MLA Formating: Citing Your Sources

 Whenever you use somebody else's work or ideas in your research paper you must cite your sources by:

1. Listing the complete source citation in your works cited list.
2. Acknowledging the source in the text of your paper (in-text documentation).

Sources must be cited when you:

• Quote any words that are not your own. This means you are using word for word what someone else wrote or said.
• Summarize facts and ideas from a source. This means you take the main ideas from an article, website, or book and you shorten them using your own words.
• Paraphrase a source. This means you reword something written or spoken by someone else into your own words.

At the end of your paper, you must provide a Works Cited page that lists all the sources you cited in your paper. If you didn't cite a source in your paper, don't put it on your works cited page. 

• Works Cited should be on a new sheet of paper
• In the center of the first line, title this page "Works Cited"
• Start each source entry at the left margin and indent any other lines of that source entry by a 1/2 inch. 
• Arrange sources in alphabetical order
  • If no author is given for a source, alphabetize it by its title