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Paraphrasing and Citing Your Resources

Turkey Alzahrani

KU Writing Center

How to Use Research

• Quoting

• Paraphrasing

• Summarizing

MLA Style

• MLA, or the Modern Language Association, creates a set of guidelines to use when writing in the humanities

• They release a new stylebook every year, in which they make changes to what is expected in the style

• The stylebook offers guidelines on every part of writing a paper, including

• Formatting

• Punctuation

• And, most infamously, citations

Why MLA? Not APA, for example ..• Fields that use MLA depend on analyzing texts

rather than trying to understand the summarizing and understanding the whole idea like APA.

• For example, English literature scholars use MLA, while education scholars use APA.

What’s Cool About MLA

• Values clarity and simplicity

• Flexible style, becoming even more flexible

• Acknowledges those you’ve learned from

• Guide readers to further information

• Shows off just how much research you’ve done

• Makes your paper look professional

Formatting

• Generally, though:• 1” margins all around

• Double-spaced throughout

• Header with Last Name and page number

• Heading with

• Student Name

• Instructor Name

• Class

• Date (Day Month Year)

• Center-aligned title

• 12 pt. font, usually Times New Roman

• Works Cited on different page

Formatting: Works Cited

Page title centered at top of page

Citations in

alphabetical order

by first word

(usually author’s

last name)

Hanging indent on

each citation

Double-spaced,

just like the paper

Makeup of a citation

Author. Title of source. Title of container, Other contributors, Version, Number, Publisher, Publication date, Location.

Whoever is listed as

creator (can now be

screen name)

The bigger thing your

source is in: website,

anthology, journal

People who translated,

edited, produced or

illustrated your source

What separates

your version from

another: edition,

edit, cut

Where the

source can be

found: page

number, url, doi

Which part of the

container your

source is in: episode,

issue, volume

Who is publishing

the source: press,

company, record

label

When source

was published, if

available

What Citations Look Like

Author. Title of source. Title of container, Other contributors, Version, Number, Publisher, Publication date, Location.

So then there’s…

(Parenthetical Citations).• Parenthetical citations indicate where your information comes

from throughout your paper

• You must use them when you:

• Summarize an idea from a source

• Paraphrase something a source said

• Refer to a source directly

• Or quote a source

• One of the biggest builders of credibility you can have

Makeup of a parenthetical citation

(Citation #).

The first recognizable

word in your full citation.

Usually it’s the author’s

name, but it can vary.

The particulars of a where a

specific piece of information came

from. Usually a page number,

occasionally time stamp.

Most people put a space in

between, but some

instructors might ask you to

insert a comma.

Parenthetical citations come

at the end of a sentence but

before a period.

How to use parenthetical citations

• Always comes at the end of the sentence, before the period, but after all other punctuation:• When Harry, Ron and Hermione fell into the pit of

strangling plants, Hermione saved them (Rowling 137).

• As Rowling wrote, “There are some things you just can’t go through without becoming friends and knocking out a giant mountain troll is one of them” (Rowling 68).

• If you have multiple sentences from one source, you can cite at the end of all of them, but it’s best practice to cite every 2-3 sentences.

Block Quotations

• They break all the rules we just learned.

• Use for quotations that are more than 4 lines of text

• Start the quotation on a new line

• No quotation marks

• Indent the entire quotation ½ inch from the left margin

• Maintain double spacing

• Insert a parenthetical citation after the closing punctuation

Chicago Style17th Edition (2017)

Title Page

• The title should be centered a third of the way down the page.

• Your name, class information, and the date should follow several lines later.

• For subtitles, end the title line with a colon and place the subtitle on the line below the title.

• Double-space each line of the title page.

Title Page

Main Body: Text, Margins, & Page Numbers

• Text• Consistently double-spaced, including block quotations,

notes, bibliography entries, table titles, and figure captions.

• Readable, such as Times New Roman or Courier.

• Font size should be no less than 10 pt. (preferably, 12 pt.).

• Margins• Should be set at no less than 1”.

• Page Numbers• Begin in the header of the first page of text with Arabic

number 1.

Main Body: Text, Margins, & Page Numbers

Main Body: Titles & Capitalization

• Titles mentioned in the text, notes, or bibliography: capitalized

“headline-style,”—meaning first words of titles and subtitles and any

important words thereafter should be capitalized.

• Titles in the text as well as in notes and bibliographies are treated

with quotation marks or italics based on the type of work they name:• Book and periodical titles (titles of larger works): italicized.

• Article and chapter titles (titles of shorter works): enclosed in double quotation marks.

• The titles of most poems: enclosed in double quotation marks.

• The titles of very long poems: enclosed in double quotation marks and italicized.

• Titles of plays: italicized.

• Otherwise, take a minimalist approach to capitalization.

• For example, use lowercase terms to describe periods, except in the case of proper nouns

(e.g., “the colonial period,” vs. “the Victorian era”).

Main Body: Headings

• Maintain consistency and parallel structure in headings and subheadings.

• Use headline-style for purposes of capitalization.

• Subheadings should begin on a new line.

• Subheadings can be distinguished by font-size.

• Each level of hierarchy should be clear and consistent.

• Levels of subheadings can be differentiated by type style, use of boldface or italics, and placement on the page, usually either centered or flush left.

• Use no more than three levels of hierarchy.

• Avoid ending subheadings with periods.

Main Body: Headings

• Chicago Style has an optional system of five heading levels

Main Body: Headings

In-Text Citation: Block Quotations

• A prose quotation of five or more lines, or more than 100 words, should be blocked.

• It is recommended to blocking two or more lines of poetry.

• Not enclosed in quotation marks.

• Must always begin a new line.

• Indent ALL the quote.

• Single-spaced.

• Leave extra space before and after the quote.

In-Text Citation: Block Quotations

In-Text Citation: Short Quoting, Summarizing, Paraphrasing

• Short Quotes: (Author’s Last Name Year, page number)

• Example: Larsen (1991, 245) stated that "many of the facts in this case are

incorrect".

• Example: Miele (1993) found that "the 'placebo effect', which had been verified in previous studies, disappeared when behaviors were studied in this manner" (276).

• Summarizing and Paraphrasing (Author’s Last Name Year, page number)

• Paraphrasing Example: Bender (1995) explains that the introduction of a

waiting period and a background check for people buying handguns in the US, is due to the Brady Bill (137).

• Summarizing Example: Unsportsmanlike behavior by footballers may

inspire hooliganism among spectators (Mantex 1999, 1-2).

Footnotes

• Note numbers:

• Begin with “1”

• Follow consecutively

• Placed at the end of the clause or sentence

• Placed after all punctuation, except for the dash

Footnotes

Notes

• Note numbers full-sized, not raised, followed by a period (superscripting note numbers in the notes themselves is also acceptable)

• Lines within a footnote should be formatted flush left. Place commentary after source documentation when a footnote contains both; separate commentary and documentation by a period

• In parenthetical citation, separate documentation from brief commentary with a semicolon.

• Do not repeat the hundreds digit in a page range if it does not change from the beginning to the end of the range.

Notes

Tables and Figures

• Position tables and figures after they are first referenced. If necessary, present them after the paragraph in which they are described.

• For figures, include a caption, or short explanation of the figure or illustration, directly after the figure number.

• Cite the source of the table and figure information with a “credit line” at the bottom of the table or figure and, if applicable, after the caption.

• The credit line should be distinguished from the caption by being enclosed in parenthesis or written in different type.• Cite a source as you would for parenthetical citation, and include full

information in an entry on your Bibliography or References page.• Acknowledge reproduced or adapted sources appropriately (i.e., photo by; data

adapted from; map by . . . ).• If a table includes data not acquired by the author of the text, include an

unnumbered footnote. Introduce the note by the word Source(s) followed by a colon, then include the full source information, and end the note with a period.

Tables and Figures

Bibliography

• Use the the full bibliography citation

• List sources in alphabetical order

• Indent the second line of the source

• Place a dash before sources without an author

Books

E-Books

Journal Articles

Interviews and Personal Communication

Online Sources

Articles

Videos

APA Style

What is included in the APA format?

• Document guidelines (formatting)

• Writing style and tone

• Organization and structure

• In-text citation guidelines

• References guidelines

Formatting: Title Page

• Running Head on every page

Running head: SHORT TITLE ALL CAPS IN HEADER 1

Full Title of Paper: Sentence Case, Centered Left to Right

Name of Author

Institutional Affiliation

Author Note

Departmental affiliation

Changes of Affiliation (if any)

Acknowledgments

Special circumstances

Person to contact (mailing address, email)

No more than 50 characters

Full title is centered and positioned in upper half of the page, Times New Roman, 12 pt font

Formatting: Heading Levels

• Use levels consecutively, meaning that, if your paper has three levels, use levels 1, 2, and 3

• Levels have slightly different formatting

Level of Heading

Format of Heading

1 Centered, Boldface, Uppercase and Lowercase Heading

2 Flush Left, Boldface, Uppercase and Lowercase Heading

3 Indented, boldface, lowercase paragraph heading ending with a period.

4 Indented, boldface, italicized, lowercase paragraph heading ending with a period.

5 Indented, italicized, lowercase paragraph heading ending with a period.

Tables

Figures

In-Text Citation: Paraphrases

• If you mention the author in the sentence, place the publication year in parenthesis directly after name:

• Walter (2000) found that the strengths perspective worked well with…

• If you do not mention the author’s name, save parenthetical reference for the end:

• Many researchers have studied the strengths perspective (Davis, 1998; Walter, 2000).

In-Text Citation: Quotations

• Author in sentence

• Miele (1993) found that “the ‘placebo effect’ disappeared when [only the first group’s] behaviors were modified” (p. 276).

• Author not in sentence

• It is found that “the ‘placebo effect’…disappeared when behaviors were studied in this manner” (Miele, 1993, p. 276).

Metasources

• In Text

• (as cited in Author, date).

• Ex: In his e-mails, Smith argued that asynchronous line dancing would be the next Internet meme (as cited in Jones, 2010).

• Reference List

• List only the SECONDARY source (source in which you found the quote) on your references list.

References Page

• Center title: "References"

• Double space the entire reference page—no extra space between entries.

• List alphabetically.

• List works by the same author chronologically from earliest to latest.

Questions?(Comments? Concerns?)

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