For Phyllis Young ONLY

This week, we will be working on another aspect of researched writing: using documentation.  In English classes, we use the system known as MLA (Modern Language Association).  (If you take a psychology class, they will use APA; please be aware of the differences between them.)  In addition to our main textbook, a handbook is useful for this course.  (The recommended one is Hacker's Rules for Writers.) Another good source of information on MLA documentation is the Purdue OWL  website. 

For this week's exercises, read the sections in a handbook or in the Purdue OWL site about MLA documentation.  You need to know how to do two things: (1) Cite your sources in the text.  These are called in-text citations and generally consist of the author's last name and a page number, with no comma between them.  There are variations to this is no author or page is listed, so be sure to be aware of them.  (2)  Cite your sources in a Works Cited page at the end of the paper.  These must be correctly formatted using MLA documentation format.  Part of your grade in this paper depends on doing both of these things correctly.  If sources are not documented correctly in a paper, the result may be plagiarism, so please be very careful about this, as plagiarism could earn your paper a zero.  If you have any questions about how to do these things, please visit the Writing Center for help.

This week, once again, you will need to create a thread to respond. Please respond to both of these prompts in the same message.

Discussion Topic #1

For this response, find a source that you are definitely going to use in your paper.  Create a corrected MLA-style works cited entry for one of your sources.  Beneath it, summarize the article or chapter you are referencing (that is, create a condensed version of it in your own words).  A summary is a shortened version of the entire source.  We are going to practice summarizing because summarizing (not paraphrasing) is what you want to do in research papers.

Please note that for web sources, the URL is not used in an MLA-style entry.  However, for this exercise, please paste in the URL so we can find your source more easily.

Discussion Topic #2

Write the introduction and the first body paragraph of your paper, using sources in both. Cite sources correctly in your paper in in-text citations. Paste both paragraphs into the text box.

Once again this week, we will be going back and forth to correct these responses.