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Citing Your Sources
Citations during Note Taking
Before you take a single note, at the top of each notepage you must include the bibliographic information about the source (a works cited entry). Please see your works cited sheet or the library web page (coming soon) for information on how to make MLA style works cited entry for different kinds of sources. You must properly format these entries or you will end up making lots more work for yourself later.
If you continue to another page, put the first few words of the work cited entry at the top.
You will need these entries to 1) make internal citation inside your genres and 2) create a works cited page.
Internal Citations: Avoiding Plagiarism
Any time you write a paragraph without citations, you are telling the reader that everything in that paragraph is your own ideas and facts that are common knowledge. If anything in that paragraph is from a source, you have just plagiarized.
Every time you use a fact or idea that you got from a source you must cite that source. After a sentence that uses information from a source, include the first word of the (properly formatted) source citation (from the top of your notepage) inside parentheses with a page numberFrequently it will be an author's last name and a number. Never use commas or p. inside the citation. For example
The blue jay is the most misunderstood bird (Smith 42).
Notice the period is outside the parentheses. Also note that generally only print sources like books and magazines that you have physically in your hands have page numbers. Never use the page numbers on internet sources or database printouts like "page 1 of 6."
If the whole paragraph is from one source, only cite it once, at the end of the paragraph. If you use one source for two or more paragraphs, however, you need to cite at the end of each paragraph.
If your source has an author, you can mention the author's name at the beginning of the piece of information and then just the page number at the end of the paragraph.
According to Smith, the blue jay is not appreciated (42).
Remember, every citation should be the first word or words of a work cited entry on your works cited page.
That's the overview. Please see the following links for more information on citing.
(Put links to Library Research Site here.)
Preparing Your Works Cited Page
Yours should look just like this example works cited page.
Because you've already correctly cited your sources on your notepages, preparing your works cited page is simple.
1. Set up the formatting of your document.
a. set the margins to one inch
b. make sure the font is 12 point Times New Roman
c. set the line spacing to double space
d. under "view" open the header and type your last name, aligned to the right side of the page and close the header
e. click on center alignment and type Works Cited on the first line. It will be in the center of the page. Do not use any bold type, underline,larger or different font. This page is supposed to look boring. Leave it!
f. Go down one line and then hit left alignment.
g. Now create a hanging indent: On the ruler at the top of your document, move the bottom half of the two triangles one half inch to the right. That's all!
2. Type your works cited entries in, alphabetizing by the first word. (Ignore "The," "A", "An")
3. Note, DO NOT make an extra space between entries. That is what the hanging indent is for.
4. Look at the example works cited page and make sure yours is formatted exactly correctly.
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