B‑CC
English Department's Guide to Writing Effectively To keep your
writing error‑free, use Writers INC as a resource
for questions of form, language, and style. Along with sample
papers and material pertinent to many other disciplines, Writers
INC contains an editing checklist, a proofreader's checklist
and guide, a guide to compiling a writing portfolio, ideas for
writing papers and developing a personal style, significant
literary terms, and commonly misspelled words. To avoid plagiarism
and to acknowledge others' contributions, students should refer
to "Writing Responsibly" in Writers INC, to
the academic honesty policies in this handbook and in the IB
Honor Code, and to specific guidance and instruction received
in their classes. Information obtained from another source—whether
the information is quoted directly, summarized, or paraphrased‑‑must
be credited using the MLA (Modern Language Association)
style, covered in detail in Writers INC, in the MLA
Handbook, and in the B‑CC Media Center publications,
or the APA (American Psychological Association) style. Please
follow teachers' guidelines for papers in particular disciplines. Generally, papers in languages, history,
arts, and other humanities subjects follow MLA Style, and papers
in psychology and the natural sciences follow APA Style.
MLA Parenthetical Documentation In the MLA format,
footnotes and endnotes are not generally used. Sources are credited
at the earliest possible point through parenthetical references
(also known as in-text citations). Paraphrases,
summaries, and all information gathered from research, excluding
common knowledge items (i.e.,
Abraham Lincoln was a US President), must also be credited through
parenthetical documentation. Quotations must be exact. If words
are left out in a quotation, ellipsis (...)
must mark the omission. Any words changed within a quotation
must be set off with brackets ([
]). Parenthetical
documentation should contain enough information to help the
reader easily locate the source as you have listed it in the
Works Cited (bibliography) page. Generally, that would mean
the author's last name and the page number on which the ideas
or words appear. If the author's name already appears in the
sentence, the page number alone in parentheses is sufficient.
When you are using two works by the same author, use the titles
of the works in abbreviated form in the parenthetical citation
to help distinguish the sources. If the title appears in the
sentence, then a page number in parentheses following the quotation
or paraphrase/summary is sufficient. There is a space
between the author’s last name and the page number on which
the information is found, and the abbreviation for page(s) is
not used. For electronic sources, commas are used to separate
the author’s name or the title of the page or article from the paragraph
number, and the abbreviation for paragraph (par.)
is used. The following
examples illustrate some common uses of parenthetical documentation.
Please note that the examples are single spaced here only to
conserve space in the handbook. Proper MLA form requires that typed
papers be double spaced throughout.
Consult your teacher for more detailed
guidelines and instruction on how to cite specific types of
sources, including electronic sources. Refer
to the Media Center handouts for examples most commonly encountered
in academic writing. Examples of MLA In-Text Citation The narrator
emphasizes Kabuo Miyamoto's distance from the events of the
courtroom: "The accused man, with one segment of his consciousness,
watched the falling snow outside the windows" (Guterson
5). Milkman's quest,
fueled by Pilate's stories and Circe's memories, disappoints
him in material terms (Morrison 254‑55). The speaker in Rita Dove's poem "Lady
Freedom Among Us" urges the reader to notice the statue
of Freedom: "don't lower your eyes / or stare straight
ahead to where / you think you ought to be going" (Moyers
111). Examples of MLA In-Text Citation for Blocked-Off Passages In "Amherst," Amy Clampitt's
speaker revisits the setting that inspired Emily Dickinson's
poetry: The oriole, a
charred and singing coal, still burns aloud
among the monuments, its bugle call
to singularity the same unheard (she
wrote) as to the crowd, this graveyard
gathering, the audience
she never had. (52) Through precise details, the narrator in
Snow Falling on Cedars allows the reader to picture a
character fully: He knew she read
incessantly—Shakespeare, Henry James, Dickens, Thomas Hardy—but
he did not think this could fill her days. On Wednesday evenings twice
a month he attended a meeting of her book circle, five other
women who enjoyed
discussing Benito Cereno, Flowers of Evil, The
Importance of Being Earnest,
and Jane Eyre. "We're dainty old ladies," he
heard Lillian exclaim once.
(Guterson 341) MLA Style for Electronic Sources
Listed in Works Cited (Bibliography) When
documenting sources on the Internet, refer to the MLA guidelines
for citing electronic sources and your teachers’ instructions.
Citations should include the following items, as available: --author’s name
with last name first --full title
of document in “ ” and
title of complete work underlined or in italics --name of online
journal or periodical, if applicable, followed by volume, issue,
and number of pages or paragraphs
(specific project names at university or organizational sites should
also be included, e. g.,
Perseus Project) --date of publication
or last revision --name of institution
or organization producing the site --date of visit
(not followed by a period) --full http address
(URL) enclosed in angle brackets (< >) followed by a period Examples of MLA Works Cited Entries for Electronic
Sources Knowles, John.
“A Special Time, A Special School:
John Knowles Reflects on His Exeter Experience.” The Exeter Bulletin. Summer 1995.
Phillips Exeter Academy. 18 July 2003 <http://library.exeter.edu/dept/separate_peace/article.html>. “Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man.” 14
Sept. 2001. Department
of English, U of Pennsylvania. 18 July 2003
<http://www.english.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/ellison-main.html>. Turn off the “auto-correct” feature in
your word processing tools to avoid having the URL print as
a hyperlink.
MLA Style for In-Text Citation of
Electronic Sources In the body of your paper, when you are quoting from electronic sources, include the author's last name (if it is available) or the first few words of the heading/title of the site (if no author is named). If possible, identify the paragraph number(s) where the material cited was found. If actual paragraph numbers are embedded in the text, use them to identify paragraphs. Do not make up page numbers if they do not exist. The goal is to point the reader to the specific part of the web source in which the material was found and to the specific entry in your Works Cited page. Examples of MLA In-Text Citation
for Electronic Sources
(Knowles,
par. 2) (“Ellison’s
Invisible Man,” pars.
3-4) Introduction to APA Style For papers in psychology and the sciences,
your teachers may ask you to use the APA style. The APA style
is an author‑year and author-year-page system. Direct
quotations and paraphrases are cited by author‑year‑page.
There is a comma between author and year (and between
year and page), and the abbreviation for page(s) is
used. In APA style, when you are quoting directly, you should
always use the specific page number parenthetically if you are
citing from a printed text or the paragraph number if the quoted
material is from an electronic text. Examples of APA In-Text Citation (Manoff,
1996) or (Manoff, 1996, p. 35) Skinner
(1952) examines the influences of positive reinforcement in
his study of operant conditioning. Example of APA Bibliography Entry Warner, W. W.
(1976). Beautiful Swimmers: Watermen, Crabs, and the Chesapeake
Bay. New York: Penguin. Note that MLA entries in bibliographies
indent all lines after the first line in each entry, whereas
APA entries in bibliographies indent only
the first line in each entry.
Sample Works Cited Page‑‑MLA Style
Works Cited "American Literature." Encyclopedia Americana. 2002 ed. Brigadoon. Videocassette. Dir. Vincente Minnelli.
With
Gene Kelly, Van Johnson, and Cyd Charisse. MGM/UA, 1954.
109 min. Clampitt, Amy. "Dancers Exercising."
The Bedford Introduction to Literature: Reading, Thinking
and Writing. Ed. Michael Meyer. 4th ed. Boston:
Bedford Books of St. Martin's Press, 1996. 947‑48. ---. Westward.
New York: Knopf, 1990. Guterson, David. Snow Falling on Cedars.
New York: Vintage‑Random House, 1995. Manoff, M. Literature Resources. 23 June 2003. Massachusetts Institute
of Technology. 22 July 2003
<http://nimrod.mit.edu/depts./humanities/lit/literature.html>.
Mitchell, Diana, and A. Maria Lancianese.
"Springtime Sanity Savers." English Journal 85.4
(1996): 67‑71. Morrison, Toni. Beloved. New York:
Plurne‑NAL, 1987. ---. Song of Solomon. New York:
Signet‑NAL, 1977. Moyers, Bill. The Language of Life:
A Festival of Poets. Ed.
James Haba. New York: Doubleday, 1995. Nicol, Charles. "Tales Against the
Night." Book World 26. Washington Post 21
July 1996:3. Shakespeare. Computer
software. Portland: Creative Multimedia, 1992. CD‑ROM. |