Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Research Paper 39
In the final draft of your research paper, you must clearly identify all the
sources you have quoted from, summarized, or paraphrased. To do this you
will need a style of documentation.
Styles of documentation are established by professional societies and
journals to regularize the citing of sources in each field. Though each field
has its own special requirements, scientists and social scientists often cite
their sources by parenthetical reference rather than numbered notes, and
parenthetical citing has been adopted by many humanists also. This chap-
ter explains just one kind of parenthetical citation; it offers a simplified
version of the MLA style, which has been recommended by the Modern
Language Association for research papers on literature, philosophy, art,
and other subjects in the humanities. For styles of documentation in the
social sciences and natural sciences, see chapter 42.
Complete information on the MLA style appears in the fifth edition of the
MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, by Joseph Gibaldi (New York:
MLA, 1999). Here we explain briefly how to use the MLA style with the
kinds of sources you are likely to cite in a research paper written for a col-
lege course.
Citing with parentheses calls for two steps: citing each source in
parentheses as you use it, and making a list of Works Cited at the end of
your paper—an alphabetical list of all the sources you have used. We treat
each step in turn.
579
39.1 mla Documenting the Research Paper
PARENTHETICAL CITING
1. Cite the source in parentheses immediately after the material used:
Author’s last
As one famous psychologist has written, “One cannot afford name
2. If the author of your source has written no other work cited in your
paper, give just the author’s last name and the page number(s):
3. If you use the author’s name to introduce the source, do not repeat the
name in parentheses. Give just the page number(s):
But use a title word before the page number(s) if you are citing another
work by the same author elsewhere in the paper:
4. When quoting a passage that must be indented from your text because
it is more than four lines long, put the citation one space after the final
punctuation mark:
580
Documenting the Research Paper mla 39.1
etry from cover to cover; she is all but absent from
history. She dominates the lives of kings and con-
querors in fiction; in fact she was the slave of any boy
whose parents forced a ring upon her finger. (60)
5. If all your quotations come from just one source, as in a paper written
about a work of fiction, cite the source by page number(s) alone—after
mentioning the author and title in your text:
For guidance in treating plays and poems, which are often not cited by
page number(s), see 39.2, items 25–27.
During the ride itself, neither her fear of being touched nor her
annoyance at being flattered “just as if she were any common
slut” (209) can altogether keep her from showing off.
581
39.1 mla Documenting the Research Paper
Title of article in
guage and the Brain. New York: Norton, 1997. Journal title
quotation underlined
marks Kermode, Frank. “Sensing Endings.” Nineteenth Century
Volume and
Fiction 33 (1978): 144–58. year of
journal
Three hyphens Woolf, Virginia. The Death of the Moth and Other Essays. New
plus a period
signify another
York: Harcourt, 1942.
work by the
same author. ---. A Room of One’s Own. New York: Fountain, 1929.
582
Documenting the Research Paper mla 39.2
(For CMS see 42.5; for APA, see 42.7; for CBE styles, see 42.8.)
BOOK
1. BOOK BY ONE AUTHOR
Kinder, Donald R., and Lynn M. Sanders. Divided by Color: Racial All lines after
the first in each
Politics and Democratic Ideals. Chicago: U of Chicago P, entry are
indented five
1996. spaces.
Some contend that the “cold war, like its ‘hot’ counterpart, is a
contest” (Medhurst et al. 19).
Medhurst, Martin J., Robert L. Ivie, Philip Wander, and Robert L. Double-space
between and
Scott. Cold War Rhetoric: Strategy, Metaphor, and Ideology. within entries.
or
Green explains that “full and free public discussion and debate
is an absolute prerequisite to any process of democratic decision
making” (164).
584
Documenting the Research Paper mla 39.2
6. MULTIVOLUME WORK
Smith, Page. A New Age Now Begins. 2 vols. New York: McGraw,
1976.
585
39.2 mla Documenting the Research Paper
Lewin, Benjamin. Genes VI. 6th ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1997.
10. REPRINT
“During the crisis,” Angelou writes, “Black people had often made
more money in a month than they had seen in their whole lives”
(2).
Date originally
published
Angelou, Maya. Gather Together in My Name. 1974. New York: Ban-
tam, 1993.
11. TRANSLATION
The main character, Chantal, has a dream that disturbs her: “Her
discomfort from the dream was so extreme that she went to some
effort to figure out the reason for it” (Kundera 4).
586
Documenting the Research Paper mla 39.2
National Science Resource Center. Resources for Teaching Middle
School Science. Washington: National Academy P, 1998.
In any case, a census taken in 1982 showed that less than half
the working mothers of young children had them supervised by a
relative other than their father (USBC 9-10).
14. BIBLE
587
39.2 mla Documenting the Research Paper
ARTICLE OR ESSAY
15. ESSAY OR ANY OTHER SHORT WORK IN BOOK
Sharp, Sean Lewis. “Love or Money.” The Source Mar. 1999: 130-38.
Abbreviate
month
names
longer than
four letters.
588
Documenting the Research Paper mla 39.2
17. ARTICLE IN A SCHOLARLY JOURNAL
589
39.2 mla Documenting the Research Paper
Use the first few words of the title as your in-text parenthetical citation.
Signed editorial:
Unsigned editorial:
590
Documenting the Research Paper mla 39.2
22. WORK FROM AN ANTHOLOGY
List the book under the name of its editor and use that name for cross-
reference.
591
39.2 mla Documenting the Research Paper
St. John, Edward P., and Charles Byce. “The Changing Federal Role
in Student Aid.” Kramer 21-40.
LITERARY WORK
25. PLAY WITH ACT, SCENE , AND LINE NUMBERS
Don’t cite page numbers. Use arabic numerals with periods between them
to indicate act, scene, and line number(s).
If you’re asked to cite plays with roman numerals, use uppercase for the
act, lowercase for the scene, and arabic numeral(s) for the line number(s).
Use the whole word “line” or “lines” in the first reference. Then just give
the numbers.
592
Documenting the Research Paper mla 39.2
But his wife calls home “something you somehow haven’t to de-
serve” (120).
Frost, Robert. “The Death of the Hired Man.” The Poetry of Robert
Frost. Ed. Edward Connery Lathem. New York: Holt, 1969. 34-
40.
ELECTRONIC SOURCE
Here is the general format for citing online sources:
1. Author of Web site should come first, if it is available.
2. Title of Web site. (If author’s name is not available, begin with title of
Web site.)
3. Publication dates.
593
39.2 mla Documenting the Research Paper
Signed article:
594
Documenting the Research Paper mla 39.2
Unsigned article:
595
39.2 mla Documenting the Research Paper
33. EMAIL
When citing an email, the title of the email should be the subject line.
596
Documenting the Research Paper mla 39.2
OTHER MEDIA OR SOURCE
35. CD - ROM
36. MOVIE
In Pirates of Silicon Valley, Noah Wyle plays Steve Jobs and An-
thony Michael Hall plays Bill Gates.
Pirates of Silicon Valley. Dir. Martyn Burke. Perf. Noah Wyle and
Anthony Michael Hall. TNT Original, June 26, 1999.
37. INTERVIEW
Marion King said that during the Depression “her family was the
only one to own their own home.”
597
39.2 mla Documenting the Research Paper
39. PERFORMANCE
41. LECTURE
42. RECORDING
598
Documenting the Research Paper mla 39.2
43. ARTWORK
44. SPEECH
Pop
Quiz
back 37 42 next
599