And Citing Correctly

Avoiding Plagiarism

The Bottom Line: The following will lose you marks.

No citations? Fail (see plagiarism) Citations in anything other than MLA or APA, or consistent

failure to format correctly:? Automatic 10% deduction. Quotes not integrated or formatted incorrectly (long quote

not set off with hanging indent), treated as “serious error,” three will lose you 10%

Titles incorrectly formatted: automatic 5% deduction. Incorrect punctuation, treated as punctuation error. Five

will lose you 10%

Titles

Books (Perspectives on Contemporary Issues, Pride and Prejudice) and sometimes plays are underlined or in italics. Not both.

Poems, essays (“The Game”) and other works within works (sometimes plays) are in quotation marks.

Formatting Quotes

Integrate grammatically whenever possible into your own sentence.

More than two lines of anything should be indented five spaces on both sides and set off from the text. No quotation marks.

As a rule, quote as little as possible; paraphrase or put in your own words (but don’t forget to cite)

Parenthetical Citations 1: What

ANYTHING, either exact quote, fact or opinion, that you read in your research

Page of text you are using – cite author’s name once at the beginning but unless you cite something other than your main work there is no need to keep repeating it.

If no author, use ABBREVIATED title – this applies to journal articles and web page articles as well.

Have as many citations per paragraph as there are different sources. Don’t worry about having too many.

Your Basic Parenthetical Citation: MLA

First quotation or reference: “Quote quote quote” (Author 25).

All subsequent quotes or references by same author, or where author is mentioned by name in sentence: “quote quote quote” (26).

NOTE: NO “p” for page, NO comma between author and number

Your Basic Parenthetical Citation: APA

When author is used in signal phrase:

According to Author, “quote quote quote” (2006, p. 19).

If no signal phrase or for paraphrased material This is an important piece of information for my research paper (Author, 2006, p.19)

NOTE: includes year, “p” for page and commas between entries. Do NOT confuse MLA and APA

Parenthetical Citations 2: Where

The parentheses go after the quote but before the period except in the case of indented quotes when it goes at the end.

Milton echoes Marlowe when he writes that a mind “in itself / Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heav’n” (234-5).

Elizabeth Barrett Browning suggests that women “are paid / The worth of our work, perhaps” (464).

More Punctuation

Reproduce internal punctuation (and capitalization) exactly as written except for a closing period (which goes after the parentheses). Retain closing exclamation and question marks.

Dorothea Brook responds: “What a wonderful little almanac you are, Celia!” (7).