English 10 name:
Mrs. Sharp period:
Would You Rather?
Persuasive Research Brochure
Tips for Integrating Research Information and Quotations
In your brochure you will be sharing with your reader the information you have found in your sources. While quoting the research material directly is not a requirement, you can show an accelerated proficiency of the Core standards by including in-text citations and parenthetical reference.
Of course, any quotations or information from an outside source must be cited in order to avoid plagiarism. Here, very briefly, is how the MLA citation system usually works.
1. The source is introduced by a signal phrase that names its author (this will also be the first words in the citation on the Works Cited page).
2. The material being cited is followed by the page number on which it was found in parentheses (PRINT sources only).
3. When the author is unknown, the title of the article will appear in the signal phrase.
4. If the article does not have numbered pages (WEB sources) then there will be no parentheses after the citation.
5. There will NEVER be a situation where you use the URL either in the signal phrase or in parentheses.
Using the above example let’s note some basics:
1. MLA much prefers that the source is introduced with the author’s name. This makes it clear that what follows is from research and not from the student’s brain. It helps the reader (especially the teacher who is grading the brochure J) distinguish between source material and student commentary on that source material. It also clearly identifies which source from the Works Cited page was used.
2. Notice that the page number is NOT preceded by the word page, a number sign (#), or any abbreviation of any kind.
3. Note that the end punctuation occurs AFTER the parentheses.
To avoid monotony, try to vary both the language and the placement of your signal phrase. Choose a verb that is appropriate in the context. The follow list will help you to do this:
acknowledges comments endorses reasons
adds compares grants refutes
admits confirms illustrates rejects
agrees contends implies reports
argues declares insists responds
asserts denies notes suggests
believes disputes observes thinks
claims emphasizes points out writes
Here are a few examples:
As Kevin Hansen has noted, “…”
Karen McCall and Jim Dutcher point out that …
California politician Tim Leslie insists that …
“…,” writes researcher James Rychnovsky.
… are three arguments for the law claimed by Jerome Robinson.
Citing Internet Sources
Sometimes writers are confused with how to craft parenthetical citations for electronic sources because of the absence of authors and page numbers, but often, these sorts of entries do not require any sort of parenthetical citation at all. For electronic and Internet sources, follow the following guidelines:
§ Include in the text the first item that appears in the Work Cited entry that corresponds to the citation on the Works Cited page (e.g. author name, article name, website name, etc.).
§ You do not need to give paragraph numbers or page numbers.
§ Do not include URLs in-text. Only provide partial URLs when the name of the site includes it; for example, a domain name, like CNN.com or Forbes.com as opposed to writing out http://www.cnn.com or http://www.forbes.com.
In the first example, the online article did not provide an author, so the first information in the citation is the name of the article – this is what is included in the parenthetical reference.
In the second example, “Stolley” is the author of the online article the writer is citing. This is also the first piece of information provided in the citation on the Works Cited page.