One purpose of documentation is to acknowledge the sources used. The Works Cited page of a research paper provides the information required in order for the reader to find an exact copy of each of the original sources used by the researcher. An internal citation at the place within the paper where the writer used the quote, summary, paraphrase, or idea points back to the source on the Works Cited page which is being used and tells where in that source to find the information, ideas, or words used. In MLA, the format of a citation is usually the author's last name and a page number. If the source does not list an author, the title of the source is used.
For electronic sources, like web pages or full text article reprints, page numbers are not used since each person printing the article could end up with different page breaks. So, if page 7 is used from a source by someone named Martin, the internal citation (also called "parenthetical documentation" or "tag") would be (Martin 7). If information is used from a web site titled "George Washington Carver, Botanist" that does not list an author, the internal citation (also called "parenthetical documentation" or "tag") would be ("George Washington Carver, Botanist").
Writers must remember that everything (absolutely everything) in their papers must be clearly indicated as their idea or someone else's. Anything that is not an original idea of the writer's must have a source, and that source must be cited.
Best Practice: Good students include the internal citation (parenthetical documentation or tag) in their notes. Failing to include citations (tags) in notes makes it easy to plagiarize.
Examples of Internal Citations
Below are some examples for writers to use as a reference when using quotations in their own papers. The Works Cited entries for each source can be found at the end of this document.
Short quotation (Author's name included in the text as a running acknowledgement)
With short quotations, the internal citation (tag) appears after the quotation but before the period ending the sentence. Were a student to quote from page ten of a book published by the mythy critic Karen Armstrong, he or she might write
According to Karen Armstrong, a myth is "valid" "if it forces us to change our minds and hearts, gives us new hope, and compels us to live more fully" (10).
Short quotation (no author's name included in the text -- no running acknowledgement)
Sometimes it is not important for a student to indicate in his or her argument the source of a quotation. In cases like these, there is no need for a running acknowledgement. However, the student must still indicate the source of the quotation in the internal citation or tag. Were a student to quote from the first paragraph of an unsigned hypertext (Internet) article entitled "Gerard Manley Hopkins" taken from Dictionary of Literary Biography in the Literature Resource Center database, he or she might write
Gerard Manley Hopkins is a Victorian poet and "surely the most important and perceptive critic of English poetry between Arnold and T.S. Eliot" ("Gerard Manley Hopkins," Dictionary of Literary Biography)
Note: If this were the only unsigned article the student was using which had the title "Gerard Manley Hopkins," the student would not need to include the title of the book Dictionary of Literary Biography in the tag. However, if the student was also using in his or her paper another article titled "Gerard Manley Hopkins" taken from Encyclopedia of World Biography, for instance, the student would need the name of the reference book in order to distinguish between the two sources.
Long quotation (over four lines, must be indented one inch from the left margin)
Long quotations always include a running acknowledgement. Also, the quotation itself is indented one inch from the margin. This is called a block indent. When using the block indent, the quotation is not surrounded by quotation marks and the tag appears after the period ending the quotation. Were a student to use a long quotation from page thirty-one of an article by David Brill, he or she might write
Writers use telling details to capture the reader's interest and to make their writing vivid and memorable. David Brill illustrates how telling details can convey strong emotions with this excerpt from his article about Memphis psychiatrist Paul King, originally written for Tennessee Illustrated:
One need only glance around King's office to realize how deeply immersed he has become in the problems of the sick and addicted. The place is cluttered with the icons of the drug world. Surrendered water pipes are tucked away in corners. A cryptic pen-and-ink drawing of a skeleton seated at an empty bar hangs from one wall. A lifelike bust of a hideous green ghoul sculpted from clay leers from a shelf in the bookcase. Its head is topped with red-tipped spikes. A grotesque red tongue lolls from between its red lips. A memento of some patient's twisted past. (Brill 31)
The right details can express, not only the ideas the writer wants the reader to understand, but the feelings the writer wants the reader to experience.
Statistic (with author's name in text)
Were a student to quote a statistic from the third paragraph of an electronic article by Vittal Kattreddi with a running acknowledgement, he or she might write
According to Vittal Katikireddi, in the UK, "of the 250 000 children who develop cancer every year, 80% die without adequate treatment" (Katikireddi)
Note: Even though a running acknowledgement is used, since this source has no page numbers, include the author's name in the internal citation.
Statistic (without author's name in text--no running acknowledgement)
If the student quoted a statistic from The Houston Chronicle and did not use the author's name within the text itself, then he or she would put the author's name in the parenthetical citation.
Despite the availability of vaccines, "about 36,000 people - the majority of them elderly - die of seasonal influenza each year" (Ackerman).
Integrating short and long quotations
The following example shows how a student might integrate short and long quotations in a paper:
Smith 4
Carver was especially concerned with promoting products which grew in the South, like the peanut. He once said that "the dried sweet potato [would] become as important an article of food as dried apples, peaches, prunes or fruits of any kind" (Leithauser and Bell 273). Like the peanut, the sweet potato, another product of Southern agriculture, was not a staple of the typical American diet. Carver not only sought to promote Southern produce, but he saw the South as blessed by God in its unique agriculture as is evidenced in the conclusion of his essay, "The Undiscovered Sweet Potato":
I have mentioned only a few of the eighty or more different products made from the sweet potato, but trust enough has been said to convince the most skeptical that the sweet potato is truly an aristocrat of the vegetable kingdom with almost unlimited possibilities, and that God has bequeathed to the South a wonderful heritage in its fine climate and soils peculiarly adapted to large yields of almost every variety of this splendid vegetable. (Carver qtd. in Leithauser and Bell 273)
By the end of his life, Carver would create 118 products derived from sweet potatoes and over 300 from peanuts, changing these predominantly Southern foods into staples of the typical American household (Leithauser and Bell 270).
George Washington Carver's work with Southern agriculture would radically change the conditions of the South for the better and would lead to a new economic prosperity that would have repercussions on Southern life.
Generally, every paragraph in a research paper will have at least one internal citation. A paragraph that does not contain any citations cannot contain any information, ideas, or words taken from any source. A single citation in a paragraph indicates that everything in that paragraph from the beginning of the paragraph to the citation has been taken from the source and page (or paragraph) cited.