MLA Guide (adapted from Andy Spinks’ “MLA Citation Guide”)
Introduction
Research papers always contain information compiled from other sources. When you write a research paper, you must cite the sources of your information. In other words, you must (1) give proper credit to the original authors of the information, and (2) let your readers know how to find the information for themselves.
You need to cite all information unless it’s your personal information or it’s considered common knowledge.  For more details on what information does and does not need to be cited see https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/589/2/
There are many different ways to cite the sources of your information, but this guide is designed to help you learn “MLA style,” which is used in English courses and is outlined in the Modern Language Association’s MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers (http://mlahandbook.org).
My favorite online source for MLA formatting and usage questions is the Online Writing Lab (OWL) at Purdue University (https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/).
I know of two good sites that will format your works cited entries for you.  Beware, though, because you need to know MLA formatting good enough to be able to proofread the results you get from these sites:
www.easybib.com
www.citationmachine.net
The Three Main Parts to MLA Citation
1.The Information Itself (quoting and paraphrasing properly)
2.The In-Text Citation (giving the source of each bit of information)
3.The “Works Cited” Page (creating a list of the sources you used)
Part 1: The Information Itself
All research papers contain information from other sources. When you use information that has been previously published by someone else, it is important that you avoid plagiarism – presenting someone else's ideas as your own. (Plagiarism is not just cheating; it is also stealing.) There are two ways that you can include other people's ideas and words in your paper without plagiarizing: paraphrasing and quotation.
Paraphrasing
You can include someone else's ideas in your paper by putting those ideas into your own words. This is called paraphrasing, and does not require quotation marks. Here are a few things to remember when paraphrasing:
•	Always cite the source of the paraphrased information with an in-text citation and list the source on your Works Cited page.
•	Restate the information using your own words and your own sentences. Never use the same sentence structure as the original author.
•	Combine information from different sources. Try not to paraphrase more than one or two sentences in a row from the same source.
Quotation
You can also use someone else's exact words in your paper; you just have to clearly indicate that the words are a quotation (by using quotation marks) and give proper credit to the original author with an in-text citation. Direct quotations are very useful when the original author has phrased the idea in a powerful, clever, or unique way. 
If the quoted text is four lines or less, you should enclose it in quotation marks and include it in line with the rest of your paper. You do not want to have short quotations as separate sentences: incorporate quotations into your own sentences with a signal phrase and correct punctuation. Pretend the quotation marks are not there and double check the punctuation. 
 If the quoted text is more than four lines, you should put it in a separate paragraph (without quotation marks) and indent it by one inch.
Either way, you should introduce the quotation and make sure to explain how the information relates to your paper.
Example of a Short Quotations (Up to Four Lines)
Picasso's attraction to art came at an early age; in fact, he “was able to draw before he could speak, and he could speak long before he was able to walk” (Bernadac and Bouchet 19).
Long Quotations (Four Lines or More)
One critic adeptly summarized the mainstreaming of the punk genre:
For punk rock, the 1990s were a watershed and a nightmare.  The mainstream commercial success in that decade of bands like Green Day, Rancid, and Blink 182 was unprecedented for a genre that survived the Reagan-Bush era on $3 concerts, indie labels, and the relatively limited broadcast range of college radio. (Matula 19)
This commercialization was simultaneously the rise and fall of punk.
Part 2: The In-Text Citation
When you include information from other sources in your paper, you must include a citation that tells where the information came from (regardless of whether you quoted it or paraphrased it). You can just insert a shortened citation immediately after the information you have quoted or paraphrased. (Since the citations appear in the text of your paper, they are called “in-text” citations. Since they are enclosed in parentheses, they are called “parenthetical" citations.) 
The citation should direct the reader to that source's entry on the Works Cited page. The citation is the alphabetical clue to the works cited entries that are in alphabetical order on the works cited page.  So you are most often using only ONE WORD in the parentheses and a page number if you have one. The ONE WORD you use is the first word from your entry on your works cited page. If the author is not given, use the first few words of the title (in quotation marks). Here are a few examples:
Book or Signed Article
Encouraged by the government, tourism is one of the largest industries in Greece (Arnold 45-46).
Book or Signed Article (Author Mentioned in Text)***
Arnold states that tourism, encouraged by the government, is one of Greece's largest industries (45-46).
Online Source (No Page Numbers)
Hinduism and its mythology are a mixture, resulting from centuries of cross-cultural integration (Naylor).
Online Source (No Author or Page Numbers)
Available as a free download, OpenOffice is a popular open source alternative to Microsoft Office (“OpenOffice 3.0”).
***Frequently Asked Question: Should I name the author/source to introduce a quotation or do I use parentheses at the end of the sentence?
Some students have learned to introduce direct quotations by naming both the author and the source, for example: Arnold writes in the article “Come and See Greece for Today or a Lifetime” in the Journal of Global Travel  that “Greece is a very safe country for tourists” (45). This method of introducing information is acceptable if both the article title and the journal title are very important to your argument; however, most of the time, they are not, and you’ve made the reader absorb that information for nothing.  Besides, all that information is on the works cited page, and the reader can look it up. I’ve seen papers where every quotation is introduced this way, and this type of paper is very difficult to read. So, use parenthetical in-text citations at the end of the sentence for most of your quotations, or just use the author’s last name to introduce the quotation (as in the example above: “Arnold states…”).
Additional tips for formatting of parenthetical in-text citations:
•	The period goes after the parentheses only—do not put punctuation immediately before the parentheses.
•	Place the citation at the end of the sentence even if the quotation ends earlier in the sentence.
•	Leave a space between the closing quotation marks and the beginning of the parentheses.
•	If you name the source when you are either introducing a direct quotation or summarizing information, do not repeat the source name in an in-text parenthetical citation. In other words, you only need to tell us once.
•	For in-text citations where you have a page number, just put the number only, not “p. 125.”
•	If all the information in one paragraph comes from a single source, put the parenthetical citation at the end of the paragraph rather than repeating the same in-text citation several times in the paragraph.
Part 3: The Works Cited Page
See the handout prepared by the EdCC Librarians