Convincing An Audience Essay
Bruce220Working with Sources
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When you paraphrase or quote
Whenever you have looked up information somewhere else and that information ends up in your paper, you will have to mention it.
A quote used: indicate page number
Paraphrase (put in your own words): indicate page number
Just an idea: indicate page number. This is important. Even if you did not use some quote or put it in your own words, somebody else’s idea is intellectual property. You need to attribute it to them.
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What Needs No Citation
Common Knowledge: What day today is. What the capital of New York is.
Personal Knowledge: If you write about the experience of being a student, or about living in quarantine, you have a lot of personal knowledge about it. In these cases, you are the source and no citation is needed.
BUT: What the population of New York is currently is NOT common knowledge. You have to look it up. So, cite where you found this information.
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References In the text
You can reference the author in two ways: before the quote or at the end of it. If at the end of it, you do it in a parenthesis.
Michelle Cawley defines passive euthanasia as “cooperating with the patient’s dying” (959).
The parenthesis has the page number only, since the name was already mentioned
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In the text
Passive euthanasia is “cooperating with the patient’s dying” (Cawley 959).
Parenthesis includes LAST name since it has not been mentioned before.
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Mentioning The Work
It is not necessary to mention the work in the paper itself, and in fact it is often cumbersome to do so. Just give the full information in the “Works Cited” list.
If necessary, mention the work in the parenthesis as well (just a key word from the title is fine)
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UNIFIED RULE: EVERYTHING MUST BRING TO YOUR OWN TEXT, NOT THE QUOTE
Quotes must still be part of your essay.
Quotes should not switch number, subject, voice, tense etc. of preceding text
Quotes and your prose must be smoothly integrated
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Direct or Indirect Quotes
Use direct quotations (word for word quote) when the source material uses language that is particularly striking or notable or that its wording either makes your point or constitutes a point of disagreement
Also use direct quotation when the quote or person quoted is extremely important/influential
Use an indirect quotation (paraphrase) in all other cases, namely when you merely need to summarize key incidents, ideas, or details of the text
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Using Quotes
The Writer’s Center “Sandwich method”:
Introduce the quote (give a context), followed by
Quote itself, followed by
Explanation of what quote proves/illustrates in relation to the point you want to make
All three happen before you reach the period mark—in a single sentence.
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Wrong: "A chimp has combined words into new sentences that she was never taught" (Davis 68). This means that other animals can also generate language.
In the above example, the quote is dropped in the middle of the paper like a bomb. The writer does not introduce it, and does not explain WHY they use it. The quote is a foreign body that takes attention away from the writer’s text—and everything in the paper should bring attention back to your ideas and argument.
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Right: Other animals can also generate language, as seen from Flora Davis’ report that " a chimp has combined words into new sentences that she was never taught," which is another proof that language is an inherent mammal ability (68).
The student has introduced the quote, then wrote it, and then explained the role the quote plays in the paper’s argument.
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Works Cited
Each paper must have a separate page with the title “Works Cited.” The following slides show you how you create that
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General Works Cited Rules
In your citation, the elements should be listed in the following order:
Author.
Title of source.
Title of container,
Other contributors,
Version,
Number,
Publisher,
Publication date,
Location.
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Each element should be followed by the punctuation mark shown in the previous slide.
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Author
Begin the entry with the author’s last name, followed by a comma and the rest of the name, as presented in the work. End this element with a period.
Said, Edward W. Culture and Imperialism. Knopf, 1994.
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Source
The title of the source should follow the author’s name. Depending upon the type of source, it should be listed in italics or quotation marks. A book a film or a website should be in italics. A periodical (journal, magazine, newspaper article, article in a collection) should be in quotation marks.
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Title of container
Unlike earlier versions, the eighth edition refers to containers, which are the larger wholes in which the source is located. For example, if you want to cite a poem that is listed in a collection of poems, the individual poem is the source, while the larger collection is the container. The title of the container is usually italicized and followed by a comma, since the information that follows next describes the container.
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Kincaid, Jamaica. "Girl." The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Short Stories, edited by Tobias Wolff, Vintage, 1994, pp. 306-07.
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More information:
http://library.laguardia.edu/research/mla
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