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English Composition 2

Citing Sources and Preparing the Works Cited Page for Essay 3

This page should help you cite sources and prepare the Works Cited page for Essay 3.

Citing the Sources

Citing the Play

As the textbook authors explain (on page 776), when you cite quotations from a play that is written in verse, you should cite the act, scene, and line numbers. Sophocles' play Antigone is written in verse, but it is not divided into acts and scenes. In your essay, when you present quotations from the play, you should cite the line number or numbers, not the page numbers, like this (482) and this (356-357). You can include the author's last name with the citation of information from the play, like this (Sophocles 764), but you do not need to.

Citing Secondary Sources

When you use information from a secondary source--in the form of a quotation, a paraphrase, or a summary--you need to cite your source for the information.

If possible, you should cite the author's name and the page number where the information appears in the source.

You could cite the author's name and page number in parentheses at the end of the sentence in which you use information from the source, just before the period, or you could give the author's name within the sentence and then cite only the page number in parentheses at the end of the sentence.

Examples

• Creon sees himself as the "font of all wisdom for Thebes and its people" (Knapp 301).
• Charles Knapp says that Creon sees himself as the "font of all wisdom for Thebes and its people" (301).

The first time you give an author's name in a sentence in your paper, you should give the author's full name. You should give only the author's last name each time after the first reference to the author. When the author's name is given in parentheses, you always should use only the author's last name.

You will sometimes find that a source does not have an author given, in which case you simply cite the title of the source instead of the author's name, as in ("Sophocles' Antigone"). This citation is for a source titled "Sophocles' Antigone" that does not have an author given.

Whatever information you cite for a source in your paper must be the first information for that source as listed in the Works Cited page. 

Page Numbers
For online sources, you should cite the page numbers only if the numbers actually appear on the screen. You should not cite the page numbers that your Web browser puts on printed versions of the sources. If you do not see any page numbers as you view a source on your computer screen, then you simply do not include page numbers when you cite the source.

Please note that all, or almost all, of the sources in JSTOR include page numbers and that some of the sources in the other online subscription databases also include page numbers. You should cite the page numbers for these sources.

Some sources include section numbers or paragraph numbers. If these numbers are given on the pages, you should cite them when you use information from the sources, like this (Epstein, par. 27). The "par." is an abbreviation for "paragraph."

Preparing the Works Cited Page

Listing the Play on the Works Cited Page

You should list the play on the Works Cited page using the same format that you have used for other works of literature from the textbook in your other essays. One example of the correct format appears on page 785 of the textbook. You should use this example to help you prepare the Works Cited page, but the example is for the play as it appears in the seventh edition of the textbook. We are using the eighth edition, so you could use the example in the textbook but will need to change the edition number, the year of publication, and the page numbers.

Listing Sources from Subscription Databases on the Works Cited Page

Sources from First Search, ProQuest Direct, EBSCOHost, JSTOR, or other subscription databases should be listed on the Works Cited page following the format below. The format is explained on the course Web page Documenting Sources from Online Subscription Databases.

Basic format:

Author's last name, Author's first and middle name. "Title of the Essay." Title of the Journal Volume number.Issue number (year or date): page numbers. Name of Database. Jacobs Library, Oglesby, IL. Date you access the information, in the format 13 March 2007. <http://www.database_homepage_web_address>.

Example:

Usually, you should give the complete URL (or Web address) for the source on the Works Cited page. However, you should give only the home page URL when your source is from a subscription database.

Important: Look carefully at the format and the example above. Students sometimes present works on the Works Cited page that are not even close to the correct format or that include obvious errors in the formatting. Such errors can be avoided simply by using the information above as you prepare the Works Cited page. You could even copy the example above, paste it into your Works Cited page, and then change the information for the particular source that you use. One common error is to present the volume, issue, and page numbers in a format such as "vol. 37, issue 3, pp. 300-316." This is incorrect. The correct format, given in the example above, is 37.3 (1916): 300-316.  

While there is a lot of information to record for the sources from subscription databases, most of the sources provide you with all of the information indicated above, and the explanation and example above should make clear what information you need and how that information should be presented. 

Listing Other Sources on the Works Cited Page

The Essay Assignment 3 page includes a few sources that you can use for Essay 3 that are not found in the library's subscription databases. These sources are essays from online journals.

The basic format for an essay from an online journal:

Author's last name, Author's first and middle name. "Title of the Essay." Title of the Journal Volume number.Issue number (year or date). Date you access the information, in the format 13 March 2007. <http://www.web_address>.

Example:

The example above includes one piece of additional information that does not appear in the explanation of the basic format above. We have the year when the essay was originally published (1999), and we have the date when we accessed the source (13 March 2007), but the Web page also gives us an additional date: the date when the online version of the essay was last updated (8 April 2000), so we need to include that information.

You probably will find that some essays in online journals do not provide all of the information explained above. If this is the case, just leave off the information that you do not have.

If you have an essay in an online journal, you should have the title of the online journal, but the title of the journal sometimes is not as easy as it should be to locate. However, you often are able to find the journal title if you delete some of the URL and then use it to head back toward a home page for the journal. For example, for the Paul Epstein essay "Recovering a Comprehensive View of Greek Tragedy," if you delete the last part of the URL and follow what is left in your Web browser, you will be taken back to the home page for the online journal titled Animus: A Philosophical Journal for Our Time. A little more investigation will reveal to you the volume number and the date for the essay. Near the top of the Brian Arkins' essay "Sexuality in Fifth Century Athens," you will see the title of the online journal, Classics Ireland, and the year and volume number.

On the Works Cited page, you will need to include the URL (or Web address) for each source. It can be difficult to see the URL when the source is linked from within Blackboard. To access one of the sources on the Essay 3 page without being in Blackboard, just copy the title of the source into google or another search engine and search for it. Once you access the source, you will see the URL in the area for it near the top of your Web browser. You also can right mouse click on the link to the source within Blackboard, choose "Copy shortcut" (which will copy the URL), and then paste the URL into the address bar of your Web browser. If you just need to copy the URL into your Works Cited page, you could just choose "Copy shortcut" and then paste the URL into the Works Cited page. You can paste by right mouse clicking and choosing "Paste."     

Miscellaneous Information

• On the Works Cited page, works should be listed in alphabetical order, according to the author's last name or the title if no author is given.
• The Works Cited page should be double spaced, with no extra spacing anywhere. (In fact, it is easy to remember how an essay should be spaced: everything should be double spaced, with no extra spacing at all. So should there be more spacing between your title and the first line of your essay? No. Just read the sentence before that question!).
• The URLs should be in angle brackets.
• The URLs should not appear as links.
• The URLs should be split in two if necessary for even right margins. (Just add a space somewhere in the URL.)
• The listings on the Works Cited page use a "hanging indent" (first line of a work not indented, each line after the first indented).  
• The first letter of each important word in titles should be capitalized, regardless of how the titles are presented where the articles appear.