How to Refer to Your Sources

You are going over your draft and need to check or add a reference to a source.  Should you refer to the author, the page title, the URL or something else?  The Purdue OWL provides a clear answer:

• Any source information that you provide in-text must correspond to the source information on the Works Cited page. More specifically, whatever signal word or phrase you provide to your readers in the text, must be the first thing that appears in the corresponding entry in the Works Cited List.

For example if your bibliography entry looks like this:  

Lundman, Susan."How to Make Vegetarian Chili." eHow,  www.ehow.com/how_10727_make-vegetarian-chili.html.*

You are required to state the last name of the author, "Lundman," in your reference, since the name of the author is what comes first in your bib. entry.  The last name of the author is then your "signal word."

If there is no author last name in your bibliography, then you will refer to the first thing provided in your correctly formatted MLA bib. entry.  In order of preference, these would typically be:

1. Author.
2. If no author:  use the title of the source. (Title of article or web page or abbreviated title)
3. If no title of source:  use the title of the "container" (Title of web site or abbreviated title.  Note this is NOT a URL)

Which brings us to another rule:

In-text citations for sources with no known author

When a source has no known author, use a shortened title of the work instead of an author name. Place the title in quotation marks if it's a short work (such as an article) or italicize it if it's a longer work (e.g. plays, books, television shows, entire Web sites).

We see so many global warming hotspots in North America likely because this region has "more readily accessible climatic data and more comprehensive programs to monitor and study environmental change" ("Impact of Global Warming").

In this example, since the reader does not know the author of the article, an abbreviated title of the article appears in the parenthetical citation which corresponds to the full name of the article which appears first at the left-hand margin of its respective entry in the Works Cited. Thus, the writer includes the title in quotation marks as the signal phrase in the parenthetical citation in order to lead the reader directly to the source on the Works Cited page. The Works Cited entry appears as follows:

"The Impact of Global Warming in North America." Global Warming: Early Signs. 1999. Web. 23 Mar. 2009.

Upcoming

--Read the opinion piece, "Rap Lyrics on Trial"  Underline one sentence from each paragraph and label each as logos, pathos, or ethos.

--Write three versions of a brief letter to your parents, asking if you can swap cars for the weekend.  (Your car is not very trustworthy; the car belonging to your parents is much nicer).  Demonstrate the use of logos, pathos, or ethos in each of the three versions.

--After reviewing your responses in the  Developing Your Argument and Audience Analysis planning sheets (see Google Classroom), after reflecting on what you have learned about logos, pathos, and ethos, and after reflecting on what you have learned about appeals, write the introductory paragraph to your persuasive essay.  Be sure to target wording, subject matter, and approach to your specific audience.  End the introductory paragraph with a specific thesis statement.

--Again reviewing your responses in Developing Your Argument , construct a n informal outline that states your thesis and identifies your arguments and counter-arguments.  Temporarily place your outline just above your introduction (see document on Google Classroom).

--Begin writing your body paragraphs and doing additional research as needed.  Be sure to use authoritative sources and to use academic databases as much as possible.  A rough draft of your entire essay (Works Cited page included) is due Thursday of next week.

Argumentative Writing

Upcoming: 1. Complete Portfolio #2 Reflection

2. Appeals Activity & Discussion

3. Begin Portfolio #3 Pre-write (Google Classroom)

4. Read text, pp. 88 - 106. (Deductive Reasoning, Inductive Reasoning, and Writing an Argumentative Essay.)

Ways to Appeal to an Audience:

-Videos:  1, 2. 3. 

Giving credit to your sources

General structure of a database citation in MLA 8:

Author’s Last name, First name. “Title of the source.” Title of the first container, First name Last name of any contributors, Version, Numbers, Publisher, Publication date, Name of Database, URL or DOI.

Common items are highlighted above.  Less common are items such as contributors and publisher.  These items should be included if available but often are not available.  

Use the following capitalization rule for your article (or website page) titles:  capitalize the first word of the article title and also capitalize any proper nouns.  All other words should be lower case.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is something you have to work hard to avoid -- like getting wet when it is raining.  In other words, if you just go about your business as is your habit, you are likely to get wet, just as you are likely to unintentionally plagiarize unless you take safeguards:
1) acknowledge your sources -- bibliography
2) refer to sources as needed
3) use quotation marks for quotes.  If you don't want to put something in your own words, if in doubt, use a direct quote.
4) paraphrase information when taking notes

How to Paraphrase:

• change the words
• change the order of words
• change the structure of the author’s words
• collapse lists
  
  An excellent site on the intricacies of plagiarism and how to avoid it is Plagiarism.org