as you would with articles
found in anthologies. If an article does not appear on consecutive pages, give the
number of the first page followed by a plus sign, such as 19+. To cite newspaper
articles, you’ll need to provide both section numbers and page numbers. When an
article does not appear on consecutive pages, give the section letter if there is one
and the number of the article’s first page followed by a plus sign, such as A2+. If
pagination is not available, as with some electronic versions, use. n. pag.
7. Medium of Publication: Follow the page numbers with the word Print, followed
by a period, if you have a print version of the periodical. If you have an
electronic version from a database, follow the page numbers with the database in
italics, a period, the word Web, a period, and your date of access (day, month,
year). You may follow the database with the name of the company that provides
it, but it is not a requirement. For example, Academic Search Premier is provided
by a company called EBSCOhost. If you add the company after the database, do
not italicize it. Follow it with a period.
Sample Entries for Print Periodicals
Article from a Journal
Hemmingson, Michael. “Saying More without Trying to Say More: On Gordon Lish
Reshaping the Body of Raymond Carver and Saving Barry Hannah.” Critique
52.4 (2011): 479-98. Print.
Special Issue of a Scholarly Journal
If you are citing more than one source from a scholarly journal that has published a
special issue with a title, treat the issue like an anthology. Begin with the editor,
followed by the name of the special issue. Add Spec. issue of before the journal name.
Format the rest of the entry like a regular journal, but end with the inclusive page
44
numbers of the entire journal. For articles in the special issue, cross-reference them to
the edition the way you would multiple articles from an anthology.
Haase, Donald, ed. Jack Zipes and the Sociohistorical Study of Fairy Tales. Spec.
issue of Marvels and Tales: Journal of Fairy-Tale Studies 16.2 (2002): 1274. Print.
Jones, Jane. “Jack Zipes and German Folklore.” Haase 27-41. Print.
If you are citing only one article from a special issue, use the following form:
Jones, Jane. “Jack Zipes and German Folklore.” Jack Zipes and the Sociohistorical
Study of Fairy Tales. Spec. issue of Marvels and Tales: Journal of FairyTale Studies 16.2 (2002): 27-41. Print.
Article from a Weekly or Biweekly Magazine
You can tell whether a magazine is weekly or biweekly (published every other week) by
looking at the date on the cover. If the day is supplied as well as the month, it is weekly
or biweekly. Don't give volume and issue numbers for magazines.
Kumin, Maxine. “Looking Back in My Eighty-first Year.” New Yorker 1 Dec. 2006: 64.
Print.
Occasionally a magazine that is normally published on a weekly basis will publish one
issue a year that spans two weeks (as in the holiday season) and give two dates on its
cover. When this happens, use both dates.
Erdrich, Louise. "Demolition." New Yorker 25 Dec. 2006/1 Jan. 2007: 70-81. Print.
Article from a Monthly or Bimonthly Magazine
To cite monthly or bimonthly magazines, you need only provide months and years.
Douthat, Ross. “The Truth about Harvard.” The Atlantic Mar. 2005: 95-99. Print.
Robbins, Alexandra. “Powerful Secrets.” Vanity Fair July 2004: 119+. Print.
If a magazine that typically publishes once a month publishes an issue that spans two
months, provide both months.
45
Fallows, James. “Success without Victory.” The Atlantic Jan./Feb. 2005: 80-90. Print.
Newspaper Article
Walters, Dan. “$400 Million a Big Deal? Not Really.” Sacramento Bee 23 Oct.
2006, metro final ed.: A3. Print.
A Serialized Article or Series of Related Articles
Sometimes lengthy articles are serialized across more than one issue of a magazine or
newspaper. If each installment of such an article has the same author and title (or just
title, if there is no author), create a single entry. For journals, after the usual publication
information, including page numbers, add a semicolon, and then follow with the same
information for subsequent issues. For magazines and newspapers, use the appropriate
dates (and section numbers, if applicable). End with medium of publication. If the
different installments have individual titles, you'll need to create an entry for each. You
may add supplementary information after the medium of publication to indicate that each
article is part of the same series.
“Gay Marriage Controversy Comes to Kern County.” Bakersfield Observer, 16 June
2008, A1;17 June 2008, A1-2. Print.
Liptak, Adam. “Inmate Count in U.S. Dwarfs Other Nations.’” New York Times
23 Apr. 2008, late ed.: A1+. Print. Pt. 1 of a series, American Exception,
begun 17 Oct. 2007.
---. “Lifers as Teenagers, Now Seeking Second Chance.” New York Times 17 Oct. 2007,
late ed.:A1+. Print. Pt.1 of a series, American Exception, begun 17 Oct. 2007.
Note: Monday through Saturday, the New York Times is usually divided into lettered
sections, just like most other newspapers. However, sometimes the Saturday edition is
continuously paginated from the first page to the last with no section numbers. Just use
the page numbers of an article after the edition. The Sunday New York Times contains
numbered sections. After the edition, give the section number preceded by the
abbreviation sec.
Editorial or Opinion Piece
Editorials, both signed and unsigned, must be indicated as such to distinguish them from
straight reporting and other types of articles in newspapers. This information follows the
title of the piece. Use editorial if no authors are given, but refer to a signed editorial as
46
an opinion piece since it is written by an individual columnist or guest contributor, not
the paper's editorial board. (In your entry, do not underline, italicize, or enclose these
terms in quotation marks.)
Remember, though, that for the most part, editorials and opinion pieces should not be
used as proof of anything in a paper because they are written to express opinions.
Exceptions would be editorials written by people who are genuine experts in a discipline
and who refer to specific, verifiable research. You also might refer to an editorial if you
are writing about the media and are giving examples of bias.
Henderson, Noris. “Give Defense Reform a Chance.” Opinion piece. Times-Picayune.
14 Oct. 2006, metro ed.: 7. Print.
Review
Give the title of the review, followed by a period (if the review does not have a title, just
put Rev. of, and the title of the work being reviewed followed by a period.) Write Rev. of
and the title of the book, a comma, and its author (preceded by by); or the title of the film,
a comma, and its director (preceded by dir.); or the title of the series, a comma, and its
network. End with the medium of publication.
Oates, Joyce Carol. “Dangling Men.” Rev. of Indecision, by Benjamin Kunkel. New
York Review of Books 3 Nov. 2005: 36-40. Print.
Travers, Peter. “American Idols.” Rev. of Dreamgirls, dir. Bill Condon. Rolling Stone
14 Dec. 2006: 132. Print.
Friend, Tad. “The Paper Chase.” Rev. of The Office, NBC. New Yorker 1 Dec. 2006:
94-100. Print.
Advertisement
Give the name of the product or company being advertised, followed by the word
Advertisement. Follow with the publication information for the advertisement’s source.
Hypnôse by Lancôme. Advertisement. Playbill May 2007: 42-43. Print.
Works Cited Entries for Works from Reference Databases
In works cited entries for articles you find in online indexes, your entries should begin
exactly as they would if you were working with an article from a print publication;
however, you will also need to include additional information about the electronic
47
version you found. Provide information about the subscription database in the order
listed below. If only the starting page number of an article is given, give the number
followed by a hyphen, a space and a period; if the database gives the total number of
pages, as in 53(4), which means that the article begins on page 53 and is four pages long,
you need to calculate the number of the article’s last page (in this case you would list it as
pages 53-57). If pagination is not available, use n. pag. Some of the following examples
give the names of the companies after the databases, but this is not a requirement by
MLA. Ask your instructor what he or she prefers.
Article from a Magazine, Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost
Stearn, Tom. “What’s Wrong with Television History?” History Today Dec. 2002: 26-27.
Academic Search Premier. EBSCOhost. Web. 30 Nov. 2014.
Article from a Newspaper, Newspaper Source, EBSCOhost
Goldman, Tim. “Expecting U.S. Help, Sent to Guantánamo.” New York Times 15 Oct.
2006: sec. 1:26. Newspaper Source. EBSCOhost. Web. 9 Oct. 2014.
Article from a Journal, Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection, (name of
company, EBSCOhost, not provided in entry)
Susman, Jeff. “Harry and Louise Redux.” Journal of Family Practice 55.4 (2006): 276.
Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection. Web. 21 Sept. 2014.
Article from a Journal, Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost
Wiist, William H. “Citizens United, Public Health, and Democracy: The Supreme Court
Ruling, Its Implications, and Proposed Action.” American Journal of Public
Health 101.7 (2011): 1172-79. Academic Search Premier. EBSCOhost. Web. 13
May 2014.
Article from a Journal, Expanded Academic ASAP, Thomson Gale
Goldstein, Gary B. “Did Queen Elizabeth Use the Theater for Social and Political
Propaganda?” Oxfordian 7 (2004): 153 - . Expanded Academic
ASAP. Thomson Gale. Web. 18 Jan. 2014.
48
Article from a Magazine, LexisNexis
“All on the Mind; Cognitive Enhancement.” Economist 24 May 23 2008, U.S.
ed: n. pag. LexisNexis. Web. 20 Jan. 2014.
Works Cited Entries for Internet Sources
A Work Cited Only on the Web
You will typically provide the following components, in sequence:
1. Name of the Author, Editor, Compiler, Performer, or Translator of the
Work.
2. Title of the work: Italicize the title if the work is independent; put it in roman
type and quotation marks if the work is part of a larger work.
3. Title of the Internet Site: Italicize the title if distinct from item 2.
4. Version or Edition, if provided.
5. Publisher or Sponsor of the Site: If not available, use N.p.
6. Date of Publication: Day, month, year; if nothing is available, use n.d.
7. Medium of Publication: MLA no longer recommends providing the URL of the
online source since URLs are often unreliable. Searching for Internet content
using authors and titles is frequently more efficient than trying to use URLS,
which may be obsolete. The MLA now recommends simply using the term Web.
8. Date of Access: Abbreviate all months except for May, June, and July.
Each item should be followed by a period except for the names of publishers or sponsors,
which are followed by commas. Untitled works may be labeled by genre (for example,
Home page), neither italicized nor enclosed in quotation marks, in the place where a title
would ordinarily be. If not otherwise indicated in the entry, the name of the creator of the
entire site, such as its editor, may be listed following the title of the site.
Article on a Newspaper’s Website
Gonchar, Michael. “Do You Pay Attention to Nutrition Labels on Food?” New York
Times. New York Times, 13 Feb. 2014. Web. 7 May 2014.
Article on a Magazine’s Website
Grunwald, Michael. “Climate Change Is Here — But That Won’t Make Americans
Care.” Time.com. Time, 6 May. Web. 9 Aug. 2014.
Article on a Television Network’s Website
49
Resnikoff , Ned. “Largest Fast Food Strike Yet Will Include Rallies on 6 Continents.”
MSNBC.com. MNSBC, 7 May 2014. Web. 8 May 2014.
Article on a Radio Network’s Website
Moselle, Aaron. “Can Student Journalists Ban “Redskins” From Their School Paper?”
Npr.org. Natl. Public Radio. 6 May 2014. Web. 1 Sept. 2014.
Authorless Article on an Organization’s Website
“China: Google Hints at China U-turn." Amnesty.org.uk. Amnesty International UK,
8 June 2006. Web. 11 Oct. 2014.
Article from an Individual's Titled Web Site
Shah, Anup. “War, Propaganda and the Media.” Global Issues That Affect Everyone.
Anup Shah. 31 Mar. 2005. Web. 11 Feb. 2014.
Article from an Online-only Journal
Hollis, Erin. "Gorgonzola Sandwiches and Yellow Crayons: James Joyce, Buffy the
Vampire Slayer, and the Aesthetic of Minutiae.” Slayage: The Online
International Journal of Buffy Studies 22 (2006): n. pag. Web.
15 Mar. 2014.
Material from Professors’ Websites
Begin with the professor’s name or the author’s name if it is not the professor. Include
the course number and name (if available) and the name of the department and school at
which the professor teaches. If the handout is from a larger, named section of the
professor’s site, include that in italics after the title.
Hastings, Waller. Home page. “Motifs and Tale Types.” Fairy Tales. English
Department. Northern State University. N. d. Web. 11 Nov. 2008.
Waits, Tom. “Tom Waits Poetry Handout.” David Moton’s home page. English 1B:
Handouts. Bakersfield College. N.d. Web. 14 May 2014.
50
Blog
Blogs (from “web log”) are everywhere on the Web, and most are as worthless to
researchers as someone else’s daily diary or even a commentary scrawled on a bathroom
wall. Nevertheless, blogging by mainstream journalists, scientists, educators, and others
has been increasing over the years, and many important newsletter feature distinguished
bloggers on their websites. Often these are people whose credentials you can evaluate,
and they may provide useful perspectives. Just be careful—anyone can publish a blog,
and rampant biases voiced with no editorial oversight are quite common. If you use a
blog as a source, provide the pertinent information for the blog entry, such as the
individual writing the blog, the title of the entry if there is one, the name of the blog, and
Blog. Next, give the title of the blog itself, the title of the sponsoring organization if there
is one, the date the material was uploaded (even if the actual time is provided, you don't
need to include this unless it is necessary to locate the entry, as when someone has
several entries on a given day but no titles), followed by a period, followed by Web,
followed by your date of access.
Shachtman, Noah. “Nation’s Spies: Climate Change Could Spark War.” Danger Room.
Blog. Wired Blog Network. 23 June 2008. Web. Oct. 29 2014.
Sullivan, Andrew. “’Disgrace,’ Ctd.” Andrew Sullivan: The Daily Dish. Blog. The
Atlantic.com. 19 June 2008. Web. 20 Nov. 2014.
A Work on the Internet with Print Publication Data
If a work that you are using originally appeared in print, you should indicate this. Begin
with the relevant information about the original publication. Then, instead of concluding
the entry with the word Print, provide the following information:
1. Title of the Website in italics.
2. Medium of Publication (the word Web).
3. Date of Access (day, month, year
Essay Reprinted on a Website
Orwell, George. “Politics and the English Language.” Shooting an Elephant and Other
Essays. London: Secker and Warburg, 1950. N. pag. George Orwell's Library.
24 July 2004. Web. 19 Apr. 2014.
Photograph Reproduced from a Website
51
Lange, Dorothea. The Migrant Mother. 1936. Prints and Photographs Div., Lib. of Cong.
Dorothea Lange: Photographer of the People. Web. 13 Apr. 2014.
Government Publications
Government Publications Appearing in Print:
1. Author or (if no author given) Government Issuing the Document, followed
by a period.
2. Agency or Department, followed by a period.
3. Add additional agency or (sub-)committee names, as necessary.
4. Title of Document, in italics, followed by a period.
5. Place of Publication, followed by a colon (use N.p. if no place is given).
6. Publication Office, followed by a comma (use n.p. if no publisher is given).
7. Date of Publication, followed by a period.
8. Medium of Publication, Print, followed by a period.
New York State. Commission on Capital Punishment. Report of the Commission to
Investigate and Report the Most Humane and Practical Method of Carrying Into
Effect the Sentence of Death in Capital Cases. Albany: Troy, 1888. Print.
United Nations. General Assembly. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination against Women. New York: United Nations, 1979. Print.
United States. Dept. of Health and Human Services. Healthy People 2010:
Understanding and Improving Health. Washington: GPO, 2000. Print.
Virginia. City of Radford Water Dept. Annual Drinking Water Quality Report 2008.
Radford: City of Radford, 2008. Print.
Government Publications Appearing on the Web:
1. Author or (if no author given) Government Issuing the Document, followed
by a period.
2. Agency or Department, followed by a period.
3. Additional Agency, Committee, or Subcommittee names, as necessary.
4. Title of Document, in italics, followed by a period.
5. Place of Publication, followed by a colon; use N.p. if no place is given.
6. Publication Office, followed by a comma (use n.p. if no publisher is given).
7. Date of Publication, followed by a period
52
8. Medium of Publication. Print, followed by a period.
9. Date of Access. Day, month, year, followed by a period. As always in works
cited entries, abbreviate all months except for May, June, and July.
Harlow, Caroline Wolf. Hate Crime Reported by Victims and Police. Washington: U.S.
Dept. of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Nov.
2005. Web. 11 Nov. 2014.
United States. National Science and Technology Council. Committee on Environment
and Natural Resources. Scientific Assessment of the Effects of Global Change on
the United States. Washington: Natl. Science and Technology Council, May 2008.
Web. 11 Nov. 2014.
Court Cases
1. Name of the Case: Names of law cases are abbreviated. The important Word(s)
of each party’s name is spelled out. Use “v.” between parties’ names.
2. Case Citation.
3. Court: Supreme Court of the US or other federal or state court.
4. Year: Use year the decision was made.
5. Source of Information.
6. Medium of Publication.
7. Date Accessed if found on Web.
Note that while law cases may require italics in the body of an MLA format paper, they
are not italicized in the work cited entry.
Estes v. Texas. 381 U.S. 532. Supreme Court of the United States. 1965. LexisNexis
Academic. Web. 15 Feb. 2014.
Harper & Row v. Nation Enterprises. 471 U.S. 539. Supreme Court of
the United States. 1985. LexisNexis Academic. Web. 15 Feb. 2014.
Citing a Legislative Act
1.
2.
3.
4.
The Name of the Act, without italics, followed by a period.
Public Law Number, followed by a period.
The Statutes at Large Number, not followed by a period.
The Date, followed by a period.
53
5. The Medium Consulted, followed by a period.
Electronic Freedom of Information Act Amendments of 1996. Pub. L. 104-418. 110 Stat.
3048 2 Oct. 1996. Print.
Digital File
When you have a digital file that you did not find in an online database or other place on
the Internet, such as a PDF file stored on a computer or available on a disk, an electronic
file created by a Word processing program, a digital photograph or audio recording, etc.,
use the type of digital file as your medium of publication, such as Microsoft Word file,
Pages file or Open Office file (italicize the names of the software publishers); PDF file,
JPEG file, or MP# file.
Carsley, Catherine. “Week One: Introduction to Old English.” iTunes. 6 Feb. 2009.
MP3 file.
Dumler, Gloria. “Glossary of Literary Terms for English 5A: Survey of English
Literature, Part One.” 2011. PDF file.
Film, DVD, Blu-ray Disc, and Other Movie Media
1. Title: The typical entry for a movie begins with the title, italicized.
2. Director: Cite the director (preceded by Dir.) after the film title.
3. Pertinent Supplementary Information: After the title, you may cite other
information if relevant to your purposes, such as the lead actors (in order of
importance as listed in the film itself), preceded by Perf.; narrator; preceded by
Narr.; the producer, preceded by Produced by; and the screenwriters, preceded by
Screenplay by.
4. Distributor and Date: Add the name of the distributor and the year of the
work’s release.
5. Medium: Indicate Film, DVD, Blu-ray Disc, Videocassette, etc. If you are citing
any of the media other than the original film, you may also include the film's
original release date before you give the information on its subsequent release in
another medium.
Usually, when creating entries for films, we begin with the film itself. Following is the
basic formula, with the components that you would add indicated in the brackets of the
template.
Film. Dir. [Name of director]. Perf. [Names of important actors, in the order they are
presented in the film]. [Distributor, year]. Film.
54
Cesar Chavez. Dir. Diego Luna. Perf. Michael Peña, America Ferrera, Rosario Dawson,
John Malkovich. Panorama Media, 2014. Film.
After the title of the film, the amount of information that you give in an entry for a film
depends on its relevance. If the film is based on or suggested by a literary or nonfiction
work of the same name, you can indicate this before the distributor. If the film and the
literary work have the same title, simply say Based on or Suggested by the [book, novel,
short story, novella] by [name of author].
Fast Food Nation. Dir. Richard Linklater. Screenplay by Richard Linklater and Eric
Schlosser. Perf. Greg Kinnear, Luis Guzman, Ethan Hawke, Patricia Arquette,
and Esai Morales. 2006. Suggested by the book by Eric Schlosser. 20th Century
Fox, 2007. DVD.
If the work of the screenwriter, director, or an actor is the primary focus of your paper,
you may begin with this person's name, followed by his or her role, followed by the title
of the film.
Russell, David O., dir. American Hustle. Screenplay by Eric Warren Singer and David O.
Russell. Perf. Christian Bale, Bradley Cooper, Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, and
Jennifer Lawrence. Columbia Pictures, 2013.
For films that have been dubbed or subtitled into English, you may follow the English
title with the original title, italicized, in square brackets. Capitalize or leave in lower case
the first letters of the words in the original title according to the conventions of the
language.
Del Toro, Guillermo, dir. Pan’s Labyrinth. [El laberinto del fauno]. Perf. Sergi Lopez,
Maribel Verdu, Ivana Baquero, Doug Jones, and Ariadna Gil. 2006. New Line
Home Video, 2007. Blu-ray Disc.
MLA has not yet issued a specific guideline for online video clips, but we can extrapolate
from the guidelines for films and Internet sources.
1. Author’s, Lecturer’s, Performer’s, or Web Poster’s Name.
2. Title, properly formatted.
3. Media Type, not italicized or enclosed in quotation marks.
55
4. Name of Website, italicized. If the clip’s producer is different from the author,
etc., provide the name preceded by Produced by.
5. Name of Website’s publisher and date of posting (use n. d. if there is no date).
6. Medium.
7. Date of access (day, month, year).
Reich, Robert. “An Economist with 2 Minutes and a Marker Explains the Greedy, Selfish
Things Some Rich People Do.” Produced by MoveOn.org. Online video
clip. YouTube. YouTube, 13 June 2011. Web. 14 Mar. 2014.
Radio or Television Program
Provide the information for these programs in the following order:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Title: Begin with the title of the episode or segment, enclosed in quotation marks.
Program or Series: Follow with the title of the program, italicized.
Name of the Network: Provide the name of the network, if there is one.
Call Letters and City: Provide the call letters of the local station if available and
the local city, separated by commas and with a comma following.
5. Broadcast Date: Provide the day, month and year the segment was broadcast, not
separated by commas. End with a period.
6. Medium of Broadcast: Indicate whether the program was on the radio or
television.
7. Pertinent Supplementary Information: Although not required, you can end
with supplementary information if you believe it will help your readers.
Abbreviate the names of radio and television networks according to the guidelines of the
networks themselves, as with Natl. Public Radio and PBS (which stands for Public
Broadcasting System).
“Ghosts of Rwanda.” Frontline. PBS. WGBH, Boston, 1 Apr. 2004. Television.
“Live in 4A: Konstantin Soukhovetski.” Performance Today. Natl. Public Radio.
KVRP, Bakersfield, 2 May 2002. Radio.
If you are focusing on the contributions of an individual, put that name before the title.
Sedaris, David. “It’s Catching.” Fresh Air. Natl. Public Radio. WHYY, Philadelphia, 9
June 2008. Radio. Excerpt from When You Are Engulfed in Flames.
Interview
56
Use any of the elements that are pertinent in the following order:
1. Person Interviewed. Begin with the name of the person interviewed and a period.
2. Interview Title. If the interview is part of a publication or program and has a
title, add the title, enclosed in quotation marks, followed by a period. If it does
not have a title or if you conducted the interview yourself, just write Interview,
Personal interview, Telephone interview, or Email interview.
3. Interviewer. The interviewer’s name may be added after Interview with,
following either the title of the interview or the interviewed person’s name. You
do not need to include your own name if you conducted the interview.
4. Publication Information. Include pertinent publication information, following
the format for the type of source. If you conducted the interview, end with the
date(s).
5. Medium of Broadcast. If the interview was broadcast on the radio or television,
indicate this at the end.
Following are examples of interviews published in the online version of a newspaper,
conducted through email, and conducted on a radio program.
Jablonski, Nina G. “Always Revealing, Human Skin Is an Anthropologist’s Map.”
Interview with Claudia Dreifus. New York Times 9 Jan. 2007. Web. 11 Jan.
2007.
Snyder, Judy. Email interview. 11 Jan. 2014.
Whedon, Joss. Interview with Terry Gross. Fresh Air. Natl. Public Radio. WHYY,
Philadelphia. 9 May 2000. Radio.
Oral Presentation
If you cite lectures, speeches, addresses, or readings, provide any these elements:
1. Speaker’s Name: No prefix or title is necessary.
2. Title: Enclose the title in quotation marks; if there is no title, the descriptive label
at the end of the entry will suffice.
3. Meeting and Sponsoring Organization: Provide what information you have
about the occasion of the presentation and the sponsor.
4. Location and Date: Provide the name of the institution or building, followed by
the city and the date.
5. Form of Delivery: End with a label that describes the mode of delivery.
See the next page for examples.
57
O’Hare, Denis. “Beyond Lies the Wub” by Philip K. Dick. Selected Shorts. Symphony
Space, New York. 21 Oct. 2006. Reading.
Goodall, Jane. “Sowing the Seeds of Hope.” Bakersfield College Foundation and the
Kern County Museum. Bakersfield College, Bakersfield. 1 Apr. 2014. Lecture.
Moton, David. English 1A: Expository Composition. Bakersfield College. Bakersfield,
CA. 28 Apr. 2014. Lecture.
Notes:
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Punctuation and Grammar
Parts of Speech
Parts of speech are the basic types of words that English has. Most grammar books say
that there are nine parts of speech: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns,
conjunctions, prepositions, interjections and articles. It is important to be able to
recognize and identify the different types of words so that you can understand grammar
explanations and use the right word form in the right place.
Noun
A noun is a naming word. It names a living creature, place, thing, idea,
quality, or action. Proper nouns name specific people, places, and so on, so
they must be capitalized.
Examples: cat, London, book, thought, compassion, arrival
Verb
A verb is a word that describes an action (doing something) or a state of
being.
Examples: talk, think, believe, is, are, were
Adjective
An adjective is a word that describes a noun. It tells you something about
the noun.
Examples: black, kind, interesting, intelligent, thoughtful
Adverb
An adverb is a word that describes a verb, adjective, or other adverb. It
tells you how something is done. It may also tell you when or where
something happened.
Examples: intelligently, swiftly, kindly, yesterday, tomorrow, here, there,
everywhere
Pronoun
A pronoun is used in place of a noun.
Examples: I, she, he, we, they, who (subjects); me, her, him, us, them,
whom (objects)
A conjunction joins two words, phrases, or sentences together.
Conjunction Examples: for, and, nor, but, or, so, yet (coordinating conjunctions);
when, because, since, while, although, after (subordinating conjunctions)
A preposition usually comes before a noun, pronoun, or noun phrase. It
Preposition joins the noun to some other part of the sentence.
Examples: on, at, above, in, by, with, under, through, over
An interjection is an unusual kind of word because can stand alone.
Interjections are words that express emotion, and they are typically
Interjection
followed by exclamation marks.
Examples: Hello! Oops! Oh, no!
Article
An article is used to introduce a noun.
Examples: the, a, an
For more detail, see the online supplement “Parts of Speech” on the class website.
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Making Nouns Plural
Nouns come in two categories: regular and irregular. Regular nouns are those that are
made plural simply by adding an s or es at the end of the noun without changing the
spelling of the word itself. Irregular nouns are those whose plural forms have different
spellings, and they may not be made plural by adding an s at all.
Making Regular Nouns Plural
Most nouns in English have both singular and plural forms, and the plural is usually
formed by adding -s to the singular. However, there are some plural spellings and
forms that are unusual. The following examples show the basic ways of forming
regular plurals in English.
Noun ending
Forming the plural
Examples
s, x, ch, or sh
Add -es
boss - bosses
fox - foxes
church - churches
bush - bushes
consonant + y
Change y to i
then add -es
spy - spies
country - countries
curry - curries
Add -s
cat - cats
place - places
students - students
most others
Compound nouns are made up of two or more words. Make compound nouns plural at
the main word. Examples: mothers-in-law, courts martial, high schools.
Note: while compound words are made plural at the main word, which is often the first
part of the compound, all words, compound or not, are made possessive at the end:
mother-in-law’s (singular possessive)
mothers-in-law’s (plural possessive)
court martial’s (singular possessive)
courts martial’s (plural possessive)
high school’s (singular possessive)
high schools’ (plural possessive)
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Making Irregular Nouns Plural
Types of irregular plural. Although most nouns have plurals formed according to
“regular” rules (simply add an s or es), some nouns have unusual, or irregular, plurals.
There are many types of irregular plural, but the following types are the most common.
Noun type
Forming the plural
Examples
Ends with -fe
Change f to v
then add -s
life - lives
wife – wives
knife - knifes
Ends with -f
Change f to v
then add -es
half - halves
wolf – wolves
elf - elves
Ends with -o
Add -es
tomato - tomatoes
volcano - volcanoes
Ends with -us
Change -us to -i
cactus - cacti
nucleus - nuclei
Ends with -is
Change -is to -es
crisis - crises
thesis - theses
Ends with -on
Change -on to -a
phenomenon - phenomena
criterion - criteria
Other kinds
Change the vowel,
change the word, or
add a different ending
woman - women
foot - feet
person - people
mouse – mice
data – datum
media - medium
Unchanging
Singular and plural
are the same
deer
moose
sheep
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Recognizing Independent Clauses
An independent clause (also called a main clause) has a subject and a predicate and
can stand alone as a sentence because it expresses a complete thought.
Subjects
The subject tells us whom or what the sentence or clause is about. The subject is
the person, animal, place, abstraction, or object that acts, is acted on, or is described in
the sentence. The simple subject is the main word or word group that tells us this. The
complete subject includes words that modify the subject. There are also compound
subjects, which are made of two or more subjects joined by a conjunction. To determine
the subject of a sentence, first isolate the verb and then make a question by placing
“who?” or ‘what?” before it: the answer is the subject.
For example, take the sentence “Sophia and Jackson became the committee cochairs.” The verb is became, and when we turn the sentence into a question, we get
“Who became the committee co-chairs?” The answer, Sophia and Jackson, is the
subject.
Simple Subject
Sophia
Compound Subject
Sophia and Jackson
Birds
birds and bats
civil rights
civil rights and justice
Complete Subject
Sophia and Jackson, the
committee co-chairs
many varieties of birds and
bats
The protection of civil
rights and justice
Predicates
The predicate must contain a verb or verb phrase. A simple predicate is the verb
or verb phrase (the verb plus helping verbs, also called auxiliary verbs). A complete
predicate includes the verb and all the words that describe the verb and complete its
meaning. There are also compound predicates, which are two or more predicates that
say something about the same subject. In the sentence “Susan and Tim talk about
projects and schedule meetings,” the verb talk marks the beginning of the complete
predicate: talk about projects and schedule meetings.
Simple Predicate
talk
Compound Predicate
talk about projects
fly
fly hundreds of miles
obtain
obtain civil rights and
justice
Complete Predicate
Talk about projects and
schedule meetings
hunt for food and look for
shelter
obtain civil rights and
justice for all people in the
United States,
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Verbs are often described as “action words,” but they can also convey the idea of
existence, such as “is” and “be,” or might simply help the main verb in the sentence.
There are three types of verbs: action verbs, linking verbs, and helping (also called
auxiliary) verbs.
Action verbs describe what a subject does, such as “love,” “read,” “swim,” “type,” and
“shout.” For example, “Nathaniel and Isabelle love movies.”
Linking verbs give the idea of a state of being, such as “is” and “be.” For example, “YoYo Ma is a cellist.”
Modal helping verbs, like “may” and “will,” have no real meaning on their own—they
“help” the main verb, as in “Moya will chair the meeting.” They are necessary for the
grammatical structure of a sentence. Primary helping verbs can function as either main
or helping verbs.
may
might
must
be
being
been
am
are
is
was
were
Modal Helping Verbs (They Can Never Function as Main Verbs)
can
will
shall
could
would
should
Primary Helping Verbs (They Can Also Function as Main Verbs)
do
have
does
has
did
had
You don’t really have to worry about the different names for different kinds of
verbs—as long as you recognize them as verbs. If you can recognize all of these
concepts and tell subjects and predicates apart no matter how many words each has,
you’ll still be able to understand the rules of when you should or should not use commas
and other punctuation marks.
Punctuating Independent Clauses
Remember that an independent clause has these traits: it has a subject, a predicate,
and it expresses a complete thought. There are three primary ways to punctuate
consecutive independent clauses: with a period (or other terminal punctuation mark), with
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a comma in front of a coordinating conjunction, or with a semicolon. When you use a
semicolon, it is usually inappropriate to follow it with a coordinating conjunction, but
you can use a conjunctive adverb (however, therefore, thus, etc.) as a transitional device.
1. Separate consecutive independent clauses with a period.
An advisory group of retired U.S. military leadership said that climate change is
real. It poses major threats to the U.S. and the rest of the world.
2. Separate consecutive independent clauses with a comma in front of a
coordinating conjunction.
An advisory group of retired U.S. military leadership said that climate change is
Real and it poses major threats to the U.S. and the rest of the world.
3. Separate consecutive independent clauses with a semicolon.
The report cites climate change and security assessments; its authors also
emphasize their own credentials.
Note: we generally reserve the semicolon for situations where we have two closelyrelated independent clauses of roughly equal “weight” (importance and length).
If you use a conjunctive adverb as a transitional device, separate it from the clause it is in
with commas. If it is at the very beginning or end of an independent clause, a semicolon
or period can take the place of a comma.
The report cites climate change and security assessments; however, its authors
also emphasize their own credentials.
The report cites climate change and security assessments; its authors also,
however, emphasize their own credentials.
Recognizing and Punctuating Dependent Clauses and Phrases
Like an independent clause, a dependent clause (also called a subordinate clause
because it is subordinate to the independent, or main, clause) has a subject and a
predicate, but it cannot stand alone as a sentence because it does not express a complete
thought. It loses its independence because it begins with a subordinating word (like
subordinating conjunctions or relative pronouns). Dependent clauses must join with
independent clauses in order to form complete sentences. How we punctuate them
depends on whether they precede or follow an independent clause.
Phrases cannot stand alone as sentences because they lack a subject, a verb, or
both. Generally, we punctuate them the same way we punctuate dependent clauses.
However, if an introductory phrase is very short (two or three words), and there is no
possibility of confusion if we omit the comma, the comma is optional.
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1. When a dependent clause precedes an independent clause, separate the two with
a comma.
Because it requires looking at an issue from several standpoints before reaching a
final decision, critical thinking is the best way to solve problems.
2. When a phrase precedes an independent clause, separate them with a comma.
Anticipating a lot of research, she began her class project early.
When the phrase is very short, and there is no possibility of confusion, the comma
is optional but never incorrect.
Every fall students return to classes.
Every fall, students return to classes.
3. When a dependent clause follows an independent clause, do not use a comma.
Critical thinking is the best way to solve problems because it requires looking at
an issue from several standpoints before reaching a final decision.
4. When a phrase follows an independent clause, do not use a comma.
Students return to classes every fall.
Punctuating Restrictive and Nonrestrictive Elements
Restrictive material is grammatically essential to the sentence it is within. If you remove
the material, you change the meaning of the sentence. You will not alter the meaning of
the sentence by removing nonrestrictive material (although this material may contain
important ideas that a writer wishes to convey in an essay or research paper).
Here is an example of restrictive information in a sentence:
Students who get over 90% on all their earlier exams don’t have to take the final.
If we take the restrictive element out, we have the following:
Students don’t have to take the final.
The meaning has clearly changed—the altered sentence does not convey the actual intent
of the original sentence.
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1) Do not set restrictive elements off with any punctuation marks. If you look at the
examples, you’ll see that the restrictive elements are actually part of the complete
subjects.
Students who get A’s on all their earlier exams don’t have to take the final.
Wild mushrooms that aren’t poisonous are great additions to many recipes.
2) Set nonrestrictive elements off with commas.
Many classic science fiction authors, including Arthur C. Clark, Isaac Asimov,
and Philip K. Dick, wrote stories and novels about artificial intelligence.
Many classic science fiction authors wrote stories and novels about artificial
intelligence, including Arthur C. Clark, Isaac Asimov, and Philip K. Dick.
Common Conjunctions
Coordinating Conjunctions (used in compound sentences to link independent
clauses):
for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so
Common Conjunctive Adverbs (used in compound sentences to indicate transitions
and relationships):
accordingly, also, anyhow, besides, certainly, consequently, conversely, finally,
furthermore, hence, henceforth, however, indeed, instead, likewise, meanwhile,
moreover, nevertheless, next, nonetheless, otherwise, similarly, still, subsequently, then,
therefore, thus
Correlative Conjunctions (used in compound sentences to indicate relationships):
both...and, either...or, neither...nor, not only...but (also), whether...or
Common Subordinate Conjunctions (these precede dependent clauses and are used
in complex sentences to connect dependent clauses with independent clauses):
after, although, as, as if, as long as, as though, because, before, even if, even though,
how, if, in order that, once, provided that, rather than, since, so, so that, than, that,
though, unless, until, when, whenever, where, wherever, whether, while
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Using Commas
1. Use a comma before between a coordinating conjunction (“for,” “and,” “nor,”
“but,” “or,” “yet, “ “so”—think “fanboys”) between two independent clauses.
I want to use commas correctly, so I am going to study the rules.
2. Use a comma after a dependent clause or an introductory phrase or word that
precedes an independent clause.
When I know the rules, I feel more comfortable.
Looking at the rules, I realize that they aren’t that hard to understand.
Fortunately, I have a good memory.
3. Use commas to separate three or more items in a series (as long as the items
themselves don’t have commas), including a comma before an “and” joining the last item
to the list. You may have been told by some instructors to leave the comma before “and”
out; however, MLA, the most commonly used style in English classes, requires this
comma. Other styles, particularly journalistic style, do not include it.
I’m taking history, English, chemistry, and geography this semester.
Two or more words that are the same parts of speech in a series, like adjectives or
adverbs, should be separated from each other (but not the terms they modify).
The sky was a deep, clear, beautiful blue.
4. Use a comma after introductory words—like “said,” “says,” “asserts,”
“suggests,” “writes” and claims”—when they come before direct quotations.
Helen Vendler states, “The history of Keats criticism is a complicated one.”
5. Use a comma after and before quoted material that you interrupt with a phrase of
your own within a sentence.
“The history of Keats criticism,” states Vendler, “is a complicated one.”
6. Use a comma before a contrasting element.
I wanted the vegetarian pizza, not the pepperoni one.
7. Use a comma to set off “or” and a word or phrase when they are being offered as
a synonym or definition of a word preceding these.
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He wanted chick peas, or garbanzos, as we call them.
8. Use commas to set cities off from states and regions, states and regions off from
countries, days off from months when the months precede them, years off from
months and days, and degree abbreviations for degrees, “junior, and “senior” when
they follow names.
Maria Suarez, Ph.D., was born on January 10, 2000, in Los Angeles, California.
Lincoln Williams, Jr., will graduate this year and celebrate by spending three
weeks in Paris, France.
Using Semicolons
1. Use a semicolon to set off two closely-related independent clauses when they
don’t have a coordinating conjunction between them.
She loved studying history; she hoped to teach it one day.
He enjoyed studying French; however, he had little chance to practice it.
If a period wouldn’t work to replace it, don’t use a semicolon at all, except for the
following exception:
2. Use semicolons to set off items in a series of three or more when one or more of
those items has a comma.
Her vacation included visits to Florence, Italy; Paris, France; and London,
England.
They read poetry by William Blake, who was an artist as well as a poet; William
Wordsworth; and Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
Note: sometimes students get confused and reverse the semicolon and commas. Here’s a
hint to help you remember which goes where: Remember that in situations like those
above, the commas are serving as connectors—they connect an explanation, description,
or some other piece of information about an item to that item—and the semicolons are
functioning as separators between different items. Which looks bigger and stronger, the
comma [,] or the semicolon [;]? Make sure you understand where each item begins and
leaves off, and put the semicolons where you are separating the items.
Her vacation included visits to [1] Florence, Italy; [2] Paris, France; and [3]
London, England.
If you are wondering why we have a semicolon in front of the “and,” remember that in
MLA format, we put a comma in front of “and” when it sets off the last item in a series of
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three or more. However, when our items themselves have commas, we need to turn all
the “separating” commas that we would ordinarily have in a series into semicolons,
including the one preceding “and.”
Using Colons
1) Colons are used to introduce sentence elements, but only after independent clauses.
Use them when your independent clause is designed to create a feeling of anticipation for
the information that is to follow. They can introduce a series, direct quotations, or even
other independent clauses if the second clause interprets, explains, or amplifies the first.
She refused only one pizza topping: anchovies.
The pianist played works by three composers: Chopin, Liszt, and Beethoven.
Classic science fiction writers who tackled the theme of artificial intelligence
include the following: Arthur C. Clark, Isaac Asimov, and Philip K. Dick.
He offered this advice: “Neither a borrower, nor a lender be.”
Their enmity could be explained by one simple fact: they were competing for the
same job.
Do not use a colon if the element being introduced does not follow an independent
clause.
Classic science fiction writers who tackled the theme of artificial intelligence
include Arthur C. Clark, Isaac Asimov, and Philip K. Dick.
2. Colons are used between titles and subtitles.
Our class read Maria Tatar’s The Classic Fairy Tales: Texts, Criticism.
Using Apostrophes
The apostrophe has two primary uses: forming contractions and making nouns
possessive.
1. Use the apostrophe to form contractions by inserting it in place of missing letters
or numbers.
“It’s” is the contraction of “it is” (it is not the possessive form of “it”.
“Don’t” is the contraction of “do not.”
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2. Use the apostrophe to make nouns—not pronouns—possessive. Where or
whether an “s” is added depends on whether a word is singular or plural and on its
spelling).
When words do not end with an “s,” make them possessive by adding an apostrophe and
then an “s.”
the child’s bicycle
the children’s toys
When words do end with an “s,” make them possessive by adding only an apostrophe
when no extra “s” sound is pronounced.
two cats’ kittens
both houses’ roofs
When words end with an “s” or an “s” sound, and an extra “s” sound is added when the
word is made possessive, add an apostrophe and an “s” after it.
her house’s roof
his boss’s office
Sometimes subjects in sentences share possession of something or have separate
possession of different things.
When they share possession—when the subjects are functioning as a single unit, in other
words—add the apostrophe and, if necessary, an additional “s” after the last name or item
in the series.
Dinah and Lin’s home is in Santa Monica.
The rain and sleet’s effects were dangerous to drivers.
If the subjects do not share possession, make each name or item in the series possessive.
Erik’s and Veronica’s homes are in San Diego and Bakersfield, respectively.
Drought’s and flood’s effects are quite different, but they can both be devastating.
Using Quotation Marks
Quotation marks are used when you use someone else's exact phrasing (unless the
quotation is over four lines in your paper, in which case you indent two tabs from the left
margin instead) and to indicate the titles of works like stories, essays, articles, and poems.
Fabiola said, “I love the novels and short stories of Angela Carter.”
“The Courtship of Mr. Lyon” and “the Tiger’s Bride” are both based on the fairy
tale “Beauty and the Beast.”
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For quotations or titles of such works inside a quotation, use single quotation marks (also
called “inverted commas”) inside the quotation.
Emily said, “My favorite story is ‘The Tiger’s Bride’ by Angela Carter.”
Although you have probably seen examples of periods and commas outside of closing
quotation marks, this is not correct in MLA, APA, or other standard academic formats.
The only time you will have a sentence’s period outside a closing quotation mark is when
the sentence is followed by an in-text citation, in which case the period follows the
citation unless you have a lengthy (five lines or more), indented quotation. If you have a
situation where you need a colon or a semicolon after material in quotation marks, the
colon or semicolon will follow the closing quotation mark.
Her essay analyzed a standard fairy tale motif in “The Tiger’s Bride”:
transformation.
She briefly mentioned “The Courtship of Mr. Lyon”; it is another Angela Carter
story based on “Beauty and the Beast.”
If you directly quote a question or if a question mark is part of a title, the question mark
goes inside the closing quotation mark. Also, only one end punctuation mark is used
with quotation marks, so you don’t follow a quotation with a period if you have a
quotation mark inside.
“She asked, “What was the name of that story we read by Joyce Carol Oates?”
The name of the story is “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”
If you ask a question about material enclosed within quotation marks, the question mark
goes outside the closing quotation mark.
Did you read Raymond Carver’s stories “The Bath” and “A Small, Good Thing”?
Using Dashes
Dashes can substitute for other punctuation marks, like commas and semicolons. They
indicate a shift in tone; they can emphasize a point or set off an explanatory comment.
She was known for her quick wit—but she could be rather mean sometimes.
They can also be used to avoid confusion when you want to set off a nonrestrictive phrase
that has numerous commas.
He was good at numerous sports—swimming, tennis, rugby, and soccer, to name
a few—and won many trophies.
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Dashes are relatively informal, so don't overuse them. When using a word processor,
type a dash as two hyphens with no spaces on either side, and the program will turn the
hyphens into a real dash for you.
Using End Punctuation
Periods, question marks, and exclamation points are called terminal punctuation marks
because they can all terminate sentences.
Using Periods
1) Use periods to end sentences that are not direct questions, rhetorical questions, or
actual exclamations. If a sentence makes a reference to a question without asking a
question, use a period. Note: the MLA recommends using only one space after periods
and other punctuation marks that conclude sentences.
They were very upset by the fire.
We asked when the research paper was due.
2) Use a period for certain abbreviations.
B.A.
M.A. Ph.D. etc.
i.e.
e.g.
Note: some abbreviations can be written with or without periods.
C. E. or CE, which means “Common Era” is increasingly being used around the
world in place of A.D or AD (for Anno Domini, “in the year of our Lord”).
B.C.E. or BCE, which means “Before Common Era,” is increasingly being used
around the world in place of B.C. or BC (“before Christ”).
Acronyms (words formed from the initial letters of a series of words) or very well-known
abbreviations do not require periods.
FBI
UNESCO
PETA
CIA
NATO
Using Question Marks
Use question marks at the end of sentences that ask questions, including rhetorical
questions and requests made in the form of questions.
What topic did you choose for your paper? Are you crazy?
Remember that placement of question marks in relation to quotation marks is important.
If you are quoting a question, put the closing quotation mark after the question mark.
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The professor asked, “Who wants to earn extra credit?”
If you are asking a question about quoted material, place the question mark after the
closing quotation mark.
Did you really mean it when you said, “I quit”?
Using Exclamation Points
Exclamation points are used to express strong emotion. In general, you should avoid
them—they do not make the points you assert in an essay sound stronger; they are the
written equivalent of raising your voice or shouting. They can give your work an
amateurish and immature feel. Look at the difference in the following two statements.
Which one looks most serious and mature?
The scientists presented very compelling data.
The scientists presented very compelling data!
If your ideas do not have force, following them with an exclamation point won’t make
them seem stronger. However, exclamation points may be appropriate in creative writing
or when transcribing excited utterances.
“Fire!” she screamed.
Using Hyphens
Hyphens have several uses, but you need to be careful not to use them when they are not
called for. They are used to join two or more words when they are functioning as an
adjective directly in front of the noun that they are modifying.
Nineteenth-century writers studied in the course include William Wordsworth and
Mary Shelley.
John disparaged what he called typical middle-class values.
They have three-year-old twins.
Don’t hyphenate adjectives or adverbs when they do not precede the words they are
modifying.
Their twins are three years old.
Hyphens are also used to join the parts of some compound words. There are relatively
few compound nouns that need hyphens; these include words that begin with “self,” like
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“self-esteem.” If you are not sure if a term is a compound word, look it up in a
dictionary.
Enrique loved his mother-in-law.
They were loyal comrades-in-arms.
Most compound nouns should not be hyphenated.
The attorney general was besieged with questions.
What high school did you attend?
Hyphens are used to join the parts of compound numbers from twenty-one through
ninety-nine. (In MLA format, use numerals for 100 and higher.)
Javier won twenty-nine games in a row.
Hyphens are used with all fractions that are spelled out.
One-half of the prize money is mine.
Most of the time, prefixes and suffixes are connected to root words without a hyphen.
However, hyphens are used with prefixes when they come before proper nouns.
She accused her critics of being un-American.
Hyphens are used with prefixes ending in a or i when the root word begins with an a or i.
Samuel was a semi-invalid for a while after the accident.
Hyphens are used with the prefix ex.
Savannah stayed friends with her ex-boyfriend.
Use the hyphen with the prefix re only when it means “again” and if omitting the hyphen
would cause confusion.
It was less expensive to re-cover the old sofa than to buy a new one.
I had scarcely recovered from the first surprise when I got a new one.
Words with double e’s and double ‘'s are usually made into one word with no hyphen, but
you should use a dictionary if you are not sure.
They tried hard to cooperate.
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The funds for the party were co-opted for other purposes.
Using Ellipsis Marks
Ellipsis marks (together a set is referred to as an ellipsis) are indicated by three periods.
An ellipsis can appear next to other punctuation, including an end-of-sentence period
(resulting in four periods). Use four only when the words on either side of the ellipsis
make full sentences. Most style manuals and house styles prefer the periods to be spaced.
They are used to indicate a sentence that is allowed to deliberately trail off.
Gillian was assured that the used car she was thinking of buying was very
reliable, but . . . .
Ellipses are also used to indicate the omission of quoted material. Most style manuals
and house styles prefer the periods to be spaced. The current convention is to put
brackets around ellipses that you insert into direct quotations to make it clear that the
ellipses aren’t part of the original passage.
“In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the
indefensible [. . . . ] Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism.”
—George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language.”
The brackets indicate that the writer quoting Orwell added the ellipses, not Orwell.
Using Parentheses and Brackets
Technically, brackets include parentheses, or round brackets ( ); square brackets, or box
brackets [ ]; curly brackets, or braces { }; and angle brackets < >. Most commonly,
“bracket” is used to mean square brackets and parentheses usually aren’t called brackets
at all. (We don’t use curly brackets in sentences, so they won’t be discussed.)
Using Parentheses
1. Use parentheses to set off a part of your sentence that is not part of the main thought.
They indicate an “aside” or an exception to a point. However, be careful not to overuse
them in this way. The question you should ask yourself is this: “If it isn’t part of my
main thought, why do I want it in my sentence?”
Marie Antoinette (infamous for a statement she never actually made, “let them eat
cake”) was the subject of two recent movies.
2. Use parentheses to add clarifying information, like definitions.
Nanobots would be measured in microns (millionths of a meter) and be invisible
without powerful microscopes.
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3. Use parentheses to enclose numerals or letters indicating the items of a list.
Marie Antoinette is most infamous today for (1) a cavalier comment she never
actually made and (2) being guillotined.
4. Use parentheses for in-text citations.
At the end of Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour,” Mrs. Mallard drops dead
upon learning that her husband is alive. In the final irony of the story, doctors
report that she has died of a “joy that kills” (25).
Women across the social spectrum shared and modified fairy tales (Smith 172,
Warner 316-17).
Using Brackets
We use square brackets, usually referred to simply as “brackets,” when we insert material
into, delete, or change material within quotations in order to make our additions or
changes clearly distinct from the actual quoted material.
1. Use brackets to add explanatory information:
William Gibson recounted that “My colleague Bruce Sterling [considered another
one of the founders of cyberpunk in science fiction] and I were invited to
Washington a couple of years ago to address the National Academy of Sciences
special meeting on the computerization of American public schools.”
1. Use brackets when you change an upper-case letter to a lower-case letter or a lowercase letter to an upper-case letter. Here are some lines from Theodore Roethke’s poem
“The Waking”:
Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me, so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.
If you wished to incorporate these lines into a sentence of your own and still follow
conventional capitalization guidelines for sentences, you could write
I feel, like Roethke, that “Great Nature has another thing to do / [to] you and me,
so take the lively air, / [a]nd, lovely, learn by going where to go.”
Note: The slash is used to indicate a division between lines of poetry in the original
version, but it does not need to be enclosed in brackets.
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2. Use brackets when you change a word in a quotation. Take, for example, the following
lines from a poem by Stevie Smith:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.
This could be altered to
Like Smith’s character, he “was much further out than [we] thought / [a]nd not
waving but drowning.”
3. Use brackets around the term sic (Latin for "thus") to indicate errors or unusual
spelling variations that are "thus in the original":
Jonson told Drummond that “Skakspeer [sic] wanted art.”
Sic is Latin, and MLA format suggests italicizing foreign words.
4. Use brackets around ellipses […] when following MLA style to indicate that material
that has been deleted (only do so if you are in no way altering the meaning of the original
passage)
William Gibson recounted that “My colleague Bruce Sterling and I were invited
to [. . .] address the National Academy of Sciences special meeting on the
computerization of American public schools.”
Note: The use of brackets around ellipses in a relatively new MLA guideline, so you’ve
probably seen more ellipses without brackets than with them. APA guidelines don’t
require brackets with ellipses.
Using the Slash
The slash is also called the slant line, the oblique stroke, the bar, and the virgule. Use it
to indicate a separation between lines of poetry or lines in a play written in poetic verse if
you are not retaining the original verse form in your sentence. (Put spaces before and
after the slash.)
King Richard laments, “I shall despair. / There is no creature loves me; / And if I
die, no soul shall pity me: / Nay, wherefore should they, since that I myself /
Find in myself no pity to myself?”
Avoid using the slash in formal, academic writing as a short-cut. We often see people
writing and/or, she/he, and him/her, the latter two proliferating as we try to avoid sexist
language. But people don’t talk that way, and good writing sounds good when spoken
out loud. When was the last time you heard someone referring to a “him/her” or a
“he/she”? It is better to write “him or her” or “he and she,” and even better to make your
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nouns plural so that you can correctly use the plural pronouns “they” and them.” That
way you can avoid sentences that get bogged down with too many pronouns.
Making Subjects and Verbs Agree
The rule is simple: a singular subject takes a singular verb, and a plural subject takes a
plural verb. The tricky part is figuring out whether subjects are singular or plural,
especially with subjects separated from the verb and with compound subjects.
If a subject is composed of two or more nouns or pronouns connected by “and,” we treat
it as a plural, so use a plural verb.
Judy and Edna are coming to dinner.
If two or more singular nouns or pronouns are connected by “or” or “nor,” use a singular
verb.
Either Judy and Edna is bringing dessert.
If the subject contains both a singular and a plural noun or pronoun joined by “or” or
‘nor,” the verb should agree with the part of the subject that is nearer the verb.
The cats or the dog gets to sleep inside the house, depending on whose turn it is.
The dog or the cats get to sleep inside the house, depending on whose turn it is.
If a phrase comes between the subject and the verb, the verb must agree with the subject,
not with a noun or pronoun in the phrase that come before the verb.
The person who mismanaged all of the accounts is not working here any more.
The most interesting chapters of that book are near the end.
If you use the relative pronouns “who,” “which” or “that,” use verbs that agree with the
word the pronoun refers to.
The cars that were most popular were the ones with the best fuel economy.
The car that was the most popular got sixty mpg in town.
“One” and “body” are singular, so the pronouns “anybody, “ “anyone,” “nobody,”
“somebody,” someone,” “no one,” “each one,” “everyone,” and “everybody” are also
singular, as are the words “each, “either,” and “neither.” They all require singular verbs.
Everybody loves cake.
Each of these cakes is delicious.
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Either ice cream or cake is fine.
Neither of us is hungry any more.
Some nouns that end with an “s” are treated as singular, such as “news,” “civics,” and
“mathematics.” ‘Dollars” is singular if you are talking about an amount of money, but it
is plural if you are talking about actual dollars.
Mathematics is a difficult subject for many people.
A hundred and fifty dollars is a lot of money for a textbook.
Nouns for certain items that have two parts, such as scissors, tweezers, and trousers,
require plural verbs.
I think your trousers need mending.
Where are the scissors?
Collective nouns, like “family,” “class,” “organization,” “team,” and “committee,”
indicate groups of individuals, and in the United States they are treated as singular.
My family wants to go camping.
The committee has to reach a solution to the problem.
When expressions such as “with,” “including,” and “in addition to” are used, pay
attention to the subject. If the subject is singular, so is the verb, and if the subject is
plural, the verb is, too.
Jake, along with all the finalists, is going to the competition.
All of the finalists, including Jake, are going to the competition.
Understanding Pronouns
Pronoun case expresses the relationship of a pronoun to other words in the sentence.
There are only three pronoun cases: subjective case: pronouns used as subject, objective
case: pronouns used as direct or indirect objects of verbs or prepositions, and possessive
case: pronouns used to express ownership.
Singular
I
you
she, he, it
we
they
who
Objective
me
you
her, him, it
us
them
whom
Possessive
mine
yours
his, hers, its
ours
theirs
whose
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The relative pronouns “this,” “that,” “these,” “those,” and “which” do not change form.
(If you are wondering what “my,” “your,” “her,” “our,” and “their” are, they are
possessive adjectives—they describe nouns, they do not stand in for them (“his” and
“whose” are both adjectives and pronouns).
A common problem is that people are so used to using the plural “they,” “them,” and
“their” as generic singular pronouns in speaking that we tend to automatically use them
the same way when we write. However, MLA and other style arbiters do not yet accept
this as standard in formal writing situations. At some point, MLA, APA, and other are
going to have to recognize the logic and popularity of this usage, but many of your
professors probably still frown on it, as well. Ask what their preferences are.
The increased use of a singular “they” is probably the movement to gender-inclusive
language in the twentieth century. In the past, it was typical to refer to the typical human
being, professional person, and so on as “he” or “him” unless referring to positions
stereotypically assumed to be female. Thus, it was standard to see sentences like the
following”
When a doctor prescribes medicine, he should ask what other medications a
patient it taking.
When visiting a new doctor, a patient should be prepared to discuss his complete
medical history.
A nurse should read carefully when she tries to decipher a doctor’s handwriting.
Now, we are often see the following:
When a doctor prescribes medicine, they should ask what other medications a
patient it taking.
When visiting a new doctor, a patient should be prepared to discuss their
complete medical history.
A nurse should read carefully when they try to decipher a doctor’s handwriting.
The technically correct way to write would be to make the nouns plural (and change the
verb forms) to match the pronouns:
When doctors prescribe medicine, they should ask what other medications a
patient it taking.
When visiting a new doctor, patients should be prepared to discuss their complete
medical history.
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Nurses should read carefully when they try to decipher a doctor’s handwriting.
There are good arguments to be made for the use of “singular they.” After all, as the
above sentences clearly indicate, we use it when we are referring to metaphorical
individuals, but literally meaning whole groups of people. According to The New
Fowler's Modern English Usage, 3rd. ed., published in 1996, singular they has not only
been widely used by respected writers for centuries, it has become generally accepted:
“Over the centuries, writers of standing have used they, their, and them with anaphoric
reference to a singular noun or pronoun, and the practice has continued in the 20C. to the
point that [ . . . ] such constructions are hardly noticed any more or are not widely felt to
lie in a prohibited zone.”
However, most style guides still advise against “singular they” in writing.
Compound subjects and objects also make pronoun choice confusing. Sometimes the
simplest way to figure out what form to use it to drop one of the words from the
compound.
You would not write, “The new standards benefit I.”
You should not write, “The new standards benefit Charlotte and I.”
You should write, “The new standards benefit Charlotte and me.”
Sometimes a descriptive noun phrase follows a personal pronoun.
We would not write, “Us want lower tuition.”
We would write, “We want lower tuition.”
We should write, “We students want lower tuition.”
“Who” and “whom” correspond to “they” and “them,” and so on. “Who” is the
subjective form, and we use it when an action is being performed. “Whom” is the
objective form, and we use it when a person is the recipient of an action or if the action is
being performed for him or her. It is helpful to note that while not all pronouns in the
objective case end with the letter “m,” the only pronouns that end in “m” are in objective
case. An easy way to figure out whether you should use “whom” in your writing (it has
fallen into disuse in most spoken English) instead of “who” is to see if “them” or “him”
would work in its place if you reworded the sentence to answer a question.
Whom do you love?
You love him.
Who loves you?
They love you.
To whom should I address the letter?
Address it to him.
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Pronouns used in comparisons can be tricky. Comparisons usually follow "than" or "as."
Comparisons usually omit words since they are clearly implied and we don't really miss
them. If you complete the comparisons in your head, you can choose the correct case for
the pronouns. You can also think about how the pronouns sound if you were not making
comparisons.
Correct sentence with implied words: “Sadie is faster than I [am fast].”
You would not write, “Me am fast.”
You should not write, “Sadie is faster than me.”
You should write, “Sadie is faster than I.”
Correct sentence with implied words: “The new standards benefit you as much as
[they benefit] me.”
You would not write, “The new standards benefit I.”
You should not write, “The new standards benefit you as much as I.”
You should write, “The new standards benefit you as much as me.”
Correct sentence with implied words: “Chloe is as happy as I [am happy].”
You would not write, “Me am happy” or “Me is happy."
You should not write, “Chloe is as happy as me.”
You should write, “Chloe is as happy as I.”
Notes:
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English 1A General Essay Guidelines for Research Papers
Please remember to carefully read the instructions for each assignment. Make sure that
you have the minimum number of required sources and meet the minimum word count.
The following guidelines summarize information given elsewhere in this class pack, in
online handouts, and covered in class lectures about the most basic requirements for
acceptable papers. You should read these before and after you finish paper drafts—don’t
try to go by memory. Every semester, I see students losing points for violating
requirements that are quite clearly stated here. Yes, it takes time to read them and re-read
them, but skipping those steps and getting an F or D instead of a C, B, or A is not a very
cost-effective approach to time.
I. Topic
1. Paper topics must be connected to the subject matter we explore in this
course. Read the instructions to make sure that you propose acceptable topics.
2. Papers should be about topics that will engage an audience’s interest. Avoid
the overly obvious. Look at the suggestions for individual assignments and ask
yourself how you can use one of them (or a related issue that you come up with
on your own) to forge an interesting assertion that will capture your readers’
attention.
3. Choose a topic for which you can anticipate opposing viewpoints and deal
fairly with them—you will need to imagine an audience of diverse people when
you write your essay.
4. Choose a topic that will enable you to do more than present a series of
extremely obvious facts. The content of your papers should be tied to
persuasive (argumentative) thesis statements. A paper should be more than a
listing of information. You must be able to make arguments and defend them.
5. The topic you choose needs to be about a subject that will enable you not to
simply discuss problems, but also concrete solutions that your readers can
help to implement.
II. Thesis Statement
1. A thesis statement is a single declarative sentence that asserts what your
paper will prove. It cannot be a question.
2. Your thesis should assert a debatable point, not just state a fact or factoid.
Avoid simply stating something obvious. Ask yourself, “What do I want my
readers to do?” This could involve concrete, practical suggestions for some
issues, such as specific legislation to support or repeal. Your paper will suffer
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if it doesn't have a strong, debatable, clear assertion to prove. Once you have
crafted a tentative thesis that makes a debatable assertion, ask yourself, “Does my
thesis pass the ‘So what?’ test?” You need to rethink your paper’s purpose and
connect your assertion to a larger, more relevant, more interesting issue if the
average person's first response to your thesis is likely to be “Yeah—so what?”
3. Your thesis (and any arguments and assertions you later make in support of
it) should be practical, suggesting something that is actually possible for
readers to do, not simply expressing wishful thinking about what individuals,
businesses, industries, professions, or segments of the government “should”
do. Look at what consumer advocates, for example, advocate in the way of
specific solutions (including legislative ones) to an issue you are examining.
Professional organizations, like the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), also
often recommend specific guidelines, like recommendations on the maximum
amount of television “screen time” children in specified age brackets should be
allowed on a weekly basis. Avoid simply expressing what amounts to wishful
thinking; you need specific, concrete, practical suggestions for what readers can
do to help solve the problems discussed in an essay or research paper. “People
should eat less fast food and exercise more” and “Parents should model healthy
eating and exercise for their children” and state obvious facts without making any
real suggestions. Adults already know these things—but that fact doesn't make
behavior changes happen. Statements like “Fast food companies shouldn't use
processed food,” "Fast food restaurants should serve healthy food and smaller
portions,” and “Fast food chains should advertise healthy food” go even farther
into the realm of wishful thinking about what other people “should” do. After all,
these companies are making massive profits by selling unhealthy food. People
want this food, and they buy it. The basic goal of a business is to maximize
profits. Saying that these businesses “should” sacrifice profits by not giving
customers what they want is pointless. Why should companies spend money
making and airing advertisements that don't promote their own products?
4. Avoid thesis statements that express value judgments or make moral
stands. Your essays and research papers should provide researchable
information, not emotional and subjective beliefs. You may believe that your
values are the correct ones, and that anyone who disagrees with you is wrong,
but to write that way is very ineffective with a general audience. People have
different values. You do not have to convince people who already agree with
you—you need to be able to be convincing to people who do not. (See
“Audience and Tone.”)
5. Avoid dry, formulaic phrases like “This essay will prove . . . ,” “This paper
will be about . . . ,” “we will be reading about,” or “I will discuss . . . .”
Such phrases sound stuffy and amateurish.
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6. In college essays, the best place for the thesis statement is at the end of your
introductory paragraph. Your thesis makes a stronger impact and has more
clarity readers if you use it to finish your introduction and as a transition into
your first body paragraph. Outside of college writing, theses can be anywhere
in a work. For college papers, however, the approach is different. Your paper is
evaluated by how well you support your thesis, so it needs to be stated clearly
and in the introduction.
III. Proper Attribution of Ideas
1. All papers must have works cited pages. All the sources you use in your
papers must be included on the works cited pages. Review the proper format
for works cited entries, and remember that every entry begins with the author(s)
or, in the case of works with no author(s) given, the first important word or words
of a work’s title.
2. Essays must properly attribute information to the sources you use with intext citations. When you take information from sources, use in-text citations
even when you do not directly quote. ALL information you take from sources
in your paper must be followed by in-text citations. Not properly attributing
information is a form of plagiarism, which is grounds for an essay to be given a
failing grade.
3. When you have a print, PDF, or other source with pagination and have
mentioned the author(s) in the body of the essay, all you need in the citation
is the page number(s). If you have not clearly indicated the source in your
essay, you will need the last name(s) of the author(s) and the page number or,
in the case of an article with no author given, the first important word(s) of
the title and the page number. Format the words properly—words from articles
must be enclosed in quotation marks, just like the articles themselves.
4. For Web sources, use parenthetical in-text citations even when you have
indicated the source of the information in the body of your essay because
they clearly indicate exactly what you are citing. This is a freshman-level
college course, and I want students to make it very clear that they know they are
supposed to properly attribute information. Thus, even if you use the author’s
name to introduce a quotation, summary, or paraphrase, include it in parentheses
at the end of the information you take from the source.
5. The sources in your in-text citations have to match beginning information of
the corresponding entries on your works cited page so that readers may
easily find the correct entries. By “beginning,” I mean authors’ last names—all
of them unless you have four or more and use et al.—or the first important words
or words of a work if no author is provided.
Do not copy phrases or sentences from sources without enclosing them in
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quotation marks or, in the case of direct quotations over four lines, omitting
the quotation marks and indenting the quotation ten spaces from the left
margin. Not indicating when you use someone else's exact wording is a form of
plagiarism, which is grounds for an essay to be given a failing grade. Having a
citation after the information is necessary but not enough.
6. Paraphrase and summarize using your own words. Just changing a word or
phrase here and there is not an acceptable paraphrase. As noted above, give
your sources credit for their ideas even when you put them into your own words.
7. Do NOT use your sources’ in-text citations. You should tell your readers
where your sources got their information if they discuss other people's
research, but presenting their in-text citations implies that you read the
original research when you did not. This is dishonest and unacceptable in a
paper. You should explain the research and name the researchers and identify
their expertise. If possible, the best thing to do is see if you can access their
articles through EBSCOhost or other databases. That would give you more
detailed information and allow you to directly cite them.
IV. Sources, Evidence, and Support
1. Wishful thinking is not support. As stated in the section on thesis statements,
any arguments and assertions that you make in support of your thesis should
be practical, suggesting something that is actually possible for readers to do,
not simply expressing wishful thinking about what individuals, businesses,
industries, professions, or segments of the government ‘should’ do. Look at
what consumer advocates, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), nonprofit
organizations (NPOs), health care professionals, environmental activists, etc.,
advocate in the way of specific solutions (including legislative ones) to an issue
you are examining. The focus of this class is research—you do not have to invent
solutions, you have to do research into solutions that are being proposed and
decide, after careful evaluation, which ones best stand up to objective scrutiny.
Present these, with supporting evidence, to your audience.
2. Choose appropriate, scholarly sources for essays and research papers. Look
for the research, data, and theories of experts in a given field.
Scholarly journal articles and books by experts in the fields that you are
looking at are the best sources. Scholarly journals are also referred to as
“academic journals,” “refereed journals,” and “peer-reviewed journals.” The
terms “peer-reviewed” and “refereed” mean that a panel of peers in a particular
field have read the articles contained submitted to a particular journal in that field
and have decided that they are of high scholarship and are supported by
appropriate research. You can gain access to numerous scholarly journals through
EBSCOhost at the BC Library site. Academic Search Premier is a good database
to start with for our class. After you have entered your search terms, limit your
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results to “Full Text” and “Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journal.”
Professional organizations, governmental department sites,
Nongovernmental Organizations (NGOs), and Nonprofit Organizations
(NPOs) can often offer useful information that you can use in papers, but
they are not substitutes for books and articles that can give you detailed, indepth look at research. They can be especially useful when you are trying to
think of possible solutions to the problems that you explore that you would
like your readers to consider implementing. The American Academy of
Pediatrics, for example, has sections on federal, state, and community advocacy,
and it can be useful to generate ideas if you are writing a paper about children and
fast food advertising or children and media. This can be a good starting point;
however, you should still look for scholarly research to back up your ideas.
Magazines published for professionals in a given field can also be useful, as
they have higher standards than typical “popular” magazines whose purpose
if entertainment. The Columbia Journalism Review, for example, can be a very
informative source for ideas if you are writing about news media. As its “About
Us” section states, Columbia Journalism Review's mission is to encourage
excellence in journalism in the service of a free society. Nonetheless, even a
magazine like this should be a starting point; you should still look for scholarly
research to back up your ideas.
Do not use Wikipedia articles or non-expert websites as sources. Wikipedia
may be very useful for finding information on a variety of topics, but it is usergenerated and edited, which means that anyone can go into a Wikipedia article
and edit, add, or delete material. Sometimes the articles contain inaccuracies.
They may, however, be useful to give you back ground information and to point
you toward experts in a filed.
3. Provide enough detail so that your audience can evaluate the research you
cite. You should not expect readers to simply take your word that research
means what you say it means or that it means what someone else writing
about it or presenting it says it means. Offer significant details that can be
evaluated. Don’t simply say, “Studies show that [a claim]. . . .” or “Statistics
indicate [a claim] . . . .” or “Findings suggest . . . .” and leave it at that.
Journalism students are often taught to ask six questions about the subject they are
writing on: Who? What? Where? When? Why? and How? These are also useful
questions for you to ask when reading your paper draft and any references you
make to research. Would your readers be able to answer Who? What? Where?
When? Why? and How? about the research studies you refer to? If not, you need
to include more information. Who conducted the research? What were the
sample populations (size, age groups, etc.)? What were the actual results? When
was the research conducted? Why was it conducted? How were the data gathered
and evaluated? (See the online handout on writing with statistics.)
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4. Introduce expert sources to your audience in the bodies of your papers. Your
readers need to know why the sources you choose are credible. Usually you
should not introduce sources by naming books, articles, and periodicals in
your essay--that type of information is found on the works-cited page, and it
does not explain why the person whose information you are using is a
trustworthy authority. Instead, give relevant background information, like
credentials, degrees, and specialties for scientists, or, if an expert is associated
with an organization of some kind, you will need to explain what it is, not simply
name it. If an expert is a professor, you need to indicate what he or she is a
professor of. In the cases of noteworthy investigative journalists, such as Eric
Schlosser, the amount of time they spent investigating an issue and the scope and
purpose of the investigation. Phrases like “Eric Schlosser, an investigative
journalist”; “Eric Schlosser, a best selling author”; and “Kelsey Timmerman, who
travelled around the world on a quest to find information” don’t give your readers
enough information to understand the scope of their research or knowledge. You
don’t need to throw the kitchen sink at your readers—telling your readers how
many magazines journalists like Schlosser have written for or what schools they
attended isn’t very helpful or interesting. Focus on the scope, methodology, and,
when measurable, impact of their work. If you introduce a source by naming an
organization or department that the source is affiliated with, do not neglect to
explain what that organization, department, etc. is. Also, naming someone as an
“award winner” is not helpful if your readers have no idea what the award is and
what it is given for. Unless the award is extremely noteworthy, such as a Pulitzer
or Nobel Prize, leave out the mention of awards.
The best place to introduce experts is when you first use their ideas. Refer to them
by their entire names the first time that you mention them, and use their last
names throughout the rest of the paper, without prefixes like Ms., Miss, Mrs., and
Mr.
While you should not normally introduce a source by naming the title of a book,
an example of a logical exception would be books that have had a measurable
impact and created change. You could, therefore, introduce Schlosser by
discussing his book, but only do this if you can document real impact the book
has made on the debates about food industries and related issues. Otherwise,
don’t mention the titles of books or articles by Schlosser or anyone else. (See the
following points about reporters.)
5. You do not need to introduce ordinary journalists (reporters) to your
audience. They are not experts in the field--they are simply reporting
information for newspapers, magazines, and other media. Just cite the
information in an in-text citation. If you happen to use news articles in your
work, remember that these are not scholarly sources, but they can provide useful
facts. For the most part, however, if reporters refer to studies, don't stop there.
Find the studies themselves. It is unlikely that the reporters will provide enough
information for readers to evaluate the actual original research. Primary sources
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are always superior to secondary or tertiary sources.
6. When you give facts, statistics, and assertions from any organizations, do not
assume that your readers know exactly what they are. Even well-known and
respected entities like the Pew Research Center, the Rand Corporation, Gallup,
the Columbia Journalism Review, FactCheck.org, Nieman Watchdog, Reporters
without Borders, the Centers for Disease Control, and the American
Psychological Association should be clearly identified and explained to your
readers. Don't forget to evaluate any organizations that you use. You can get
information about many groups from their “About Us” pages, and this can bolster
the credibility of the information you provide to your own audience—but be
judicious. Evaluate your sources carefully. If you introduce an individual as an
expert and use his or her connection to an organization or institution to bolster
credibility, your readers need to know something about the organization and
institution. They understand what hospitals and universities are, but other
organizations may be more obscure. Unless an abbreviation is so extremely
common everyone knows exactly what it stands for, such as the CIA or FBI, only
use the abbreviation after you have introduced something using its full name first.
Follow it with the abbreviation in parentheses. You can simply use the
abbreviation after that. “The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) should have
the power to regulate . . . . Currently, however, the USDA can only . . . .”
When you name conferences, conventions, summits, and other events, do not
assume that your readers know exactly what they are. For example, instead of
making a reference to actions undertaken at an event like the Building a Healthier
Future Summit and leaving it at that, you should add an appositive (a
nonrestrictive element consisting of a noun or noun phrase placed next to another
word or phrase to identify and explain it): “The Building a Healthier Future
Summit, a March, 2014 gathering of American business and industry leaders
working to end childhood obesity, provides a unique opportunity for business and
industry leaders to sit with their nonprofit, academic and government counterparts
and address this paramount issue.”
When you name bills, laws, legislation, acts, Supreme Court cases and
decisions, and propositions, do not assume that your readers know exactly
what they are. Reference to propositions by their numbers is not very
informative, as the same numbers are used year after year—and different states
have different propositions. A reference to “Citizens United’ or even the full
name “Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission” will only confuse a
reader who doesn't know what the case was about, how it changed existing laws,
and what the impact has been. You need to explain such things.
7. Use research effectively. Use solid, concrete, specific evidence from sources to
back up your assertions. Papers that are filled primarily with obvious
information that most people already know lack demonstrable research skills
and are not very convincing. Simply dropping in a few quotes or paraphrases
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from sources—even if they are genuine experts—isn’t enough for a successful
research paper. You must provide information that convincingly supports your
arguments. If most of your paper is filled with statements of the obvious, it won't
be a good paper.
8. Don't offer unsubstantiated generalizations and assumptions as evidence. For
example, statements like “Americans watch too many reality TV shows” or
“Americans don't take the time to make healthy meals” aren’t precise, and they
aren’t proof. “Americans” implies all Americans, and “too many” is vague and a
value judgment, not a statistic. All of your arguments should be based on
assertions that you can back up with empirical evidence. If you cannot produce
research to back up your ideas, they are not worthwhile additions to a paper.
9. Vague generalizations that are ineffective as thesis statements are also
ineffective as premises to support thesis statements. For example, saying
something like “The government should make working conditions safer” isn't
making a concrete suggestion unless you can couple it with detailed explanations
of what a change in laws would do. If you are going to suggest changes in
legislation, you need to let your readers know what current laws in the pertinent
area are, and then be precise about how they should change. Don’t just say that
readers need to support legislation without saying exactly what the bill—or
proposed bills—would actually say and do. Your ideas should be practical—they
should suggest actions that are possible for readers to take. Do not engage in
wishful thinking about what individuals, businesses, industries, professions, or
segments of the government “should” do.
10. Don’t include evidence or ideas that you do not fully understand. Do not use
terminology unless you are absolutely sure of what the words mean, either in your
own sentences or when you directly quote. If you do not understand all of a
source’s words or ideas, don’t use them.
11. Do not misrepresent your sources by selectively choosing an idea or part of
an idea that does not accurately represent their evidence and conclusions.
Use quoted material honestly. Do not take a sentence or a phrase out of context to
make it look like the sources that you are quoting intend something different than
what the actual passage in context means. Do not take commonly understood
figures of speech out of context and present them as if they were meant literally.
12. Well-written arguments anticipate opposing viewpoints and deal fairly with
them. You must do more than simply summarize opposing viewpoints in
passing. You need to present opposing arguments thoroughly enough so that
your readers can understand them; that way, your own rebuttals will be
more persuasive and fair. Don’t stack the deck by ignoring evidence and
arguments that contradict your position. Readers know if you avoid inconvenient
issues. If you have trouble refuting opposing viewpoints, consider revising your
thesis. You do not have to convince people who already agree with you. You need
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to be able to be convincing to people who do not. If you cannot effectively present
opposing arguments and provide enough evidence and logical reasoning to rebut
them you should reconsider your thesis—perhaps even your entire topic.
13. Genuine research and critical evaluation of information involve keeping an
open mind. Do not become so emotionally wedded to an idea that you
mistake hunches, assumptions, and emotion- or values-based beliefs as logic
or evidence. Don't make guesses in college essays or research papers. You
need data; don't assert anything you cannot back up with empirical evidence.
Empirical evidence is information acquired by objective observation or
experimentation. Don’t say something is true or not true or “probably” true or not
true just because you have a hunch that it is.
14. Don't offer anecdotal evidence. Anecdotal evidence involves making claims
based on the experiences of individuals. This type of information isn’t always
untrue, but it does not belong in a research paper. Anecdotal evidence is often
used in place of clinical or scientific evidence, and may completely ignore
research or harder evidence that points to an opposite conclusion.
15. Avoid referring to yourself and your feelings, experiences, and attitudes.
Your experiences and feeling aren’t adequate evidence for a research essay.
Never forget your imagines audience—a group of diverse people interested in the
issues that you are examining—they are not interested in you, personally.
IV. Critical Thinking
1. Test your ideas to see how strongly based in empirical evidence the basis for
them really is. Empirical evidence is information acquired by objective
observation or experimentation. The best way to critically approach
problems is not just to look for evidence to support what you believe to be
true, but to look for evidence that what you believe is not true. In science,
empirical evidence is required for a hypothesis to gain acceptance. This validation
is achieved by such practices as the scientific method of hypothesis commitment,
careful experimental design, replication of results, peer review, and adversarial
review. Don’t simply assume that what you believe is true because you strongly
believe it; know why you believe it, and be prepared to test it. We often form
beliefs based more on culture, family, and background than anything else.
Intellectually rigorous and honest research means setting aside preconceived
beliefs.
2. Avoid logical fallacies and subjective, emotional appeals. Examples of
informal fallacies and emotional appeals that can weaken papers—even cause
them to fail if they are too big a part of the attempt to supports paper’s
arguments—include the following: the anecdotal evidence fallacy, appeal to
intuition, confirmation bias, false cause, and wishful thinking. See the section on
fallacies later in the class pack.
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V. Use of Quotations
1. Make sure that your quotations connect logically to what you have just been
writing. Don’t be tempted to add quotations that have only a vague connection to
what you have been talking about into a paragraph because you know you are
supposed to have a certain number of sources. Make sure that they provide
evidence for or illustrate a point that you have made.
2. In most cases you will need to explain and elaborate on quoted material to
help your audience understand it. Don’t assume that quotations can stand on
their own. Give your quotations context—ask yourself what added
information you would need to understand the quoted material if you were
reading it in someone else's work. Remember that quotations are there to
support your points, and you need to clarify them and make connections for your
readers. Your chosen quotations may seem very clear and independent to you, but
that is because you have read the work that you are quoting from, so you have a
lot of information in mind that your imagined audience does not have.
3. If you change information in a direct quotation for clarity, such as
substituting a person's name for a pronoun, or if you add ellipses to indicate
that you are leaving out some unnecessary verbiage, use square brackets to
enclose the changed elements. Here are two examples: “[Hank] died the week
before Christmas. He was forty-three” (Schlosser 146). “When Hank was eight
years old, he was the subject of a children’s book. It [. . .] told the story of a boy’s
first roundup” (Schlosser 147).
4. Avoid having back-to-back quotations; having two quotations in a row with no
comments or connections on your part is ineffective from your reader’s point of
view. You need to add context and clarifications between quotations. Connect the
quotations to the purpose you believe they can help serve in your paper.
5. Quoted material within sentences must flow grammatically with the rest of
the sentence. If you are not certain that you have achieved this, read the entire
sentence out loud.
6. No more than 15% to 20% of an essay or paper should be direct quotations.
There is no limit to the amount of paraphrased or summarized information that
you provide—you need to present your research. Just don’t forget to cite
everything.
7. Use the correct format for quotations and citations. See the examples and
explanations in this course pack. Here are a few common issues:
Unless you have named the source in you sentence, in-text citations should
include the last name of the author or authors if any are provided and page
numbers for print sources (you can use the last name of the first author followed
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by et al. if there are four or more authors, but you can only do this if that is how
you begin the works cited entry). Even if you have named the source in your
paper, when you have electronic sources with no page numbers, give the author or
first important word of the title to clearly indicate that you are citing and where
the information that you have taken from the source ends.
If no author is listed, use the first important word of the title (not “a,” “an,”
or “the”), properly formatted with italics or quotation marks. (Do not use the
names of sites or organizations--the information in a citation must match the
beginning of the works cited entry). |
Periods follow in-text citations if you do not have indented quotations. Do
not end the sentence preceding the citation with an extra period—the period that
follows the citation is sufficient. If what precedes the in-text citation is a direct
quotation, you will have the quotation mark, a space, the parenthetical citation,
and the period.
Quotations that exceed four lines in your paper should be indented one inch
(usually two default tabs) from the left margin, and the quotation marks
should be omitted. With indented quotations, the period precedes the in-text
citation.
Only use “qtd. In” the (the abbreviation for “quoted in” when your source is
quoting someone else, not when you are quoting the source, and make sure that
you clearly indicate in the body of your work the name of the person or
organization being quoted.
Only use paragraph numbers in citations for electronic sources that count
the paragraphs for you.
Use half-quote marks (the apostrophe key) for quotations within quotations
unless the quotations are indented. In those cases, use regular quotation marks.
The word “quote” means to use someone else’s exact words; it does not mean
“states.” Thus, for example, if Eric Schlosser states, “Dr. Griffin has good reason
to worry,” you should not write that Eric Schlosser quotes, “Dr. Griffin has good
reason to worry.” You are quoting Schlosser—Schlosser is not quoting anyone.
VI. Audience and Tone
1. Always keep your audience in mind. Don’t imagine only your instructor or
your classmates; imagine the general public. Don’t assume that your
audience is familiar with all of your examples or sources. When writing
about an article or book, do not assume that everyone in your audience has
read it. Ask yourself what your readers will need to know to understand the
points that you are making. Approach the writing task as if you are writing a
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paper that you hope to see published in a scholarly journal or anthology of
essays. Try to put yourself in the position of a reader who doesn’t know anything
about your topic or sources.
2. Don’t assume that all your readers are just like you. Avoid value judgments
and terms and phrases like “moral,” “immoral,” “right,” ‘wrong,” and so on.
These do not have the same definitions for everyone. You may believe that
your definitions are the correct ones, and that anyone who disagrees is wrong, but
to write that way is very ineffective with a general audience.
3. Keep in mind that a significant part of the general audience is composed of
people who are skeptical about what you are trying to prove to them (as
stated earlier in “Sources and Evidence”). These are the members of the audience
that you should be most concerned with. You do not have to convince people who
already agree with you. You need to be able to be convincing to people who do
not. You need to picture an audience that includes some people who are likely to
be skeptical about assumptions you make. Imagine different political viewpoints,
social, and cultural viewpoints. Even if you are picturing a fairly specific
audience, such as parents who are trying to deal with childhood obesity (a topic
that can be related to advertising and corporate America) or cyber bullying (a
topic related to the Internet), you should think of a diverse group of people within
that population.
4. Avoid exclusionary language like “man,” “mankind,” “manmade,”
“spokesman,” “chairman,”etc., when you are talking about all people (not
just males). This type of language is no longer considered acceptable according
to MLA standards. Use terms like “people,” “humanity,” “artificial,”
“spokesperson,” and “chair” or “chairperson.” Try, also, to be sensitive about
other terminology when referring to groups of people. If your essay deals with
undocumented workers, for examples, use that term, not “illegals,” which is a
term that is considered demeaning.
5. Adopt a serious, relatively formal, scholarly tone appropriate for college and
university work. Don't use informal language and slang phrases and terms,
vernacular, or idiomatic language, like “nowadays,” “awesome,” “messed
with,” “moms,” “dads,” “kids,” “stuff,” and “bogus.” While some sources
students find for their papers use second person (“you,’ “your”) and words like
“kids,” they are trying for an informal tone; their writing purpose is different from
that of a college or university student trying to learn or perfect a more formal
register. You will be reading authors who write in a variety of registers (“register”
refers to the type of language appropriate for a situation: formal or informal).
Schlosser and McMillan, for example, were writing to appeal to a broad, popular
market, hoping for best sellers, even though their subjects are serious. Their
adopted registers, therefore, are not academic and formal in tone--but your papers
should be. (See “Style.”)
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VII. Structure
1. Introductory paragraphs serve almost as mini-outlines for your essays,
letting readers know what the scope of your essay is and why your topic is
important. Try to engage your readers’ interest. Move from the general to the
particular, narrowing your focus to your thesis statement. Introductions don't have
to be very long, but you are unlikely to interest your readers with only three or
four sentences. Introductions are the first part of your essay that your audience
sees, but they do not have to be the first part that you write. You will have an
easier time generating ideas for an interesting and informative opening to your
essay once your essay actually exists. In a college essay, the strongest position for
your thesis statement is at the end of your introductory paragraph—it will be
clearer to your readers and have a greater impact.
2. The body of your paper should be composed of distinct paragraphs that
present evidence, ideas, and arguments in support of the assertion made in
your thesis statement. When you are editing your first draft, ask yourself when
you reach the end of each paragraph what point your paragraph made in support
of your arguments. A paragraph is a group of sentences that support one main
idea. The unity and coherence of ideas among sentences is what constitutes a
paragraph. Each body paragraph should contain a topic sentence that tells readers
the controlling idea of the paragraph. This controlling idea should be relevant to
your argumentative thesis. If you cannot find a topic sentence or if you cannot see
how the information in your paragraph supports a relevant point, then your
readers will not be able to tell, either. A topic sentence can begin a paragraph or
be somewhere in the body.
3. Make sure to provide clear and logical transitions between body paragraphs.
Your paper should not give the reader the impression of hopping abruptly
between different ideas. You can often use the last sentence in a paragraph to
provide the transition to the next paragraph.
4. Your conclusion should provide a sense of closure to your essay, highlighting
the key points that you have made in support of your thesis. Refrain from
introducing new information (if you come up with new ideas at this point,
consider integrating them into the body of your essay). A conclusion is not simply
a last body paragraph. In many ways, it mirrors your introduction. In your
introduction, you tell your readers what you will prove and the scope of
information that you will cover. In your conclusion, you remind them of what you
proved and how you did it and reinforce why the issues you addressed matter.
Avoid beginning with boring, redundant phrases like “in conclusion."”
VIII. Style
1. Choose pronouns appropriate for academic writing.
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Avoid second person in essays and research papers (“you,” “your”) because
it is both imprecise and too informal.
In most formal, academic writing, personal references and the first person
singular pronouns “I” and “me,” are discouraged when it isn't necessary (you
do not need to precede an assertion with “I believe”; just make the assertion).
Unless your own experiences are the assigned subject of a writing assignment or
forum, avoid referring to yourself and your feelings. In this class, you need to
practice a more professional style to prepare you for future formal writing
situations. If you are referring to society in general, first person plurals like “we”
and “us” are fine. Your experiences and feeling aren’t adequate evidence for a
research essay, and they are not of any interest to the audience that you should be
imagining as you write.
Pronouns like “one’s” can sound very stilted; first person plural is usually
the best choice. Instead of writing something like “Unhealthy ingredients, like
high fructose corn syrup, do harm to one’s body,” write “Unhealthy ingredients,
like high fructose corn syrup, do harm to our bodies.”
Third person (“they” and “them”) when referring to more than one person is
appropriate, but make sure that your nouns are plural because these are still
technically plural pronouns. We habitually (especially in speech) use "they,"
etc., as generic singular pronouns, and at some point the Modern Language
Association and other style arbiters are going to have to recognize the logic and
popularity of this usage, but purists point out that this has not yet been accepted as
standard in formal writing situations.
2. Use the correct verb tense for the situation. Use present tense to state facts
(“What people put on the Internet is there forever”), to describe habitual
actions, and to discuss the ideas expressed by an author in a particular
work (“Bill Moyers argues that the gap between the rich and the poor is getting
wider”), and to describe the ongoing events in a work of fiction. Generally, you
should use past tense to narrate events that have already happened and are not
ongoing.
3. Avoid “empty adjectives,” emotional language, and language that “gushes.”
Words and phrases like “interesting,” “excellent,” “great,” and “really good”
convey nothing concrete or objective. They are very subjective and relative.
People have widely varying opinions about what is great, good, or interesting.
Only use adjectives that convey something objectively measurable.
4. As noted in the section on audience and tone, you should avoid informal
language, slang, vernacular, or idiomatic language. You will be reading
authors who write in a variety of registers, including ones that are not academic
and formal in tone, but your papers should be more formal.
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5. Try to avoid language that sounds stilted. (“Stilted” means stiffly or artificially
formal.) While you should avoid being too informal in college essays, you should
avoid going to the other extreme.
6. Avoid sarcasm, ridicule, and demeaning language—these make your writing
(and you) look immature. Describing people who may disagree with you as
“ignorant,” for example, is arrogant and alienating.
7. Avoid exclamation points (unless you are directly quoting someone). They are
the written equivalent of shouting; they do nothing to make your ideas seem
persuasive. They usually come across as immature. Instead, if you wish to
emphasize an assertion, do so with strength of reasoning and solid evidence.
8. Avoid “and/or” and “etc.” in formal papers. Usually, you can simply use “or”;
the “and” in situations where people use “and/or” is implied. Usually, rewriting
the sentence with “or” better reflects the meaning you're trying to accomplish
with “and/or,” but sometimes you’ll want to use “or both.” Avoid slashes in
general. Instead of “etc.,” you can often just end with the last item in a series or
with the phrase “and so on.” (This class pack is not a research paper, so a more
casual level of approach is permissible.)
IX. Format
1. Papers should be in MLA format. See the sections in the class pack dealing
with document presentation, in-text citations, and works cited entries.
2. Titles of articles and essays are enclosed in quotation marks; names of books,
periodicals (journals, magazines, and newspapers), web sites, and films are
italicized. No type of source is both italicized and enclosed in quotation marks.
3. In titles, capitalize the first letter of every word except for prepositions,
coordinating conjunctions (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so), and articles (a, an,
and the) unless they are the first words of titles or subtitles.
4. In MLA papers, only use numerals for 100 and over in the body of your
paper unless you are directly quoting. (Newspapers, papers written following
APA format, and other style manuals may use numerals for all numbers or for
numbers over ten, but we follow MLA guidelines in English classes).
5. MLA no longer recommends using apostrophes to set off the "s" pluralizing
dates. It was originally instituted for clarity, but there is no longer any possibility
of confusion; thus, you'd write 1990s, not 1990’s. If you dropped the first part of
the date, you would use an apostrophe for the missing numerals because it would
be a contraction: ’90s.
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6. Make sure that you use the appropriate software functions when formatting
your document. Your header must be inserted using the “header” function,
your essay title must be centered using “center,” your works cited page
should be set off using “page break” (not by hitting the space bar or creating
a separate document), and so on. You are at a point in your academic career
where you are expected to be able to master basic word-processing functions, and
you will lost points if you do not attempt to do so. (See the online tutorial if you
are having problems.)
7. Left-justify your documents; don't full-justify them. The paper should be leftjustified (have an even left margin). It should not be right-justified (made to have
an even right margin). The title, of course, should be centered. The paper should
also have one-inch margins on all sides.
8. Use a standard, readable font like Times New Roman for the body of the
paper. The font size should be 11 or 12. (For my classes, use 12.)
9. Proofread carefully. Proofreading means examining your writing carefully to
find and correct typographical errors and mistakes in punctuation,
grammar, style, and spelling. Use grammar and spell check on your
computer. Reading your own essays out loud can be very helpful. Here are
other helpful proofreading strategies.
X. Miscellaneous Addenda
1. When your first paper draft is finished, ask yourself if you have an
interesting and informative title to draw your audience in, not something like
“Paper One” or “Paper Two.”
2. When you find articles in databases, the information is not in MLA format.
The title may only have the first letter of the first word capitalized--that is not
MLA format. Capitalize according to MLA guidelines. The database may give the
month or season of publication of a scholarly journal article, but that does not
mean that e we use that in a works cited entry for a scholarly journal. Conversely,
the database may give you volume and issue numbers for magazines, but we do
not use those in works cited entries for magazines—just the month and year, as
well as the day, if provided (days are needed for weekly and biweekly
magazines). Even if a journal, book, or magazine uses an ampersand (&) in its
title, in MLA format, you should use the word “and” instead.
3. Don't assume your imagined audience reads an essay immediately after it is
written—avoid terms like “today,” “now,” “recently,” “this year” or “ten
years ago.” This also means that you need to give direct quotations that refer to
time durations a clear context. For example, the quotation “The obesity rate
among preschoolers has doubled in the past six years” (Schlosser 271) shouldn't
stand alone; for the sake of clarity and accuracy, readers need to know what year
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Schlosser made this statement. What was six years ago when Schlosser wrote
could be twenty years ago to a current audience.
4. Unless an abbreviation is so extremely common everyone knows exactly what
it stands for, such as the CIA or FBI, only use the abbreviation after you
have introduced something using its full name first. Follow it with the
abbreviation in parentheses. You can simply use the abbreviation after that. “The
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) should have the power to regulate . . . .
Currently, however, the USDA can only . . . .”
5. “The government” is not a single entity. There are many levels of
government: federal, state, county, and city. Also, these various levels have
different sections and branches, as well as laws and regulations that they
must follow. Furthermore, the people in these areas change over the years.
Don’t write “the government” as if it were a single, consistent entity that can
“want” something or arbitrarily “do” or “change” something. (Review what
the section on thesis statements says about “wishful thinking.”) Also, if you are
talking about a population's opinions, attitudes, and beliefs, “America” (or “the U.
S.”) cannot be regarded as a single entity, either; the country is full of diverse
people who disagree about virtually everything.
6. The word “novel” refers only to fictional books, not all books. However, if
you refer to a book that is not a novel, there is no reason to call it a “nonfiction
book.” That is redundant. Context would make its nature perfectly obvious to
your readers.
7. Try to avoid redundant phrasing. Examples include “the reason is because”
(say “the reason is [and give the reason]” or “[information . . .] is because”),
“people in society” (say “people”), “in our day and age” (just say “today,” and
only say that if you are specifically contrasting our current age with earlier ones),
“MacMillan explains in her book” (say “McMillan explains”), and “in Schlosser's
book, he states,” (say “Schlosser states,”).
8. Avoid beginning sentences with “meaning that”; this almost always results in a
sentence fragment, and it is clumsy sounding.
The online version of this document may have added examples.
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Understanding and Avoiding Plagiarism
Types of Plagiarism
We can divide plagiarism into five main categories: total plagiarism, substantial
plagiarism, incidental/occasional plagiarism, “buddy”/tutor plagiarism, and accidental
plagiarism.
Total Plagiarism occurs when students turn in other people’s work as their own. It is
intentional and the most blatant and offensive form of academic dishonesty, and it can
meet with very harsh punishments. Total plagiarism might involve an entire paper copied
or purchased off the Internet or written by another student, or a “patchwork quilt” of a
paper stitched together from a series of other works. Such papers may have language
changed and may even have citations from sources the student has found and inserted in
order to disguise the paper’s true origins.
Substantial plagiarism occurs when students do most of the writing in their own papers
but frequently (1) borrow ideas and rephrases them without giving credit to the original
source, (2) borrow exact phrases and sentences without enclosing them in quotation
marks and without giving credit to the original source, (3) or borrow exact phrases and
sentences without enclosing them in quotation marks even though credit is given to the
original source. These acts of plagiarism are also deliberate and blatant.
Incidental/occasional plagiarism occurs when students write their own papers, but there
are sections that will not withstand strict scrutiny because of one or more passages where
exact quotations of sentences and phrases are not enclosed in quotation marks even
though they are attributed to their sources, or there are one or more passages where
paraphrased ideas are not attributed to their sources. Sometimes examples of plagiarism
in this category may be accidental.
“Buddy”/tutor” plagiarism occurs when students get too much help from friends or
tutors. It is certainly a good idea to have someone else look at your paper, but don’t
allow or ask them to help you rewrite it. Use another person’s input to help you find
technical errors or to alert you to areas that aren’t clear, but do the rewriting yourself.
Remember, tutors are there to show you your mistakes and to teach you how to correct
them; they are not supposed to simply correct your paper and fix all the problems for you.
Accidental plagiarism occurs when students don’t realize that using other people’s ideas
and paraphrasing them is plagiarism if the source is not clearly identified. It can also
occur when people haven’t been careful when taking notes and forget to put quotation
marks around direct quotations, or they polish up the paraphrased language of an
attributed source and inadvertently rephrase it into the original language of the source
without adding quotation marks. This is perhaps the most common form of plagiarism
and can be corrected with proper citations and documentation format.
Avoiding Plagiarism
There are three rules for avoiding plagiarism, the first of which is pretty obvious:
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1. Be honest. Don’t buy, borrow, or steal anybody else’s words or ideas.
2. Cite all material that you take from a nonfiction source, whether you quote,
paraphrase, or summarize, unless it is common knowledge (we’ll discuss that
in greater length later). You should also cite any graphical material that you copy,
such as charts and illustrations. If you are writing an essay about a single work of
literature, the convention is to cite page numbers only for direct quotations from
the work of literature, and not when you summarize any sections, but you still
must cite all information you take from critical sources concerning the work of
literature if you use any outside sources.
3. Use language and sentence structures that are essentially your own—simply
changing or rearranging a few words here and there isn’t enough to avoid charges
of stealing.
Following are examples of different types of plagiarism using a paragraph written by
British author George Orwell (most famous for his novel 1984).
Original paragraph written by George Orwell in his essay “Politics and the English
Language”:
Most people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the English
language is in a bad way, but it is generally assumed that we cannot by conscious action
do anything about it. Our civilization is decadent, and our language--so the argument
runs--must inevitably share in the general collapse. It follows that any struggle against the
abuse of language is a sentimental archaism, like preferring candles to electric light or
hansom cabs to aeroplanes. Underneath this lies the half-conscious belief that language is
a natural growth and not an instrument which we shape for our own purposes.
Plagiarized paragraph, with plagiarized words and phrases underlined
Many individuals who bother with the issue would admit that the English
language is in terrible shape; however, we generally assumed we cannot alter this by
conscious action. Our society is decadent, so our language, it is argued, shares in the
problem. Some people might argue that trying to stop the abuse of language is oldfashioned and useless because they half-consciously think language is natural instead of
something we shape as we please.
The student who wrote the paragraph above is guilty of plagiarism for three reasons: 1)
phrases are copied verbatim from the original but are not enclosed in quotation marks, 2)
the original author is not given, and 3) there is no citation indicating the page number the
material was taken from. The effect of the plagiarized material is to indicate that all the
words and ideas are the student’s own.
Plagiarized paragraph, with plagiarized words and phrases underlined:
Many individuals who bother with the issue would admit that the English
language is in terrible shape; however, we generally assumed we cannot alter this by
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conscious action. Our society is decadent, so our language, it is argued, shares in the
problem. Some people might argue that trying to stop the abuse of language is oldfashioned and useless because they half-consciously think language is natural instead of
something we shape as we please (Orwell 12).
The paragraph above is still plagiarized because even though the author and page number
appear in a parenthetical citation at the end of the sentence, phrases are copied verbatim
from the original but are not enclosed in quotation marks. The effect of the plagiarized
material is to indicate that although the ideas are Orwell’s, all the words are the student’s
paraphrase of the original passage, which is clearly not the case.
Plagiarized paragraph:
Many individuals who ponder the condition of the English language are likely to
conclude that it is in terrible shape, but they probably take for granted that we cannot
think of any solutions. Some people might argue that society is in a moral and cultural
decline; therefore, it follows that our discourse must also decline and that to try to fight
this shows an inability to deal realistically with the times. This attitude suggests an
unexamined assumption that language is something that evolves on its own, as opposed
to a tool we utilize for our own purposes.
Though the paragraph above is an effective paraphrase (we don’t worry about the
words “English language” not being enclosed in quotation marks because there is no
other logical way to name it), the student has still clearly plagiarized because 1) the
author is not given, and 2) there is no citation indicating the page number the material
was taken from. The effect of the plagiarized material is to indicate that all the ideas are
the student’s own.
Unplagiarized paragraph:
Many individuals who ponder the condition of the English language are likely to
conclude that it is in terrible shape, but they probably take for granted that we cannot
think of any solutions. This attitude suggests an unexamined assumption that language is
something that evolves on its own, as opposed to a tool we utilize for our own purposes.
“Our civilization is decadent, and our language--so the argument runs--must inevitably
share in the general collapse” (Orwell 12).
This example is not plagiarized. Most of the paragraph is put into the student’s own
words, and the passage ends with both a direct quotation and the correct MLA style
parenthetical citation.
Unplagiarized paragraph:
As George Orwell points out about the English of his time—and his observations
hold true today—many individuals who ponder the condition of the English language are
likely to conclude that it is in terrible shape, but they probably take for granted that we
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cannot think of any solutions. Some people might argue that society is in a moral and
cultural decline; therefore, it follows that our discourse must also decline and that to try
to fight this shows an inability to deal realistically with the times. This attitude suggests
an unexamined assumption that language is something that evolves on its own, as
opposed to a tool we utilize for our own purposes (12).
This paragraph also avoids plagiarizing. It is the same paraphrase from the previous
example, but it begins by attributing the ideas to their originator, George Orwell, and
there is a parenthetical citation at the end to let the reader know the page number of the
original material (the last name is not needed in the parenthesis in this case because the
Orwell is mentioned before the paraphrase).
Unplagiarized paragraph:
Many individuals who ponder the condition of the English language are likely to
conclude that it is in terrible shape, but they probably take for granted that we cannot
think of any solutions. Some people might argue that society is in a moral and cultural
decline; therefore, it follows that our discourse must also decline and that to try to fight
this shows an inability to deal realistically with the times. This attitude suggests an
unexamined assumption that language is something that evolves on its own, as opposed
to a tool we utilize for our own purposes (Orwell 12).
This example contains no verbatim word use, and it has a proper citation, so this student
has also avoided plagiarism.
Common Knowledge Exceptions
“Common knowledge exceptions” refer to generally-known facts. Here are examples of
different types of common knowledge exceptions:
1. Information known by the average person (i. e., President Abraham Lincoln was
assassinated by John Wilkes Booth in 1865; U.S. and British forces invaded Iraq
in 2003).
2. Information known by the average scholar in a particular discipline (i. e., William
Shakespeare died in 1616 at the age of 52; Milton Friedman won the Nobel Prize
for Economics in 1976).
3. Information that is repeated in many different sources (i. e., thalidomide is known
to cause birth defects; the Great Fire of London happened in 1666). “Many” is an
ambiguous term, and there is no universal agreement on exactly how many
sources it takes to make something “common knowledge,” but the standard
assumption in academia is that facts are common knowledge if you can find the
same information reported in at least five different sources (it isn’t a bad idea to
ask your own professor for guidance).
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To be safe, if you aren’t sure if an idea is “common knowledge,” assume that it isn’t, and
cite the source of your information. After all, it is a lot less hazardous to have a citation
that you don’t need than it is to risk a charge of plagiarism.
Frequently, students get nervous and worry that they have “too many” citations.
Think about it: you are writing research papers, which means that you are presenting
research—you are supposed to have a lot of in-text citations. Citations let your reader
know what sources you used, the page numbers of information found in print sources,
and where to look for complete publication information on your works cited page.
Common Informal Fallacies
The term “fallacy” is used by some philosophers and rhetoricians only for particular
types of errors in deductive and inductive arguments, but others expand the term to
include more categories of errors in reasoning, as well as rhetorical techniques that lead
to unsound and improbable conclusions. Following is a list of some common informal
fallacies and examples of faulty reasoning. This list should help you to recognize
weaknesses in logic when you encounter them in other people’s arguments and help you
to avoid fallacious reasoning in your own papers.
The Anecdotal Evidence Fallacy occurs when a person ignores or minimizes evidence
arrived at by objective and systematic research or scientific testing in favor of one or
more personal stories that are unrepresentative. This is also called the confabulation
fallacy.
Example: Smoking isn’t going to hurt me—my grandpa smoked three packs a day for
sixty-five years and wasn’t sick a day in his life. He lived to be ninety.
Appeal to Authority is the fallacy of saying that simply because an authority supports
something, it must be true—or if an authority attacks something, it must be untrue.
Experts can disagree. Think of a trial when one side brings in expert testimony—the
other side responds by bringing in experts, too. You should consult genuine authorities,
but you should examine how they reached their opinions and see if there is consensus in a
field. Sadly, some experts allow themselves to be bought and will make assertions based
on what the people or corporations paying them want disseminated to the public. In some
cases, the so-called “authority” isn’t really an expert in the pertinent field. Some experts
list as a subcategory the Professor of Nothing fallacy, describing it as trying to add
credibility to an argument by quoting a supposed authority who has the title of
“professor” or “doctor,” while omitting to mention that the discipline in which the title
was earned has little or nothing to do with the subject.
Example: Dr. Butz is a professor and a PhD; thus, he is obviously a highly-educated
man, so we should believe him when he says that the Nazis didn’t deliberately
exterminate millions of Jews. [Professor Butz is an associate professor of electrical
engineering, not a historian.]
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Appeal to Belief argues, either explicitly or implicitly, that because “most” people
believe something to be true, it must therefore be true (this fallacy is sometimes
employed even when the arguer is incorrect about “most” people believing something). It
is related to the Appeal to Popularity fallacy.
Example: According to a Harris poll, 84% of people believe in miracles, so we should
assume miracles really do occur—that many people can’t be wrong.
Appeal to Consequences is the fallacy that takes the form of saying we should accept
conclusions that are psychologically comfortable to us and reject conclusions if they
cause us psychological discomfort. We should always consider the consequences of an
action, but we need to distinguish between consequences that we can prove to be
logically relevant and those that might simply distress some of us.
Example: I don’t believe that human actions contribute to global warming—after all,
what can I do about it? And I certainly don’t want to change my lifestyle dramatically. I
like the way I live!
Appeal to Ignorance argues that if you cannot prove that something is false, it must be
true, or if you cannot prove that something is true, it must be false.
Example: I believe in ghosts—no one has ever been able to prove they don’t exist.
Appeal to Intuition takes the form of believing that because an idea does not match our
experience of how things work or how we believe they should work, then that idea is not
true. (It also takes the form of believing that what “seems” true must be true.)
Essentially, it argues that for something to be accepted as true, it must be similar to what
we already believe to be true. Sometimes this fallacy is preceded with phrases like
“Common sense tells us that . . . .” or “My gut feeling is that . . . .”
Example: That kid can’t sit still—he has Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder; giving
him stimulants can’t possibly help him. [In reality, stimulants are an effective method of
treatment for ADHD.]
Appeal to Popularity argues that because most people have favorable emotions toward
something, it must be good, or that because most people have unfavorable emotions
against something, it must be bad. This fallacy has been used historically to support some
pretty heinous actions, including slavery and genocide, and we still see it in operation
around the world today. Think about the arguments made for and against some current
controversial issues, and you’ll probably be able to come up with a number of examples.
Example: Most people think that it is fine to give up some rights and liberties if it could
make us safer, so it is obviously the right course of action.
Begging the Question takes the conclusion of an argument and, instead of offering a
genuine premise, simply rephrases the conclusion itself. No matter how strongly you feel
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about a subject, you should be able to see that a conclusion can’t be supported with
itself—it must have distinct premises that aren’t rewordings of the conclusion. We tend
to use circular reasoning when we are trying to defend principles that we are so
emotionally sure of or have believed for so long and unquestioningly that we cannot
conceive of their being false. It is also sometimes called the Vicious Circle.
Example: Gay marriage should not be legalized because marriage should be between a
man and a woman.
Common Practice is when you justify something wrong by claiming that a lot of people
engage in the same wrong. It dismisses all other relevant factors and asks the audience to
accept that something wrong is just, reasonable, or at least excusable because a lot of
people engage in the activity. This is an all-too-common justification for reprehensible
behavior.
Example: I saved time by copying and pasting some paragraphs from sources I found on
the Internet—lots of students do.
Confirmation Bias occurs when a person sees or accepts only the evidence that supports
a desired conclusion. This is related to Tainted Sample.
Example: I know he really likes me. He said my new haircut looked OK, and he took me
to a nice restaurant that didn’t cost me too much, and he came to my apartment and
stayed for three hours watching the football game, and he said he’ll call me sometime
soon. I’ve found Mr. Right!
False Cause, also called Questionable Cause, happens when someone claims that
something that follows something else or occurs with it must be caused by it. Sometimes
the two are related only coincidentally, or are both caused by something not yet
identified. Superstitions, selective perceptions, and selective memory lead to many
examples of the False Cause fallacy.
Example: I know that walking under a ladder causes bad luck—I once walked under a
ladder, and five weeks later, I lost my wallet. I’m never going to walk under a ladder
again.
An example that crops up is when someone who engages in senseless violence is found to
have liked video games depicting violence, and this is claimed to be the cause, and the
conclusion is reached that, in general, playing violence-themed video games causes
violent behavior. This ignores the hundreds of thousands of people who play such games
without ever engaging in violence, and it also ignore other factors in the life of the person
who committed the violence. This reasoning is related to confirmation bias and appeal to
intuition.
A False Dilemma is produced when an arguer insists that there are only two possible
options available, when there may be three or even more—or when the two choices are
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not mutually exclusive. It is also called False Dichotomy, Black and White fallacy, and
the Either-Or fallacy.
Example: Either we win the war in Vietnam, or all of Asia will fall to communism.
Invincible Ignorance is the fallacy of insisting on the legitimacy of a position in spite of
overwhelming evidence against it. It is closely related to the Slothful Induction fallacy.
Example: Yes, I smoke in my house and in my car with my kids around, but that can’t
possibly hurt them—I don’t care what those doctors say.
Shifting the Burden of Proof occurs when someone defends a proposition by
demanding that a contrary proposition be proven instead of being able to present
arguments in defense of the original proposition. This is related to Appeal to Ignorance
and Slothful Induction.
Example: Ghosts exist. If you want to prove me wrong, then you’d better prove what else
those eerie sounds that I heard in the graveyard are.
Slippery Slope arguments assert that a sequence of increasingly unacceptable events will
inevitably follow from an action or event that may not itself seem undesirable or
unreasonable at all, until the arguer takes us all the way to something no reasonable
person would want to see occur. False Dilemma ignores middle grounds and
alternatives. Slippery Slope acknowledges a middle ground, but moves you from one
point at the beginning to an unpleasant extreme at the other end. A may be next to B, and
B may be next to C, and so on, but that does not mean that accepting A will inevitably
move you to Z.
Example: I could let pay your rent a day late this month without any problem, but next
month you’ll want to pay me two days late, and the month after that, you could ask for
three, and the next thing I know, you’re going to expect me to wait months for my money.
Slothful Induction is the fallacy of denying the logical conclusion of an inductive
argument that presents strong evidence. This fallacy is committed when someone
demands an unfairly high amount of evidence before accepting an idea. It is related to
Invincible Ignorance and Shifting the Burden of Proof.
Example: I don’t accept what scientists say about climate change—scientific theories are
always changing. You can’t depend on what scientists say because it may be different
next year.
Straw Person fallacies occur when a person attacks an exaggerated, distorted, or false
version of an opponent's argument because it is easier than dealing with the real points
that the opponent makes. It would be a lot easier to defeat a person made of straw in a
fight then a real person.
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Example: My opponent agrees with a federal vaccine advisory panel’s advice that all
girls and women between the ages of eleven and twenty-six should receive a vaccine that
prevents most cases of cervical cancer. This cancer is related to sexual activity.
Encouraging girls as young as eleven to engage in sex is incredibly irresponsible; my
opponent is not fit for office.
A Tainted Sample is produced when people collect evidence in a such a way that they
are likely to find more evidence in support of their desired conclusions than against them,
despite what thorough, objective evidence-gathering would find. This is related to
Confirmation Bias.
Example: I can prove my point—I found this great web site that posted dozens of articles
that all show that I am right!
Wishful Thinking is when a person accepts a claim as true or rejects it as false merely
because he or she strongly wishes a certain conclusion or outcome is true. It is related to
Invincible Ignorance and Slothful Induction.
Example: I cannot believe that Thomas Jefferson, one of history’s greatest men, had a
slave mistress and had children by her. Some things are morally unimaginable and just
can’t be true.
A Weak Analogy happens when an argument is based on an analogy that is so weak that
the argument is too weak for the purpose to which it is put. For an argument from
analogy to be effective, the things being compared should have strongly relevant
similarities and no relevant dissimilarities.
Example: Before he married Priscilla, Elvis Presley was asked what he thought about
marriage, and he responded with a question: “Why buy the whole cow when you can
sneak under the fence?”
Commonly Confused Words
accept, except. “Accept” is a verb that means “to receive willingly”: I accept
responsibility. “Except” is a preposition meaning “but; not including”: You can borrow
any book except the one that I am reading.
advertising, advertisement. “Advertising” is the activity or profession of producing
advertisements for commercial products or services. An advertisement is a specific
instance of that activity (we often abbreviate the word to “ad”).
adolescents, adolescence. “Adolescence” is a noun referring to the teenage years:
Adolescence is a period of great emotional change and growth; “adolescents” is the
plural of adolescent, which means “a person in his or her adolescence”: Adolescents need
more sleep than adults.
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advice, advise. “Advice” is a noun that means “guidance or recommendations”: She was
happier to give advice than to take it; “advise” is a verb that means “to offer advice”: I
advise you to start looking for good sources for your paper as early as possible.
affect, effect. Most of the time, affect with an a is a verb and effect with an e is a noun.
Each of these words can be a verb or a noun, but only “effect,” when it means “a result or
consequence of an action or other cause,” is common as a noun: An important effect of
frequent and vigorous exercise is a lowered risk of heart disease. The noun “affect” is a
psychological term for “an observable expression of emotion”: Psychological disorders
can cause people to display variations in their affect. “Effect” as a verb means “to bring
about”: Therapy and exercise helped to effect a cure for his depression. “Affect” as a
verb usually means “to produce an effect on, to influence”: Physical ailments can affect
mental health. “Affect” can also mean “to act in a way that you don’t feel”: She affected
an air of nonchalance, but she was actually very excited.
been, being. “Been” is the past tense of “be”: I have never been this embarrassed
before. “Being” is the present participle of “be,” which means the form of the verb used
in continuous tenses, such as I am being as careful as I can be. It is also a noun meaning
“existence” or “a real or imaginary creature; an entity.
bias, biased. Bias is a noun. The adjective is “biased,” as in “biased commentary.” The
adjective forms of words are often made by adding -ed to the noun forms.
cannot, can not. Technically, both “cannot” and can not” are acceptable, but “cannot”
is the safest choice in most instances because it is far more common and “can not” is
treated in some style manuals as an error—unless the word “not” is supposed to be
emphasized, as in I can not emphasize this too much.
data, datum. “Data” are facts and statistics gathered for analysis; “datum” is the
singular form. He collected a lot of good date for his research paper.
debate. “Debate” is a verb that does not need a preposition; we “debate issues”; we do
not “debate on” or “debate about” issues. They debated raising the minimum wage.
discriminate. “Discriminate” is a verb that needs a preposition; people can “discriminate
against” people; they do not “discriminate people.”
its, it's. “Its” is the possessive form of “it.” Do not add apostrophes to make pronouns
possessive. (After all, we say, “his,” not “hi’s.”) “It’s” is the contraction of “it is.”
lay, lie. “To lie” is an intransitive verb, which means that it doesn’t take a direct object: I
want to lie down. (“Down” is an adverb, not an object.) “To lay” is a transitive verb,
which means it needs a direct object; we use it when we are doing something to
something: Every evening I lay out the clothes I plan to wear the next day.
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literally, figuratively. “Literally” means “exactly”; use it only for something that is
actually true: When I told him to go jump in a lake, I never thought that he would take it
literally and actually jump in a lake. “Figuratively” is the term to use when an
expression is metaphorical (departing from a literal use of words): When I said I was
hungry enough to eat a horse, I meant it figuratively, not literally.
loose, lose. “Loose” is an adjective meaning “not tight”: Since I lost weight, my clothes
feel too loose. “Lose” is a verb meaning “to misplace” or “to be defeated”: Be careful, or
you will lose your money.
media, medium. A “medium” is a singular form of a noun meaning “a means by which
something is communicated or expressed: Text messaging was her preferred medium of
communication. It also refers more specifically to a print or electronic form of
communicating news and information: Television is a more popular medium than radio.
“Media” is the plural form: Television has become more popular than print media.
novel. The word “novel” refers only to fictional book-length works, not all books.
simple, simplistic. “Simple” means “uncomplicated; not complex”: or “easily
understood or accomplished”: She had a simple plan, and it was simple to carry it out.
“Simplistic” means “treating complex issues as if they were much simpler than they
really are”: Politicians often treat serious problems simplistically.
unique, very unique, quite unique. “Unique” is an adjective that refers to someone or
something that is the only one of its kind; therefore, “very unique” and “quite unique” are
not logical expressions and should be avoided.
weather, whether. “Weather” refers to the state of the atmosphere at a place; “whether”
expresses doubt or choice between alternatives: Whether we go to the beach depends on
how nice the weather is.
which, that. Many grammar experts advise using “which” to introduce nonrestrictive
information and “that” to set off restrictive information: My car, which is currently at the
garage, ran into that tree over there.