English 100Plus
Professor McNeil
Rules for Proper Citation of Research in English Classes (MLA style)
In general the purpose of citing outside work in your research paper is to:
A. Show that you have obtained information from outside sources and are not attempting to
pass off the ideas of others as your own (plagiarize), and
B. Make it easy for your reader to see where you got your information and to check your
sources if desired.
The Rules
Short quotations can be included in the body of your text in double-quotation marks with
a citation in parentheses:
The article “Mother Tongue” includes the statement that even though many people cannot
understand the author’s mother English, for the author “my mother's English is perfectly clear,
perfectly natural. It's my mother tongue” (Tan 39).
Amy Tan described the English of her mother as her “mother tongue.” Even though many
found this English hard to understand, for Tan “my mother's English is perfectly clear, perfectly
natural. It's my mother tongue” (39).
“Mother Tongue” is how Amy Tan describes the imperfect English that her mother used when
Tan was growing up (39).
Long quotations of three lines or more of text should be a) indented 10 spaces, b) not in
quotation marks, c) with ending punctuation before documentation:
[S]ome of my friends tell me they understand 50 percent of what my mother says. Some
say they understand 80 to 90 percent. Some say they understand none of it, as if she
were speaking pure Chinese. But to me, my mother's English is perfectly clear,
perfectly natural. It's my mother tongue. (Tan 39)
When referring to an outside source in your paper, give its full title, author, and
publication details in a Works Cited list at the end of your paper.
For more information about the proper forms of citation for any type of source imaginable, see
the Purdue OWL MLA Formatting and Style Guide
Works Cited
[magazine article]
Carter, Richard G. "Confessions Of a TV Wrestling Fan." Television Quarterly.
1989 v24 n 2: 25. Print.
[newspaper article]
Cauley, Leslie. "Wrestling's Audience Grows, Advertisers Leap into Ring."
Wall Street Journal. Eastern edition. 28 April,1998, pB6. Print
[book]
Huston, Aletha C. Big World, Small Screen: The Role of Television in American
Society. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1992. Print.
[item found in a database]
Jenkins, Henry. "'Never Trust a Snake': WWF Wrestling as Masculine Melodrama."
Out of Bounds: Sports, Media, and the Politics of Identity. Baker, Aaron and Todd Boyd, eds.
Bloomington: Indiana U P, 1997. Academic Search Premiere. Web. 13 November 2009.
[music]
Jewel. Pieces of You. Atlantic, 1995. CD.
[website]
“Researcher Links TV Wrestling, Dating Violence.” Charlotte.com. n. pag. Web. 30
October 2009.
[film]
Van Sant, Gus, dir. Good Will Hunting. Perf. Matt Damon, Robin Williams, Minnie
Driver. Miramax, 1997. Film.
[journal article in an online database]
Solomon, Eric. “Jane Eyre: Fire and Water.” College English Vol. 25, No. 3 (Dec.,
1963), pp. 215-217. JSTOR. Web. 12 November 2009.