WRT 150 In Class Papers

The Main and the Plain

• There needs to be a Works Cited with such heading centered and spelled correctly at the end of the essay or the top of a new page without special formatting, not in bold face, and in the same size type as the list that follows it (just like the title of the essay).• This list of works cited (nothing more) should be in alphabetical order (ignoring articles such as “the” and “a”).• Each entry should end with a period.• Each entry should begin with the author’s last name, comma, then first name; or, if unavailable, the title of the work being cited. (Ignore “The” or “A” when alphabetizing.)• The list should involve a “hanging indent” (apply Ctl-t to the paragraph).• The list should be evenly spaced throughout.

• Titles of magazine articles or chapters should be in quotes;titles of books, newspapers, journals and magazines should beitalicized (or underlined). • Inclusive page numbers typically accompany a journal ormagazine entry. • The in-text citation of one of these works on the list should referunambiguously to a specific work on the list—not to nothing on thelist and certainly to the first word in the hanging indent(not to something in the middle of the citation like a title or year). • The item cited should in fact exist as listed, and the referenceshould not contain a factual error that would prevent a readerfrom finding the work (e.g., The title of the book should be correctand the author’s name spelled correctly).

Beyond the main and the plain, things get more difficult for bothstudents and teachers. The first level of error beyond the main andthe plain does not cause me to discount the paper much if at all unlessit appears as a pattern of mistake. In a sense, these errors are likeother mechanical, content, and formatting errors in a paper. . . Oneuses some teacherly judgment about how much to discount the essayin the larger context of the student’s writing. These are errors I mightcatch but another teacher might not.• Following a list of editors and a comma, the student uses “Eds.”Instead of “eds.”• The order of the entry is wrong; i.e., a journal title appears beforethe journal article title (one of these is a “mistake” and a pattern of thiserror seems rather serious). • The publisher’s name is not abbreviated properly (e.g., we shoulduse Knopf, not Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.; or we should use Cambridge UPnot Cambridge University Press).

• The title of a website is in italic, but the title of the article in the siteis also in italic.• Inclusive page numbers fail to abbreviate the second number(112-117).• Parenthesis is omitted around the year in a journal citation. • The volume number in a scholarly journal should not be precededby “vol.”

These kinds of errors are endless and some of us make more of a pointto teach these things than others. Students should be aware that weexpect them to pay attention to this level of detail, but experts disagreeon some of these matters and citing web sources can involve lots ofjudgment calls.

Integration of Quotations

Unacceptable Carnegie Mellon researchers study climate “Scientists disagree about whether climate changewill be a serious problem in the next 50 to 100years” (“U. S. Global Change”) [fused sentence]

Good According to researchers at Carnegie MellonUniversity, “Scientists disagree about whetherclimate change will be a serious problem in thenext 50 to 100 years” (“U. S. Global Change”).

Signal Phrases

In the previous passage, the opening clause is a signal phrase.It tells the reader something about the source quotation that is to follow.In a signal phrase, the author or source organization’s name is included,as well as a verb or form of a verb that tells something about the author’sposition. Some verbs that are commonly used in signal phrases includethe following: claims, states, suggests, finds, reports, says, contends,explains, and observes. The choice of verb shows the writer’s owninterpretation of the author’s point and provides stylistic variety. Signalphrases can precede the quotation, interrupt it, or follow it, as in theexamples below:

Signal phrase precedes quotationRivers provides an insightful revelation about gender roles:

“He distrusts the implication that nurturing, even when done by a man,remains female” (Barker 107).

Signal phrase interrupts quotation“Stable introverts,” another study found, “are the highest academicperformers” (Furnham and Medhurst 197).

Signal phrase follows quotation“Extroverts prefer locations where socializing opportunities

abound,” report Campbell and Hawley (141).

Providing Interpretations or Explanations

Ideas found in the quotations must be integrated into the flow of the sentences of the text, which can be done by interpretations or explanations of the quotation and its relevance. A quotation cannot stand on its own. The author is obliged to explain why it is being used. Compare the following passages:

Unacceptable “The main reason for this disagreement is that nobody knows for sure whether climate changescaused by human actions will be large enoughand fast enough to cause serious damage” (“U. S.Global Change”).

Good Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University notethat there is no agreement among scientists as tothe seriousness of global warming. In theirresearch report, they state that “[t]he main reasonfor this disagreement is that nobody knows forsure whether climate changes caused by humanactions will be large enough or fast enough tocause serious damage” (“U. S. Global Change”).

ParaphrasingInstead of directly quoting, writers can paraphrase the information, but must be careful not to plagiarize. You can place the information in a new order or break the complex ideas into small units. It is unacceptable to copy words directly:

If you’re faced with an illness or want to exchange views about a medical topic, you'll want to find your way to a newsgroup. Despite the name, these are not news items. They are virtual bulletin boards open to anyone. The messages generally consist of ordinary text (Schwartz 28).

The author has changed two words, but it is still plagiarism. The idea of using a newsgroup needs to be expressed in the writer’s own words with an in-text citation after it. Passage taken from The New Century Handbook.

WRT 150MLA Documentation and FormatWriting Works Cited Entries

Write the Works Cited entry for the following fact patterns. Then indicate what the in-text citation would be.

1. the fact that four out of five students in college need a vehicle--“College Students Spend $200 Billion per Year,” which you found athttp://www.Harrisinteractive.com/news/allnewsbydate.asp?NewsID=480.It was put there on 29 July 2008 by Harris Interactive. You saw it on 10 Oct. 2008.

2. the idea that money saved by not having a vehicle could be put toward tuition--on page 10 of a book written by Murray Baker called The Debt-free Graduate:how to survive college without going broke. It was published two years ago by Career Press, which is located in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey.

3. the economist Alan Loomis’ statement that “College students are better off without themoney concerns that come with maintaining a car”--in an article entitled “Students and Cars” in the July 2001 issue of the journalEconomics Today, found in volume 42, issue 4 on pages 100-09.

4. the statistics tabulating the number of college students at GVSU who own cars as 10,000 or 50%of the university population, which you took from a Grand Rapids Press article entitled“Cars and Students”--a front-page feature that appeared on September 9, 2008 and was written by Susan Brown,Daimon Suarez and Tim Lockheed. It was lengthy, covering columns 1, 2, and 3.

5. the observation that time is important to college students--on page 14 of a scholarly journal article “Watching the Day” by David E. Kivan and Myron A. Marty.You discovered it in this winter’s issue of Time Management, which you downloaded fromAcademic Search Premier on October 22, 2008.

Format FeaturesType should be black 12 point Times New Roman. Margins should be kept at Microsoft Word’sdefault setting (top=1, bottom=1, sides=1.25). Indentations are one tab. The body of the paper shouldbe double-spaced. Number your pages consecutively in the upper right-hand corner.You do not need a title page. The heading should be as follows:

James ThurberWriting 150-20February 24, 2008Sister Lucia Treanor, F. S. E.

Portfolio papers should have a well-considered title with no extra line spacing between it and the firstsentence of the essay. The paper begins with a paragraph indentation. In the body of the paper,there should be one space after a period or a comma. If you use paragraph headings, there is no extraline spacing. Just <return> as usual before and after the heading.

If you have a long quotation, it should be organized as a block with a single tab on the leftmargin and an unjustified right margin. It is double-spaced like the rest of the paper. Thein-text citation goes outside of the final period like this. (Brown 4)

The Works Cited should be on a separate page. It contains only works mentioned in the paper.Center the title “Works Cited” horizontally and there is no extra line spacing. Begin with the last nameof the authors in alphabetical order. If the same author is used for another work, use three hyphensfollowed by a period, a space, the title and the rest of the information.You may include a WorksConsulted page that gives the works that informed your paper in a general way, but that you did not

cite.It should be on a separate page and follow the same format as the Works Cited page.

For up-to-the-minute MLA info, see http://www.mla.org/style/style_faq/.