Enclose in quotation marks the following titles:

The Internet can be a wonderful source of both good and bad information. Remember, the Internet is a largely unedited forum. Anyone can post a Web site, and the quality of its information is not necessarily valid or verified. So beware, and judge the source appropriately. For example, for medical information, the American Medical Association site is probably a better source than a junior-high biology class site. A Christian site might contain very biased information against Halloween. Your purpose in Assignment 4 is to provide objective, factual information. You are responsible for your choice of cited material.

• Sometimes Web pages are hard to document. If no article title is given and you need a title for a page, try using the title (if any) that appears in the upper left corner of the Web browser.
• When providing a citation for a Web site, indicate the location of borrowed information by page numbers, if given. Otherwise, use a paragraph number rather than the page number of a printout of the page.

To search the Internet, you need to use a search engine. Some search engines only search the titles of pages, so the "hits" they return may be limited or less substantial. Some search engines do "deep searches," which means they do a scan of the whole Web site. These searches provide more quality hits. For academic searches, try these search engines:

http://www.google.com

http://www.ask.com

http://www.dogpile.com
(Dogpile polls a variety of other search engines.)

You can also do a variety of searches from the ACC Library gateway page.

Try to think of pertinent keywords to target your search.

• If you do a search for "literature," you may get a million hits.
• If you narrow the search by adding another keyword--"American literature"--you may get half a million hits.
• Keep adding pertinent keywords to limit the search.

• If you search for George Washington, you will get hits about any George and anything named Washington.
• If you enclose the name in quotation marks--"George Washington"--you will limit your search to the particular person.
• By putting words in quotation marks, you tell the search engine to find those words in that particular order, so make sure whatever you put in quotation marks is exactly what you are looking for.

• You can find specific information on a Web page by using the Edit menu of your browser (Internet Explorer or Netscape).
• Click on the Edit menu, then click on Find on this page.
• Type in the keyword you are seeking.

Be aware that every bit of information you use in your report that is obtained from a published source--book, newspaper, magazine, Internet database, Internet article, TV, audio, etc.--must be properly credited using a valid MLA citation and a corresponding MLA Works Cited entry.

If you summarize information from a source, you have borrowed that information. If you paraphrase information from a source, you have borrowed that information. If you quote information from a source, you have borrowed that information. In all these cases, you must properly cite the information and provide a valid MLA Works Cited entry.

Again, all borrowed material must be credited. In the MLA style, you cite a source using parentheses in your essay. You provide complete bibliographical documentation only once--in the list of Works Cited at the end of the paper.

Remember, you are using secondary material to support your basic ideas. You must give credit for information you get from another source. You do this by using documentation--citations and Works Cited entries. Citations appear in the body of the report; they direct the reader to the complete publication documentation in the Works Cited section of the report. Basically, almost every paragraph of your essay will have at least one citation. You are expected to use proper formats for citations and documentation.

• A citation is just a pointer to the complete information in the Works Cited entry.
• The citation points to the first word in a corresponding Works Cited entry. The first word in the citation must be the same as the first word in the corresponding Works Cited entry.
• DO NOT use a citation that points to some information buried in a Works Cited entry. Point to the first word or words of the entry. So you don't generally need the name of the editor or the name of the book in a citation, only the name of the author or the title of the article.
  
• In almost all cases, the citation will point to an author's last name or a title, so the citation will almost always contain an author's last name or a title (if the author's name is not given).
• Each citation must have an indication of the author (or title, if no author is named) and page (or paragraph for a Web source)--even if the author or title is provided in the preceding citation. Do not rely on an earlier citation to give a following citation meaning.

• Do not have more than three citations in a row for a single source. That is, mix up the use of your sources in your essay. Do not rely too heavily on any one source.

• A citation generally identifies an author (or article name) and a page number or paragraph number.
  
• Cite after a block of paraphrased material, usually from one page in a source. Do not, for example, cite pages 19-24 for one line of paraphrased material. Especially do not use citations that include page spans of 10 or 20 or 30 pages.
  
• Cite immediately after a direct quote, and indicate the specific page or paragraph from which it comes. If the same source material continues as a paraphrase, it certainly does not hurt to cite the source again.
  
• It is better to have too many citations than too few citations.
  
• You can include the author's name in a tag in the text, or you can simply indicate the name in the parenthetical citation.

• If you have two authors with the last same name, or two articles with the same title, or two or more sources by the same author, you must give enough information in the citation to distinguish between the two. In the examples below, the same author, Jones, wrote two Internet articles and a book used as sources. The full article titles are "The Big Lie" and "Bankers Have More Dollars Than Sense." The book title in the citation is complete.
  Examples: (Jones, "Big Lie" par. 16) - (Jones, "Bankers Have" par. 3) - (Jones, Fake Money 34)

• Periods and commas follow the citations.
• A citation is part of the sentence in which the information appears, but a citation is not part of a quotation. The citation goes outside the quotation marks but inside the period or comma.

        One common Christian symbol of the vampire hysteria was blood. As Bob Smith notes, blood is a fundamental part of the Christian sacrament (333). Indeed, the Christian sacrament brings participating followers "dangerously close to the practice of ritualistic cannibalism" (Bill Smith 666). Edward Jones further clarifies the link between the Christian sacrament and vampirism. He suggests that in both cases, "blood is the medium through which the afterlife is accessed" (par. 7).

A good citation accurately identifies the source and location of borrowed information. A bad citation is inaccurate and often credits information to sources in which it does not appear.

When you cite your borrowed information, you must provide citations that accurately indicate the location of the borrowed information in your sources. If your citations are not accurate, you will be revising Assignment 4.

As you write your Assignment 4 research report, you will likely need to combine information from a couple of sources. You can't just dump all the information together and give credit to only one source. Doing so is a kind of plagiarism. You aren't giving proper credit for borrowed information. Let's say you want to write a group of sentences using borrowed information from two sources. Here's the information from a couple of made-up sources.

• I prefer that your citations are specific and preferably limited to a single source.
  
  
• If your information includes a direct quote, definitely do not use a summative citation. Place a specific citation immediately after the direct quote.

• Also, do not use citations that span large numbers of pages. For example, do not cite pages 10-55 for two sentences of information. Don't cite the page span of a whole article for information that appears on only one page in the article.

• Make your citations as specific as possible, and be sure your citations are accurate. The citation's purpose is to allow the reader easy access to the source and location of the borrowed information. If a reader has to read 20 pages of the source to find two sentences of information you have borrowed, your citations are not specific enough.

To cite your use of borrowed material from another source, you will likely use one of the following formats.

• Citations appear in the body of your writing.
• Citations for printed sources include page number references.
• Citations for Internet sources include page numbers, if given, or paragraph number references if page numbers are not given.
• Citations for Ebooks use page number references, if given.
• Also note the punctuation in these citation examples. You usually will not have commas in your citations.
• Article titles in citations should be enclosed in quotation marks
• Do use the par. abbreviation for paragraph, but do not use the p. abbreviation or any other notation for page.

One of the most popular creatures in the sea is the dolphin. The dolphin is often a character in family movies. But most people do not know that there are two kinds of dolphins. One kind of dolphin, the popular one, is a mammal. This kind of dolphin is a member of the small-toothed whale family. The other kind of dolphin is a fish, also called a pompano, dorado, or mahi-mahi, among other names, and it seldom stars in movies. (Smith, "Dolphins" 98)

Note: In this example, more than one source by the same author is being used. As a result, the additional information of the title must be included in the citation to differentiate between the sources. Also, in offset quotes only, the citation goes outside the end period, as illustrated above.

When you decide to use a source, make sure that you gather all the publication data that you will need to document the source.

• In fact, you should gather this data before you take any notes. Don't assume you can find the source later; often you can't. Then, if you use the source material without providing a citation and documentation, you are technically guilty of plagiarism.

• Be sure that you identify the source of all borrowed material in your notes.
• Be sure, also, if you copy the source material word for word, that you enclose the material in quotation marks.
• If you do not quote exactly, then paraphrase generally using your own words and style.

In a recent plagiarism workshop, I did a phrase search on Google for information that originally appeared in such notable sources as the Texas State Library and the Handbook of Texas Online. This same information, verbatim, without appropriate credit, also appeared on numerous other sites. As a result, I can't really be sure where you get your information, so any Web source entry other than from an ACC database or from an important online magazine or newspaper should include the specific Web address that leads the reader directly to the information. This requirement applies to Assignment 4 only. Again, if you do include the address of a Web site, you do not need to indicate the publication medium, i.e., Web.

Make sure that you copy Internet addresses exactly.

• Use the specific address from which the information comes, not the gateway or home page of the site.

• The entries are arranged in alphabetical order based on the last name of the author.
• If an author is not given, the first important word in a title is used in place of the last name of the author.
• The second and succeeding lines of an entry are indented.

        One common Christian symbol of the vampire hysteria was blood. As Bob Smith notes, blood is a fundamental part of the Christian sacrament (333). Indeed, the Christian sacrament brings participating followers "dangerously close to the practice of ritualistic cannibalism" (Bill Smith 666). Edward Jones further clarifies the link between the Christian sacrament and vampirism. He suggests that in both cases, "blood is the medium through which the afterlife is accessed" (par. 7).

Jones, Edward. "Those Wacky Vampires." 30 April 1996.
        Vampire Research Institute. 4 October 2012
         <http://www.vampsrus.org/jones/wacky.html>.

Smith, Bill. Blood as a Symbol. London: Bloody Good Books, 1933. Print.

Smith, Bob. "My Priest Was a Cannibal." Religion Quarterly Review
        (September 1999): 666. Print.

At the end of your paper, you must provide a list of Works Cited--an alphabetical reference list of all the sources you have cited in your paper.

• Arrange the entries alphabetically according to the authors' last names.
• When you include several works by one author, list these alphabetically by title. Instead of repeating the author's name, use three hyphens followed by a period.
• If no author's name is given, use the first important word in the title to place the entry alphabetically.

For Assignment 4, any Web source entry other than from an ACC database or from an important online magazine or newspaper must include the specific Web address that leads the reader directly to the borrowed information.


General Works Cited Entry Formats

Books
Last name, First name of author. Title of book. City where published:
        Name of Publisher, year published. Print.

Printed Magazines or Other Periodicals
Last name, First name of author (if given). "Title of Article."
        Name of Magazine Volume or Date of issue: page numbers. Print.

Online Magazine Article from Online Database
Last name, First name of author (if given). "Title of Article."
        Name of Magazine Volume or Date of issue: page numbers.
        Name of Database. Web. Date of Access.

Article on a Web Site
Last name, First name of author (if given). "Title of Article." Date of posting.
         Institution or Sponsoring Company. Date of access <Web address>.

Sample citation: (Parke 98)

Sample citation: (Smith and Jones 118)

Note: Give the authors' names in the order in which they appear on the title page; notice that only the first author's name is inverted. Note that the second and following lines of an entry are indented.

Sample citation: (Spiller et al. 26)

Note: When a book has more than two authors, use only the first author's name listed on the title page. Then, include the abbreviation et al. This is a Latin term meaning "and others."

Sample citation: (Dreiser 56)

Sample citation: (Thomas 48)

Sample citation: (Dimock 71)

Note: When the publisher is a university press, you can abbreviate the words "university press" as "UP" (Indiana UP, for example).

Sample citation: (Larson 215)

Sample citation: ("Fathers Confused" 5)

Sample citation: (Jones 134)


"Dolphins." Americana Encyclopedia. 2000 ed. Print.

Sample citation: ("Dolphins" 138)

Note: In the encyclopedia cited in the first example, the author of the article is identified by his initials at the end of the article, and his name is listed in a guide to the work. In citing any well-known reference work, you need not give any details about publication, except for the edition number, if any, and the year. If the author is not named and the entries are listed alphabetically, begin with the title of the article, as in the second example.

Sample citation: (Box 38)

Note: Because the specific Web address is not given, the publication medium indicator Web is used. Also, because the Web source gives a page number for the article, use a page number instead of a paragraph number in the citation.

Note: Your Works Cited entry for a Web source should contain the noted information, in the order listed. If one of the parts is missing, everything else moves to the left in the entry or you can use abbreviations for the missing parts: n.d. (No date of publication) or n.p. (No place of publication or no publisher). Because the above entry includes the specific Web address, the publication medium indicator Web is not needed.

For more details on documenting Web sources, see the section below on Documenting Internet Sources.

Note: In the above entry, include the producer, the director, the channel or network on which the program was broadcast, and the date of broadcast. Also, if you use a TV program as a significant source, you must provide a transcript for the part(s) of the program from which you borrow information.

Note: The names of sacred texts are not typically italicized or underlined. Also notice that in the case of a Bible citation, for example, the words in the citation will not point to the first word in the corresponding Works Cited entry. You can always mention the sacred book in your text if you are unsure if your reader will make the connection between the citation and the Works Cited entry for the sacred text. Be aware that sacred texts are not considered nonfiction sources and cannot count as one of your three minimum sources.