Citing Quotes

What Is It?

Citation allows us to stay legal when we use other peoples’ ideas to support our own. They are composed of two elements: the in-text reference and the bibliography entry. The in-text reference points to the bibliography entry.

There are a number of competing standards that have been authorized for specific discourse communities. In the humanities, we use MLA. As you guys move into your careers, you’ll probably work with something like the APA or CBE. These standards document different information in the citation that encode the values of the community.

Citations in MLA include the name of the author and the page number from which the quote came in parentheses at the end of the sentence where the quote appears. This is because the humanities care to know more about where quotes. CBE, for instance, includes author name and date of publication because the sciences care more about when something was published.

An Example

From Anthony Weston’s A Rulebook For Argument:

• “the rules of argument, then are not arbitrary.”
• “the rules of argument, then are not arbitrary” (Weston xii).
  • This comes from the preface, page xii, so we’ve included the author’s last name and page number.
• “the rules of argument, then are not arbitrary” (A Rulebook For Argument).
  • This would be for a webpage that didn’t have an author.
• As Weston writes, “the rules of argument, then are not arbitrary” (xii).
  • If you mention the author in the sentence, you don’t need it in the in-text reference.

Check OWL for what to do with weird situations.

The Work Cited Page

Begin the bibliography on a new page. At the top of the page, write “Work Cited” (not something else). Entries on this page are single-spaced with a blank line between entries. Format the entries with a 0.5” hanging indent.

Each entry takes the format:

author. “article title.” book title. Then begins to deviate based on what type of source you are using. Use an online reference to find out the basic format for whatever you want to use (such as this one)

Fill in what you have. Alphabetize by first thing (either author or title).

Website Citation

As a lot of research moves online, citing things from the Internet becomes increasingly important. The MLA makes citing things from the Internet tricky, but not that awful.

Citing An Article in on a Website:

• Author stays the same (if the site has one).
• The site’s title becomes the book title (for instance Wikipedia)
• The specific page’s title is treated as the article. So, if I was citing the Wikipedia entry for “Farmer,” the article title would be “Farmer” and the book title would be Wikipedia. There would be no author.

Format:

Author. “Article Title.” Site Title. Publication Date (if known). Access Date. <URL>

URL is now optional (for some stupid reason).

An Example

• Weston, Anthony. A Rulebook for Argument. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 2000.
  • Book type.
• A Rulebook for Argument. A Collection of Rhetoric Pages. 12 Dec 2000. <http://www.rhetoric.com>. 9 Feb 2007.
  • Anonymous website

Working with Quotes

• Why cite outside sources?
  • Ethos
  • Bring in knowledge we don’t have.
  • Counterargument
• The problem with quotation is that you need to work them into the fabric of your text. The problem many writers have is with allowing quotes to speak for themselves.
  • Whenever you bring in a quote, make sure to explain to your readers what the quote means and why you chose to include it for your readers.
  • Also, don’t end a paragraph with a quote. Make sure to explain the quote and end with your own words.

Validating Sources Online

• Authority & Accuracy
  • Who wrote the page / article? Do You know?
  • Credentials / Ethos?
  • Verifiability: do facts match things you’ve seen elsewhere or know about subject?
• Advocacy & Objectivity
  • Is data presented as fat or opinion or conjecture?
  • More than one view point?
  • Does a group sponsor the page? If so, what are their beliefs?
• Currency & Coverage
  • How recent is data?
  • Does site really cover all areas it claims to cover?
  • Is info uniformly complete?

Other

• If you have a quote that exceeds four lines in length, you need to use what’s called a block quote. Block quotes are double-spaced before and after, single-spaced inside and the whole paragraph is indented by 0.5”. Additionally, the paragraph after the block quote (where you will presumably talk about the quote) needs to be un-indented (flush with the left margin).

Sources / References:

1. http://www.umuc.edu/library/guides/mla.shtml
2. http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/557/01/
3. http://library.ucla.edu/libraries/college/help/hoax/index.html