Worksheet: MLA Citations - Theory & Practice

1. Identify each bibliographic element in the following entries:
1. “Article title” in quotation marks. Periodical name in italics. Organization name, date published. Medium. Date accessed.
2. Website name in italics. Organization name, year published. Medium. Date accessed.
3. Author’s last name, first name. “Paper Title” in quotation marks. Periodical title in italics. Volume.issue (year published) in parentheses: first page-last page. Medium.
4. Documentary title in italics. Dir[ector’s]. First name Last name. Perf[ormers’]. First name Last name, First name Last name. Distributor’s name, year published. Medium.
5. Author’s last name, first name and initial. “Article name” in quotation marks. Periodical title and volume.issue (month and year released) in parentheses: first page-last page. Database name. Date accessed.
2. Write out bibliographic (works cited) entries for each of the following sources; give an explanation for each.
1. The source is a government publication; list government, then the government body that authored it, then the type of document followed by the title of the document, then publishing body, publishing date, and medium.
   United States. Federal Maritime Commission. Rept. Hawaiian Trade Study: An Economic Analysis. Washington: GPO, 1978. Print.
2. Personal interview; List interviewee’s last name, then first name, then list type of review or review medium, then the date the interview took place.
   Montez, Mary. Personal interview. 21 June 2012.
3. For an unpublished dissertation with a quotation in the title; author’s last name, first name, then the title enclosed in double quotation marks, with the quotation enclosed in single quotation marks, then the school, the date, and the medium.
   Casawantay, M.J. “Timing in ‘Once More to the Lake’: E.B. White’s ‘Chiller.’” Yale, 1985. Print.
4. For a newspaper article; author’s last name, first name. Then article name in quotation marks. Then the periodical name in italics, with the city indicated. Then date and medium.
   Harmon, Amy. “Have Laptop, Will Track Each Blip in the Market.” New York Times 12 March 1998. Print.
5. Article in a journal: Author’s last name, first name. title in quotation marks. Journal name and volume, issue, and year: pages. Medium.
   Robbins, William G. “Triumphal Narratives and the Northern West.” Montana: The Magazine of Western History 42.2 (1992): 62-68. Print.
6. Article from an online database; ame as an article in a journal, but in the medium part you list the database name, then ‘Web.’, then the date accessed.
   Robbins, William G. “Triumphal Narratives and the Northern West.” Montana: The Magazine of Western History 42.2 (1992): 62-68. JSTOR. Web. 12 May 2005.
7. couldn’t find a relevant source of this type
8. The Silkroad Foundation. Silkroad Foundation, 2000. Web. 6 Feb. 2014.
9. Palmer, Carla. Personal interview. 6 Feb. 2014.

Chapter 12

This chapter is an overview of the process of developing your argument. Starting from your thesis statement, you’re to generate and explain your reasons for supporting your thesis statement. You should have a number of them. The chapter explains what sort of reasoning will be expected in various different document styles. All your reasons, then, should be backed up by logic and by evidence.

In addition to explaining your reasoning, a good argument will require appeals. The chapter explains the main types of appeals and how they work. The rest of the chapter outlines what aren’t acceptable appeals, or acceptable reasons. These are fallacies. There are a number of different fallacies. Generally speaking, they can be generalized as based on one of four things: distraction, questionable assumptions, misrepresentation, or careless reasoning. All of them are sloppy and dishonest, and if your readers detect them, they will not trust your reasoning.

Chapters 10 & 11

Chapter 10 is about field research. As my own paper is very firmly historical, this isn’t much use to me. An interview is the only one that might be helpful, but finding a specialist in the topic I’m studying isn’t really feasible.

The chapter emphasizes, however, that field research like interviews and surveys are useful to a great many projects, though many people are quick to dismiss them or write them off as a last resort. With surveys, for example, it’s much better to construct your own rather than rely on someone else’s results. First, other people’s surveys may be outdated by the time of your writing. Furthermore, the questions asked in someone else’s study, and the answers they received, may not really help with your own topic and thesis. Basically, if you want something done right (for your project), you really have to do it yourself.

Then the chapter goes into explaining how to carry out various types of field research. It describes good manners and etiquette in interviews, surveys, and observations, how to avoid biases and other errors in surveys especially, how to record interviews and observations, and so on. Some observations can be done in public settings, but if you want to visit a classroom or a company or something like that, you’ll need a written permission. The chapter explains how to acquire one of these.

Chapter 11 is a very brief guide to crafting a thesis statement. It re-emphasizes the same ideas we read about in earlier chapters on finding a research question and developing a position. Identify important ideas, recurring themes, and key points; think about your aims and intentions; focus in on as specific a point as possible. I’ll spend a lot of time working with this chapter to find a good thesis statement for my own paper for my research proposal. My topic is driven by my historical curiosity, and I don’t have some issue to take a position on just yet, so it’ll take some time to find something that I want to prove.

Chapter 7

This chapter is an in-depth explanation of plagiarism; what it is, what it isn’t, how to avoid it and what to do if you think you may not have avoided it as well as you should have.

It’s very important that your notes be very clear about what ideas are yours and what ideas aren’t, and carry that clearness through to your paper. Clearly mark and cite the ideas of others, as well as little-known information that comes to you from others. On that last note, the chapter also describes and defines ‘common knowledge’. You needn’t cite information that most people are likely to know, whether through culture or through elementary or secondary education. In addition, there are bits of knowledge that are ‘common knowledge’ within the field you’re writing, if not to the population at large. In general, the book says, if you see any given fact repeated without citation within three or more of your sources, then it’s probably common knowledge within that field, and you don’t need to cite it either. (If you see it in your sources, but they always cite it to some other source, then you should cite it from that same source. I think.) The chapter also collects together various bits of information that were spread through the previous six chapters.

If you’re accused of plagiarism, it’s your responsibility to do what you can to fix it. It’s a really serious matter, and if you have done anything, deliberately or through negligence, it’s pretty much time to grovel and basically be very humble and ready to work hard.

Chapter 6

If your topic is any good, you won’t have hundreds upon hundreds of sources to search through. However, if your topic is any good you will have dozens, and that much is a lot to deal with already. Organizing your sources is very vital to your success.

Keep track of all your sources. You can choose your own way to do this, but choose a way and use it consistently. Take notes on all your sources as well. Keep track of your thoughts, highlight important passages, summarize ideas as you go -- again, you can take notes with any method you like, but pick a method and stick with it, so you can stay organized.

As you read your sources, consider how they relate to each other. Where are they similar? Where are they different? How do the different authors’ ideas and priorities fit together? Consider grouping them by the kind of information they contain or by how they relate to your position. Use these considerations to organize your working bibliography, perhaps.

The more you organize your ideas as you go, the easier things will be when you start writing.

Chapter 3

A very important part of any research project is the development of a research question. Your research question guides your research -- helps you navigate sources for the subtopics and points of view you need, among other things. A research question is meant to be refined and developed over the course of your research, as your own understanding of your topic continues to improve. Selecting a question in the first place, however, is usually done with brainstorming.

Consider your assignment and topic. What do you know? What do you need to know? What is proven? What do you want to prove? Do you want to define something? Explain something? Analyze a puzzle? Make comparisons? Think of questions that go with your purpose. Use brainstorming to come up with a long list of questions.

The questions you start with should be fairly general. The next step is to narrow your question and focus in on your topic. You may not do this until after you’ve done some research and collected some sources. Your final research question should be quite specific, such that you might only be able to find a few dozen sources appropriate to answer it.

Another important step in the research process is the crafting of a research proposal, or a prospectus. Unlike a research plan, a research proposal is addressed towards someone other than yourself, usually a supervisor of some sort.

In your research proposal, you should thoroughly outline what your paper is going to be about. Be specific -- explain your topic and your thesis in detail, talk about your sources and what you’ve learned so far, give your supervisor an idea of your research methods, and lay out a timeline for your work. Your research proposal should also include your working bibliography. Consider making an annotated bibliography.

Incorporating Sources Effectively - worksheet

1. Compose 2 sentences including quotations from one of your sources.

1. Eivind Seland of the University of Bergen explains that “Long-distance movement in the pre-modern world was intimately linked to seasonal changes in winds and precipitation.” (406) Different routes, however, had different seasonal requirements, and so it was an effective strategy to maintain a variety of different trade routes even though some were less cost-effective than others, since the cost-effectiveness of any given route varied depending on the season.
2. Overland trade caravans had to be very large. Seland writes in his paper “The Persian Gulf or the Red Sea? Two axes in ancient Indian Ocean trade, where to go and why,”  that “The few ancient depictions we have of camel caravans also show animals relatively lightly loaded, with two amphorae on each side.” (402) It would have taken a great many of them to carry all the provisions and trade goods shipped out of Rome or Barbarikon on trading ships.

2. Compose 2 brief paragraphs, each one containing quotations from 2 of your sources and highlighting the credibility of their authors and indicating where each is published.

1. Matthew Fitzpatrick is an Associate Professor in International History at the University of Flinders. In his paper “Provincializing Rome: The Indian Ocean Trade Network and Roman Imperialism”, published in the Journal of World History in March 2011, Dr. Fitzpatrick noted “With Rome having wrested control of the centuries-old eastern maritime trade routes from Cleopatra, the last of Egypt’s Ptolemaic rulers, Roman trade with the East via the Red Sea accelerated markedly.” (31) Eivind Seland, a researcher at the University of Bergen, elaborates further in his paper “The Persian Gulf or the Red Sea? Two axes in ancient Indian Ocean trade, where to go and why,” which appeared in World Archaeology in September 2011. He says, “The total distance along the Red Sea–Nile route is about a third longer than along the Persian Gulf–Syrian Desert alternative. The overland distance to be covered between the Gulf and the Mediterranean is, however, almost four times greater than that between Berenike and Koptos.” (399)
2.