Documenting Sources
Using MLA In-Text Citations

Read:  Chapter 21 in The Penguin Handbook (pp. 347-411).

Academic writing requires the correct documentation of all borrowed source material. Anytime you include paraphrases, summaries and quotations from another's work in your own writing, you must indicate that you have done so by providing in-text citations and a works cited page. The purpose of in-text citations is to provide an easy cross-reference to the works cited page so the reader can readily find the proper entry there and thus find out where the material cited in the text came from.

There are a number of different documentation styles. When you write a paper for a college course, you should use the documentation style specified by your academic discipline (field of study). Papers written for classes in the humanities, such as English and history, for example, use Modern Language Association (MLA) documentation format (called "style"); whereas the social sciences, such as Psychology and Education, use American Psychological Association (APA) style.

Written Assignment

Consult Chapter 21 of The Penguin Handbook, which explains and models the format for MLA in-text citations, to complete and submit parts A and B below following the instructions provided. (You may also want to look at the in-text citations in the sample research essay in Section 21k [pp. 395-411] of The Penguin Handbook.)

Part A:

Examine each of the following pairs carefully. Indicate the passage that handles MLA in-text citations correctly and briefly explain what is wrong with the citation in the other passage.

1a. In "Death and Justice," Edward Koch, former mayor of New York City, argues that "life is precious, and . . . the death penalty helps to affirm this fact (857)."

1b. In "Death and Justice," Edward Koch, former mayor of New York City, argues that "life is precious, and . . . the death penalty helps to affirm this fact" (857).

2a. One study revealed that "by 1991 two-thirds (66.7%) of all mothers with children under eighteen were in the labor force" (107).

2b. One study revealed that "by 1991 two-thirds (66.7%) of all mothers with children under eighteen were in the labor force" (Etzioni 107).

3a. "Arguing about whether nontraditional families deserve pity or tolerance is a little like the medieval debate about left-handedness as a mark of the devil" (Kingsolver 168).

3b. Kingsolver points out that "arguing about whether nontraditional families deserve pity or tolerance is a little like the medieval debate about left-handedness as a mark of the devil" (168).

4a. Bruce Catton claims that despite their differences in "background, in personality [and] underlying aspiration," Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee had many similar characteristics (235).

4b. According to "Grant and Lee: A Study in Contrasts," an essay in The McGraw Hill Reader, despite their differences in "background, in personality [and] underlying aspiration," Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee had many similar characteristics (235).

5a. "There is a Chinese word for the female, which is slave, " writes Maxine Hong Kingston (191). "Break the women with their own tongues!" (191). She means that since women had no other word to use to refer to themselves than one meaning slave, they eventually lost any sense of dignity and independence they might once have had.

5b. "There is a Chinese word for the female, which is slave, " writes Maxine Hong Kingston. "Break the women with their own tongues!" She means that since women had no other word to use to refer to themselves than one meaning slave, they eventually lost any sense of dignity and independence they might once have had (191).

Part B:

Some of the following passages contain errors in the use of MLA in-text citations. Take the information provided in italics into consideration and make the revisions necessary. You don't need to re-write the entire passage. Copy only the portion of the passage where the error is found, show your corrections and briefly explain what was wrong. If a passage is correct, write "correct" after its number.

1. The article "How to Save the Homeless Mentally Ill" proposes that the federal government should assist the states in rebuilding a national system of asylums (Krauthammer).
   
   The writer has paraphrased the source properly. The passage containing this information appears on page 22 of Krauthammer's article.



2. Douglass Mossman and Michael Perlin cite numerous studies which show that mental illness itself is not the primary factor causing homelessness among the mentally ill (952).



3. In a letter to the editor on behalf of the project for Psychiatric Outreach to the Homeless, Drs. Katherine Falk and Gail Albert give us the following statistics: It costs $105,000 to keep someone in a state hospital for a year. But it costs only $15,000 to $35,000 (depending on the intensity of services) to operate supported residences in the community with the necessary onsite psychiatrists, case workers, case managers, drug counselors and other rehabilitation services. (New York Times A30)



4. More than 11,000 mentally ill homeless have received services through a program to provide community-based care ("Articles").
   
   The statistic is from "Articles to Focus on National Effort to Help People Who Are Homeless and Have Mental Illness," a one page press release with an unknown author.



5. According to Linda Chafetz in a report on the lack of available housing for the homeless, "The immediate and urgent nature of the resource dilemma can make other issues appear almost frivolous by comparison" (451).



6. Celia Dugger describes a recent effort in New York City to locate and hospitalize dangerous homeless mentally ill individuals who are now living on the street or in homeless shelters (B 1).
   
   There are two works by Dugger in the list of works cited. The quotation is from one of them, a New York Times article entitled "A Danger to Themselves and Others."



7. In a published report of their research, Cohen and Thompson cite a number of studies which show that "only 5% - 7% of single adult homeless persons are in need of acute inpatient care" (American Journal of Psychiatry 818).