| The best analogy I can think of to
illustrate how to integrate citations in your essay is to say they look like a
sandwich--if you think in terms of the two slices of bread and then the food in
between. Well a citation is generally created the same way.
First is the top slice of bread, which
involves the lead-in. A lead-in is a way of introducing the citation,
either by mentioning the author or the title of the source you are citing.
Next, the meat, lettuce, tomato, and cheese
constitute the citation itself. That's the heart of the citation, what
readers are really after. Remember that this material can take one of
three forms: either a direct quotation, a paraphrase, or a summary.
Finally the bottom slice of bread
represents the parenthetical note, which typically contains the author's last
name and page number from which you are citing, as in this example: (Lee 24).
(See the lecture on MLA Documentation System
for the different forms the parenthetical note can take). Remember that
for citations that are written inside your own sentence, the parenthetical note
is placed inside the period that ends that sentence and should also be placed
immediately following the text of the citation.
Here are some examples of what a citation
can look like. These come from my essay on a novel called
The Universal Baseball
Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop., by Robert
Coover. This one is a
direct quotation:
|
Jacques Ehrmann says
that, "Play cannot therefore be isolated as an activity without
consequences. Its integrity, its gratuitousness are only apparent,
since the very freedom of the expenditure made in it is part of a circuit
which reaches beyond the spatial and temporal limits of play" (42-3). |
Notice that the author is introduced using
his full name here. That's because it is the first time the author is
mentioned. On subsequent references, you would only use the author's last
name. And, since I have identified the author, there is no need to repeat
the name in the parenthetical note. That would be redundant according to
the MLA guidelines.
Here is another example, this one of
extended direct quotation:
|
In "The Great
American Game: Robert Coover's Baseball," Ronald Wallace explains
in his quote from The Official Encyclopedia of Baseball[i]
that the origins of baseball seem to be
derived from
religious rites of ancient times, with the fertility (of crops or people)
as the main theme? Egyptian king-gods and high priests used a ball as
the central symbol of Springtime ceremonies. Authorities disagree as to
whether the ball represented the sun (which is the source of life) or the
mummified head of Osiris (symbol of growth and fertility). But in either
case it is an object of potency…and records show that early in the 12th
century, in the high church of Vienna, the Archbishop would pass a ball
back and forth with clerics lined up for the processional. After the
services, the Archbishop threw the ball among the assembled people, who
followed the Moorish custom of splitting into teams. The popular custom
spread throughout France and Spain. Even the cathedral of Rheims wound up
Easter services with a ball game. (111)
[i] Hy
Turkin and S. C. Thompson, The Official Encyclopedia of Baseball
(New York: Barns, 1963) 1-2.
|
Notice in my example above that I use a
long quotation, sometimes called a "block quotation" or an "extended quotation."
In a block quotation, the left-hand margin is indented a half inch from the
regular margin. Notice something else: the parenthetical note is placed
outside the period. That is because placing it inside the period would
mean the p-note is part of the block quotation, which it obviously is not.
This quotation, too, uses a lead-in to introduce this long quotation.
One of the things that characterizes good
academic scholarship is the willfulness to accurately acknowledge outside source
information. When a writer uses a lead-in, especially to mark a
paraphrase, readers know exactly where the paraphrase begins and where it ends
because the lead-in marks the beginning and the p-note marks the end.
Consider the following example from the same essay:
|
In the
novel, Henry considers Damon his adopted son (a bastard son to Lou Engle).
In fact, Judith Wood Angelius asserts that
Henry's childless life "haunts" him about his own "lost youth" and that
the fictional Damon is a constant reminder that Henry has not fathered any
of his own progeny (171). |
Again, notice in this paraphrase how the
cited material is sandwiched between the lead-in in blue
and the p-note in red.
When to use citations?
First, use citations sparingly because
readers want to know what you have to say mostly, not what some other source has
to say. Outside sources are largely used to lend credibility to your ideas
and to let your audience know that you are familiar with what is currently being
thought and said about a given subject. You can also reference an outside
source polemically. In other words, you may cite an author so that you can
critique that writer's point of view.
How many citations to use?
When using direct quotations and especially
block quotations, limit these to quoting passages that are just so well said
that there's no way you can restate them better in your own words to create a
paraphrase. Keep block quotations to a minimum so that they do not waste
valuable space for your own ideas is your essay. On the average, no more
than 20% of your research essay should be from outside citations.
That means on any given page no more than about 5 lines
out of 25 should be devoted to citations.
These are examples of the three types of
citations you can use within your essay. Study them carefully and try
using them in your essay. |
