Section 4: Citations

Works Cited List

Why works cited? Because your paper should be all about ease of reading. Use a Works Cited page to list only those works you actually cite in your paper. In other words, if you write it, cite it.

The Works Cited list appears at the end of the paper.

• Begin the list on a new page.
• Center the words Works Cited at the top of the page.
• Double space everything.
• Each entry should be aligned left. If a second line is needed for an entry, the line should be indented one-half inch (it’s called a hanging indent.)

Citing

• List entries alphabetically according to the author’s last name. If no author is noted, begin with the title.
• Think of your research paper as a team effort between you and your sources.
• It’s very simple: when in doubt, cite. That’s an ideal way to avoid plagiarism, which can result in hefty disciplinary action, including administrative withdrawal from the program. Here’s the drill:
  • Indicate your source with a signal phrase.
  • Cite the material in quotes, unless the length exceeds four lines.
  • Follow the citation with a page number in parentheses.
  • At the end of the paper list the source in your Works Cited page.

In-Text Citations

• Use only the author’s last name followed by a page number (Lindsey 16).
• Do not include the date of publication. Do not include a comma. Do not include an abbreviation for page.
• Each of these examples is incorrect:
  (Lindsey, 16)
  (Lindsey, 1918, p 16)

Quotes Within Quotes

When using a quotation the author has also quoted, use quotation marks and cite as follows:

“The dog ate my paper” (qtd. in Lindsey 35).

Signal Phrase

Provide a clear signal phrase to alert your reader that a quotation will follow. For example:

Norman Lindsey, author of the Australian literary classic The Magic Pudding, claims “. . .”

In-Text Citations for Quotes

• Use parenthetical documentation within the paper rather than footnotes at the bottom. For example:

Norman Lindsey, in his work The Magic Pudding, writes that “humor’s humor” (5).

Notice that in this example the author is not in the parentheses because his name is included in the sentence. If, however, the author’s name does not appear in the sentence, then his name would be added to the documentation as follows.

In The Magic Pudding, the author asserts that “humor’s humor” (Lindsey 50).

If more than one work by Norman Lindsey will be discussed, then add the title of the work to the documentation:

Lindsey asserts that “humor’s humor” (Lindsey, The Magic Pudding 5).

Note in every case that the period is included after the parentheses.

• Indent a quote of four lines or more; do not use quotation marks. Place the period after the quote,not after the parentheses:

The third disturbance due to Bill’s suspicions occurred while Bunyip Bluegum was in a grocer’s shop. If Bunyip hadn’t been in the shop, as was pointed out afterwards, the trouble wouldn’t have occurred. (Lindsey 92)