Making a Parenthetical Citation

Any high school teachers will require students to use MLA Style for their papers. You should check with the instructor for information about line spacing, margins, and a title page, since teachers may have their own preferences. Your teacher will probably provide a style guide of some sort to address these parts of the paper. As you write your paper in MLA style, you will be talking about things you found in your research. Therefore, you will have to indicate in your text exactly where you found the information. This can be done with parenthetical citations. When you make reference to someone else's idea, either through paraphrasing or quoting them directly, you provide the authors name and the page number of the work in the text of your paper. This is the parenthetical citation, and it is the alternative to using footnotes (like you will do if you use other styles found elsewhere on this site). Here is an example of parenthetical citations: Even today, many children are born outside the safety of hospitals (Kasserman 182). This indicates that you are using information found in a book by somebody named Kasserman (last name) and it was found on page 182. You may also give the same information in another way, if you want to name the author in your sentence. You might want to do this to add variety to your paper: According to Laura Kasserman, many children today do not benefit from the sanitary conditions which are available in modern facilities (182). Many children are born outside the safety of hospitals. Be sure to use quotation marks when quoting someone directly.

should come from the Title Page of each book, NOT THE COVER, the SPINE or other sources (such as WebCat.)
BOOKS

ONE AUTHOR
Overbeck, Cynthia. Ants. Minneapolis: Lerner Publication Company, 1982. Author's last name, Author's first name. Title. Place of publication: Publisher, copyright date. TWO OR THREE AUTHORS Sewell, Barbara and Patrick Lynch. A First Look at Ants. New York: Walker & Company, 1992. First Author's last name, First Author's first name and Full Names of 2nd and 3rd Authors. Title. Place of publication: Publisher, copyright date. MORE THAN THREE AUTHORS Anderson, Norman D., et al. Ants : using biological indicators to investigate environmental conditions. Raleigh, N.C.: Sci-Link/ Globe-Net Projects, North Carolina State University, 1999. Last Name of First Author, First Name of First Author, et al. Title. Place of Publication: Publisher, Year of Publication. EDITOR Brandes, Kathleen, ed. Vanishing Species. New York: Time-Life Books, 1976. NO AUTHOR or EDITOR The Secret World of Ants. Washington: National Geographic Society, 1978. PERIODICAL ARTICLES (articles from MAGAZINES or NEWSPAPERS)

Making Bibliography
A BIBLIOGRAPHY is a list of sources used by the writer of a research paper, including books, encyclopedias, newspapers, magazines, pamphlets, interviews, and electronic media. All the sources used are listed alphabetically. NOTE: Book titles must be either underlined: Ants or italicized: Ants. NOTE: Pay attention to spacing, capitalization and punctuation. NOTE: When more than one publication location is cited on the title page, the first city should be the one noted on your bibliopgraphy. Place of publication usually includes the Name of the City, and the abbreviation of the State: Greenwood, CT. NOTE: The information for your bibliography

NOTE: The title is in quotation marks, not underlined or italicized.

Conolley, Steve. "Making a Mountain Out of an Anthill." Scientist Weekly. 12 September 1987: 10210. Author's last name, Author's first name. "Title of the article." Name of periodical. Date of the periodical: page numbers of the article. ENCYCLOPEDIA ARTICLES

NOTE: If the encyclopedia arranges articles in alphabetical order, you may omit the volume and page numbers. NOTE: If there is no author, list the title first.
Carlin, Norman F. "Ants." The World Book Encyclopedia.

VIDEO/DVD The Life of the Honeybee. VHS. Encyclopaedia Britannica Educational Corporation, 1980. Title of the Video or DVD. Medium. Publisher/Production company, Copyright date. CD-ROM "Common Ant." Creepy Crawlies. CD-ROM. Farnham, England: Media Design Interactive, 1993. "Title of article, or part." Title of the CD-ROM. Medium. Place of Publication: Publisher, Date. ON-LINE DATABASE ARTICLES from an Institution (such as The Dalton School) Brian, M.V. "Ant. Access Science. The Dalton School Libraries, New York, NY. 06 Jan. 2004 <http://www.accessscience.com/>. Authors name. "Title of article." Name of the database service. Name of Institution, Place of Institution. Access date <URL of database> NOTE: If there is no author for the article, start the entry with the title. EBOOK from NETLIBRARY Hamilton, Ian. Ed. The Oxford Companion To Twentieth-century Poetry in English, New York: The Oxford University Press, 1996, netLibrary. 5 April 2005. < http://www.netlibrary.com/Reader/>. Author or Editor. Title. City: Publisher, Copyright Date, netLibrary. Access Date. http://www.netlibrary.com/Reader WEB PAGES NOTE: Always try to figure out who the AUTHOR of the web site/page is and where this person got his/her information in order to determine the RELIABILITY of the data. There are many personal interest pages out there that are not trustworthy. NOTE: ALSO, remember to record the DATE that you accessed your materials or when the web site was last updated because on-line information can be changed daily. NOTE: The standard DATE format for online materials is Date Month. (3 letter abbreviation) Year: 25 Mar. 2004 NOTE: There are many variants in citing different kinds of web sites. Make sure that you consult the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers (REF 808.02 GIB) or check with your teachers and librarians if you are not sure of the citation format. ENTIRE WEB SITE

AntColony.org. Phillip Pi. Ant Colony Developers Association. 18 Feb. 2004 <http://www.antcolony.org>. Title of the site. Name of the author/editor. Publication informaion (sponsoring company, organization, institution, etc.) Date of Access <URL>. PART/PAGE ON A WEB SITE "Creature Feature: Ants." Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. 25 Jan. 2004 <http://www.desertmuseum.org/kids/features_ant s.html>. "Title of the part/page." Name of the entire site. Publication information (sponsoring company, organization, institution, etc.) Date of Access <URL>. Trager, James C. "An Introduction to Ants (Formicidae.)" Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center. Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center, U.S. Geological Survey. 03 Dec. 2003 <http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/>. Path: Biological Resources; Invertebrates; Species Accounts/Descriptions. Author. "Title of the part/page." Name of the entire site. Publication information (sponsoring company, organization, institution, etc.) Date of Access <URL or the site address >. Path: (mouse clicks that will take the readers/visitors to the page cited. NOTE: Each step is separated by a semi-colon.)

A SAMPLE BIBLIOGRAPHY The function for a bibliography is to allow your readers to locate the cited entries. Whether they are books, videos, web sites, etc., you need to include the most relevant information that can lead your readers back to the sources you used for your research papers. NOTE: Pay special attention to the arrangement of entries. They are alphabetized according to the first letters/words. Articles A, An, The, are ignored.