The department strongly recommends the MLA form of parenthetical documentation. It is a straightforward style, one that is fairly easy to learn. It does away with the confusions of ibid. and op. cit., makes footnotes unnecessary for most undergraduate papers, and resembles styles of documentation used in the sciences and social sciences.

For detailed guidance, please consult the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, ed. Joseph Gibaldi and Walter S. Achtert (3d ed.). What follows here is intended to be a brief introduction drawn from the Handbook (155-79). Here is the system's basic idea:

When you quote, paraphrase, or otherwise use material from a book, article, or other source, you note the relevant page numbers in parenthesis at the end of your sentence. If the author's name appears in your text, then you need only put the page numbers in parenthesis. If the author's name does not appear in your text (or in what may be called the lead-in), then you need to give the author's name before the page numbers. Leave a space between name and page number; do not add punctuation or abbreviations between name and page number. Simplify, simplify.

For example, imagine these sentences to be part of an essay:

Frye has argued this point before (178-85).

This point has been argued before (Frye 178-85).

There are, of course, citations that require some slight changes in form, as, for example, in the case of poetry set off from the text. Note also that line numbers are used instead of page numbers:

Elizabeth Bishop's "In the Waiting Room" is rich in evocative detail:

It was winter. It got dark early. The waiting room was full of grown-up people, arctics and overcoats, lamps and magazines. (6-10)

Now for the list of works cited. It appears at the end of the paper, on a page of its own. Center the title Works Cited at the top of the sheet. Then alphabetize the entries for all works you have used in the paper. If you wish to include works you have read but not used, you may entitle the page Works Consulted.

Works Cited

Clark, Kenneth. What Is a Masterpiece? London: Thames, 1979.

Garcia Márquez, Gabriel. "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings." "Leaf Storm" and Other

Stories. Trans. Gregory Rabassa. New York: Harper, 1972. 105-12.

Hook, Janet. "Raise Standards of Admission, Colleges Urged." Chronicle of Higher Education 4

May 1983: 1ff. Jakobson, Roman, and Linda R. Waugh. The Sound Shape of Language.

Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1979.

Note that articles and short works--anything published in a collection or a periodical--will need to have page numbers. This will help your reader locate the exact text. Books that are not collections are generally cited as a whole, without page numbers.

CITING FROM ELECTRONIC SOURCES

Writers of research papers increasingly find information via computer services, computer networks and CD-ROM. The MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, ed. Joseph Gibaldi (4th ed.) provides detailed information for citing properly from these kinds of sources. Another suggested source of information is Electronic Styles: A Handbook for Citing Electronic Information, Xia Li and Nancy Crane (2nd ed.). Both of these books can be found in the reference section of the library. Below is a list from the MLA Handbook (161-62) showing the kinds of information needed to complete a citation from an online or a CD-ROM data base that contains a published (printed) source; this is followed by a sample citation:

1. Author (if any)

2. Printed source information (title, date, edition, page)

3. Title and date of database (underlined)

4. Publication medium (Online or CD-ROM)

5. Computer Service (or, if CD-ROM, name of vendor, if relevant)

6. Access date (the date you received this information)

Angier, Natalie. "Chemists Learn Why Vegetables Are Good for You." New York Times 13 Apr.

1993, late ed.: C1. New York Times Online. Online. Nexis. 10 Feb. 1994.

This example is not generic; it is only one possibility. There are many variables to the way you must cite electronic data depending on the source you are using. Please consult the texts cited below for more complete information.

Gibaldi, Joseph. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. 4th ed. New York: Modern

Language Association of America, 1995.

Li, Xia and Nancy Crane. A Handbook for Citing Electronic Information. 2nd ed. Medford, NJ:

Information Today, 1996.