Step 8: Documentation
This worksheet will help you create a Works Cited page and generate parenthetical (in-text) citations for your paper. You will need all your sources and your grammar handbook, A Writer’s Reference. Write your responses to each of the following items in the spaces provided.
Drafting Citations: “How do I cite this?”
- What is a Works Cited page?
- What is a Works Cited page citation?
- Turn to the appropriate chapter in the handbook for your documentation style and find the directory of sources. Read through it and locate the types of sources you have. Write the source type, formula number, and page number.
Example: Book by one author, #1, p. 468.
- Starting with the first source type you listed, turn to the appropriate page and write down the formula.
Example: Book by one author, #1, p. 468.
Author Last, First. Book Title. Publisher, year.
- Now that you understand each formula, apply what you wrote above to your sources. Watch for abbreviations, punctuation, and capitalization. Write the citations on another sheet of paper, or write each one on the front page of the source. Remember, you can only put a source on your Works Cited page if you have used it in the paper.
Writing In-text Citations: “What goes in the parentheses?”
The Works Cited page is helpful, but the reader also needs to know which information came from each source when they read the paper. This is where in-text citations come in. Every time you include a summary, direct quote, or paraphrase in your paper, you must cite the source for that item immediately after it.
- What goes at the end of a source you paraphrased, summarized, or quoted in your paper? Write an example here. (See section MLA 4a of A Writer’s Reference.)
- What items can go inside the parentheses? What items will never appear inside the parentheses?
- Where does the period go – before or after the parentheses?
- Look at the citations you wrote for your sources and decide what would go in the parentheses. Write it down on another sheet of paper or on the front of the source.
- Read through your paper carefully and highlight all borrowed material. Does each item have an in-text citation? Is it accurate? Make corrections on your draft.
Checking Format: “Does this look right?”
Beside each question, write a brief answer or identify the page number of A Writer’s Reference where the answer can be found. (See the sample paper in A Writer’s Reference.)
- What is the spacing supposed to be?
- What should the settings be for the margins?
- What goes in the header?
- Where do page numbers go?
- How are dates formatted?
- Where does the paper’s title go?
- How do you let the reader know you started a new paragraph?
- Is the Works Cited page a new page or a separate document?
- Does the Works Cited page have a page number?
- How is the Works Cited page organized?
- How are the Works Cited entries indented?
- How many spaces should there be after a period?
- Are words in titles capitalized?
- Are book titles italicized or put in quotation marks? Article titles? Journal names?