SECTION C.

RESEARCH
STRATEGIES & TEMPLATES

MLA Source Cards & Note Cards

TABLE OF CONTENTS
# MLA

SOURCE CARDS

# MLA

SOURCE CARD NOTECARD LINK

# Original

Text - MLA NOTE CARDS

SUMMARY LINK
# MLA

IN-TEXT CITATIONS

# MLA

FORMATTED SAMPLE PAPER #1

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from Research and Documentation in the Electronic Age, Fourth Edition, by

Diana Hacker. (Online) Research and Documentation Online.

< http://www.dianahacker.com/resdoc/>
with Annotations
with incorporated Media Source Illustration

MLA FORMATTED SAMPLE PAPER #2

21

from Research and Documentation in the Electronic Age, Fourth Edition, by

Diana Hacker. (Online) Research and Documentation Online.

< http://www.dianahacker.com/resdoc/>
with Annotations
with incorporated Media Source Graph

Samples enclosed on following pages:

2

MLA SOURCE CARDS

We begin the research process by gathering more sources than we may actually use for the final
paper. Therefore, if the assignment calls for using at least 6 multi-media sources, an initial
collection of sources noted on MLA formatted source cards may look like this:
Book

Excerpt from a Novel in an Anthology

3

1
Suskind, Ron. A Hope in the Unseen. New
York: Broadway Books, 1999.

Wright, Richard. from Black Boy. Elements of

Literature. Fifth Course. Austin: Holt,
Rinehart and Winston, 2003.
1015-24.

Continued

MLA SOURCE CARDS

Book

Short Story in an Anthology

4

2
Cofer, Judith Ortiz. American History.
Elements of Literature. Third Course.
Austin: Holt, Rinehart and Winston,
2003. 292-9.

Du Bois, W. E. B. The Souls of Black Folk.

New York: Pocket Books, 2005.

Article in a Magazine or Journal

(Online)

Website
5

Davis, Colin J. Shape or Fight. International

Labor and Working-Class History 62
(2002): 143-63. Jan. 2007
http://journals.cambridge. org
/action/online>.

African American Writers: A Celebration.

2000. Middle Tennessee State University.
15 Jan. 2007
http://www.mtsu.edu/~vvesper/afam.html>.

Continued
4

MLA SOURCE CARDS

Article in a Magazine or Journal

(Print)

Video/DVD
6

Rosenthal, Debra. Hoods and the Woods: Rap

Music as Environmental Literature.
Journal of Popular Culture 25 Nov.
2006: 661-76.

W. E. B. Du Bois: A Biography in Four Voices.

Dir. Louis Massiah. Narr. Wesley
Brown, et al. 1995. Videocassette.
California Newsreel, 1996.

Online Database

Poem
10

7
Williams, Armstrong. The Morality of Race
in America. Crisis Magazine 34.2
(2006): 14-18. SIRS Researcher. SIRS
Knowledge Source. John F. Kennedy

Hughes, Langston. The Weary Blues. The

Collected Works of Langston Hughes.
Columbia: University of Missouri
Press, 2001. 76.

Library <http://www.sirs.com>

LINK: SOURCE CARD  NOTE CARDS

Note Card # Corresponds to Source Card #

------------------------------------------------NOTE CARD
Key Words

SOURCE CARD

Summary Fragment Notes

Quotation

Wright, Richard. Black Boy. Elements

of Literature. Austin: Holt,
Reinhart and Winston, 2003.
1015-24.

3
Effects of Poverty at First

{
{

Always felt hungry

Had to beg for food
Got bread

hunger had always been. . .at my

elbow. . .hunger I had known before
this had been no grim, hostile
stranger. . .
1016

NOTE CARD
3
Effects of Poverty Later

KEY:
Note Card Linked to Source Card
Note Card #
Key Words
Summary Fragment
Notes
Quotation
Page #

Summary Fragment Notes

Quotation

{
{

Now hunger got worse

No food at all
Made him scared and angry

began to wake up at night to

find hunger standing at my
bedside. . .
1016
6

LINK: ORIGINAL TEXT  NOTECARDS  SUMMARY with In-Text Citation

ORIGINAL PASSAGE
Hunger stole upon me so slowly
that at first I was not aware of
what hunger really meant.
Hunger had always been more or
less at my elbow when I played,
but now I began to wake up at
night to find hunger standing at
my bedside, staring at me
gauntly. The hunger I had known
before this had been no grim,
hostile stranger; it had been a
normal hunger that had made
me beg constantly for bread, and
when I ate a crust or two I was
satisfied. But this new hunger
baffled me, scared me, and
made me angry and insistent.
Whenever I begged for food now
my mother would pour me a cup
of tea which would still the
clamor in my stomach for a
moment or two, but a little later
I would feel hunger nudging my
ribs, twisting my empty guts
until they ached. I would grow
dizzy and my vision would dim. I
had to pause and think of what
was happening to me.
Wright, Richard. Black Boy. Elements of
Literature. Austin: Holt, Reinhart and
Winston, 2003. 1015.-24.

SUMMARY linked to
information from Note Cards

NOTE CARDS linked to

information in original passage
Effects of Poverty First

Always felt hungry

Had to beg for food
Got bread

Hunger had always been.

At my elbow.had been no grim,
hostile stranger
1016

According to Richard Wright, having to

live in poverty caused him to
experience two kinds of hunger. As
Wright explains, the first kind of
hunger, though no grim, hostile
stranger (1016), would be satisfied
after he would beg for food and be
given a piece of bread. However, when
the poverty worsened and Wright
literally did not know where his next
meal would come from, he began to
wake up a night to find hunger
standing at [his] bedside. . . (1016).
NOTE & TEACH

Effects of Poverty Later

Now hunger got worse

No food at all
Made him scared and hungry

began to wake up at night to find

hunger standing at my bedside

1016

1. Use of signal phrases that name the

author
2. Smooth integration of quote into the
context of own writing
3. Use of the ellipsis to omit
unnecessary parts of the original text
4. Use of brackets to add or replace
wording found in the original text
5. Use of in-text citation (mention of
author) and parenthetical
documentation (page # in parenthesis)
7

MLA IN-TEXT CITATIONS

Following Pages

Source:
from Research and Documentation in the Electronic Age, Fourth Edition, by Diana Hacker.
(Online) Research and Documentation Online. < http://www.dianahacker.com/resdoc/>

MLA IN-TEXT CITATIONS

MLA in-text citations are made with a combination of signal phrases and parenthetical
references. A signal phrase indicates that something taken from a source (a quotation, summary,
paraphrase, or fact) is about to be used; usually the signal phrase includes the authors name. The
parenthetical reference, which comes after the cited material, normally includes at least a page
number.
IN-TEXT CITATION
One driver, Peter Cohen, says that after he was rear-ended, the
guilty party emerged from his vehicle still talking on the phone
(127).

AUTHOR NAMED IN A SIGNAL PHRASE

Ordinarily, introduce the material being cited with a signal phrase that includes the authors
name. In addition to preparing readers for the source, the signal phrase allows you to keep the
parenthetical citation brief.
Christine Haughney reports that shortly after Japan made
it illegal to use a handheld phone while driving,
accidents caused by using the phones dropped by 75
percent (A8).
The signal phrase Christine Haughney reports that names the author; the parenthetical
citation gives the page number where the quoted words may be found.
Notice that the period follows the parenthetical citation. When a quotation ends with a question
mark or an exclamation point, leave the end punctuation inside the quotation mark and add a
period after the parentheses: . . . ? (8).

AUTHOR NAMED IN PARENTHESES

If a signal phrase does not name the author, put the authors last name in parentheses along with
the page number.
Most states do not keep adequate records on the number of
times cell phones are a factor in accidents; as of December
2000, only ten states were trying to keep such records
(Sundeen 2).
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Use no punctuation between the name and the page number.

AUTHOR UNKNOWN
Either use the complete title in a signal phrase or use a short form of the title in parentheses.
Titles of books are underlined; titles of articles are put in quotation marks.
As of 2001, at least three hundred towns and municipalities
had considered legislation regulating use of cell phones
while driving (Lawmakers 2).
TIP: Before assuming that a Web source has no author, do some detective work. Often the
authors name is available but is not easy to find. For example, it may appear at the end of the
source, in tiny print. Or it may appear on another page of the site, such as the home page.
NOTE: If a source has no author and is sponsored by a corporate entity, such as an organization
or a government agency, name the corporate entity as the author.

INDIRECT SOURCE (SOURCE QUOTED IN ANOTHER SOURCE)

When a writers or a speakers quoted words appear in a source written by someone else, begin
the parenthetical citation with the abbreviation qtd. In.
According to Richard Retting, As the comforts of home and
the efficiency of the office creep into the automobile, it is
becoming increasingly attractive as a work space (qtd. In
Kilgannon A23).
WORK IN AN ANTHOLOGY
Put the name of the author of the work (not the editor of the anthology) in the signal phrase or
the parentheses.
In A Jury of Her Peers, Mrs. Hale describes both a style of
quilting and a murder weapon when she utters the last words
of the story: We call itknot it, Mr. Henderson (Glaspell
210).
In the list of works cited, the work is alphabetized under Glaspell, not under the name of the
editor of the anthology:
Glaspell, Susan. A Jury of Her Peers. Literature and Its Writers: A Compact Introduction to
Fiction. Poetry and Drama. Ed. Ann Charters and Samuel Charters. 3rd ed. Boston:
Bedford, 194-210.
10

VERSE PLAYS AND POEMS

For verse plays, MLA recommends giving act, scene, and line numbers that can be located in any
edition of the work. Use Arabic numerals, and separate the numbers with periods.
In Shakespeares King Lear, Gloucester, blinded for
suspected
treason, learns a profound lesson from his tragic experience:
A
man may see how this world goes / with no eyes (4.2.14849).
For a poem, cite the part (if there are a number of parts) and the line numbers, separated by a
period.
When Homers Odysseus comes to the hall of Circe, he finds
his men mild / in her soft spell, fed on her drug of evil
(10.209-10).
For poems that are not divided into parts, use line numbers. For a first reference, use the word
lines: (lines 5-8). Thereafter use just the numbers: (12-13).

NOVELS WITH NUMBERED DIVISIONS

When a novel has numbered divisions, put the page number first, followed by a semicolon, and
then indicate the book, part, or chapter in which the passage may be found. Use abbreviations
such as bk. And ch.
One of Kingsolvers narrators, teenager Rachel, pushes her
vocabulary beyond its limits. For example, Rachel complains
that being forced to live in the Congo with her missionary
family is a sheer tapestry of justice because her chances of
finding a boyfriend are dull and void (117; bk. 2, ch. 10).

Source: < http://www.dianahacker.com/resdoc/>

11

MLA SAMPLE PAPERS

Following Pages

Sources:
from
Research and Documentation in the Electronic Age, Fourth Edition, by Diana Hacker.
Available Research and Documentation Online.
http://dianahacker.com/pdfs/Hacker-Daly-MLA.pdf
and
from
Rules for Writers, Fourth Edition, by Diana Hacker.
Available <http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/hacker/pdf/mla.pdf>

12

SECTION C
SAMPLE PAPERS

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Source:

http://dianahacker.com/pdfs/Hacker-Daly-MLA.pdf
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Source:

http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/hacker/pdf/mla.pdf

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