In Your Research Paper You Must Indicate What Works You Might Have Read to Write Your Paper

Parenthetical Citations

In your research paper you must indicate what works you might have read to write your paper. You must also indicate in your paper exactly what you derived from each source and where you found the material. Incorporate a parenthetical acknowledgement in your paper wherever you use another’s words, facts, or ideas by typically using the author’s last name and a page number if available (Apple). Don’t forget, there are two spaces after a period, and “periods go within quotes.”

References in the research paper must clearly point to the specific sources in the bibliography or works cited. If authors have the same last names, then add the first initial (J. Gibaldi 239). If the work has more than one authors, list all the authors and the page numbers (Rabkin, Greenberg, Olander 239). If the work is listed in your bibliography by title, then use the title and pages in the citation (MLA Handbook 183-85). Identify the location of the borrowed information as specifically as possible. Gibaldi mentions that if you use the author’s name in the sentence, then you can omit it from the citation that follows (240).

Place a citation where a pause would naturally occur. Typically, this would be at the end of a sentence as near a possible to the material documented. Gibaldi states that “a reference directly after a quotation follows the closing quotation mark” (241).

If you cite an entire work, Gibaldi states that it is usually preferable to include the author’s name in the text rather than in a parenthetical reference.

If you quote, paraphrase, or use a specific passage in a book, give the relevant pages or section numbers (Gibaldi 242-49). Make sure you alphabetize your bibliography entries and double space if your paper is double spaced. Second or third lines of an entry are indented.

You can define and cite a word such as, fresco painting, “a painting in which the pigments are completely fused with a damp plaster” (“Fresco Painting”).

Apple, Michael. “Away with All Teachers.” Studies in Sociology 10(2000): 61-81. (jourmal)

Samuel, James L. E-mail to the author. 20 Aug. 2006. (an e-mail received by you)

“Fresco Painting.” Encyclopedia Britanica Online. 2002. Encyclopedia Britannica. 8 May 2002 < (a definition)

Gilbaldi, James. Personal interview. 22 July 2006. (an interview)

Gilbaldi, Ronald. Personal interview. 5 July 2015. (an interview)

Jakobson, Ronam, and Linda R. Waugh. The Sound Shape of Language. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1979. (book with multiple authors)

Michigan. Map. Chicago: Rand, 2000. (map or chart)

New YorkState. Commission on the Adirondacks in the Twenty-First Centruy. The AdirondackPark in the Twenty-First Century. Albany: State of New York, 1990. (government pub)

Renoir Lithographs. New York: Dover, 1994. (pamphlet)

“Snowy Owl.” Hinterland Who’s Who. 15 May 2002. Canadian Wildlife Service. 8 Aug. 2002 < (internet site)

Ziki, Semir. “Artistic Creativity and the Brain.” Science6 July 2001: 51-52.(article in magazine)

You can try the online bibliography generator at

or try