In this PowerPoint you'll learn which information in a research paper requires documentation; you'll also learn about citations and Works Cited entries.

1. Writing Your Research Paper

2. Part V
Documenting Your Sources
By Jean Reynolds, Ph.D.

3. Congratulations!
You’ve done your
research, made an
outline, and drafted
your research paper.

4. Now you’re ready for
the final step:
documenting your
sources.

5. This task involves showing where you found your
information.

6. Very likely your information came from books,
magazines, and online sources.
But remember that research
can also involve travel,
phone calls, and personal
interviews.
When Edward A. Berlin
researched his biography of
composer Scott Joplin, he
traveled widely and found
much new information about
Joplin.

7. Edward Berlin carefully documented all his
sources—and you should too.

8. Make sure you know which documentation
system your instructor wants you to use.
 MLA is the usual choice for papers in English courses
and the humanities
 APA is recommended for papers in the physical and
social sciences
 Some institutions prefer the Chicago Manual of Style or
Turabian.
 Ask your instructor!

9. You’ll need to locate a documentation guide.
Details (periods, commas, word order) have to be
done carefully.
 If your college or university has an official handbook, make
sure you have a copy. It will have instructions for
documenting your paper.
 Your institution’s library has handbooks and other resources.
 OWL (The Online Writing Lab) at Perdue University is a
wonderful free resource: https://owl.english.purdue.edu.
 Librarians are glad to answer questions (but don’t expect
them to do your work for you).

10. www.CitationMachine.net
The Citation Machine
online will format
Works Cited entries for
you free.
(But double-check the
results. Sometimes
mistakes creep in.)

11. The next step is to understand which information
needs to be documented—and which doesn’t.

12. You should document only information that
someone might question. For example…
But there is disagreement
about:
 the causes of the Civil War
 the way mushrooms are
classified
 Scott Joplin’s date of birth
(there’s no birth certificate)
 the proper role of the
Supreme Court
Nobody is going to argue about:
 when President Theodore
Roosevelt was born
 the names of generals during
the Civil War
 the scientific names of most
plants and animals

13. And you must always give sources for…
 quotations
 statistics
 data

14. How to Insert Sources
Reread your research
paper. Every time you
come to a fact, quotation,
or statistic that must be
documented, write an in-
text citation (shown in
blue).
A research study by Max Morath
and John Edward Hasse found
that by 1930 at least 220
women had published at least
one rag or ragtime song (White
316).

15. How to Insert Sources
If you’ve done your
research carefully, you
should already have
written down the
information you need
(author, title, page number,
etc.).
If not, you may have to do
some backtracking.

16. Let’s look at page 1 of our research paper about
ragtime. (The citations are done in MLA format.)

17. There are several historic facts in the first paragraph. How
many of them require documentation?

18. The answer is none. There’s no controversy
about most historic facts.
X In 1976 Joplin posthumously received a Pulitzer Prize.
X By the time Joplin died, ragtime was losing popularity.
X By the 1970s, Americans were rediscovering ragtime.
X Ragtime became popular again in the 1970s.
X Scholars became interested in ragtime.

19. And we won’t document the thesis. It’s the main
point of this research paper, and we’ll be
supporting it in every paragraph.
X Historians today point to the ragtime era (1895-1915) as
a turning point in American musical history. THESIS

20. But we WILL need to document other kinds of
information:
✓ Quotations
✓ Information from experts
✓ Historical facts that require verification

21. Let’s look at a quotation from the first paragraph.

22. This is a useful quotation because it indicates
how important ragtime music was.
According to music scholars William Schafer and Johannes Riedel,
“Ragtime effected a total musical revolution, the first great impact of
black folk culture on the dominant white middle-class culture of
America” (xi).

23. If we look up William Schafer in the Works Cited
List on the last page, we’ll find that he’s the co-
author of…

24. …Art of Ragtime.

25. Here’s the Works Cited entry for Schafer and
Riedel’s book:

26. If you want to look up the quotation, you’ll find it
on page xi (in the Introduction).
According to music scholars
William Schafer and
Johannes Riedel, “Ragtime
effected a total musical
revolution, the first great
impact of black folk culture
on the dominant white
middle-class culture of
America” (xi).

27. Now let’s look at other information that needs
sources.

28. Just before Joplin died, he
announced that he was working
on a symphony (Berlin 238).
No traces of a symphony
by Scott Joplin have been
found. Is the story true?

29. Yes, it’s true! Scholar Edward Berlin dug through
some old newspaper articles and found an
interview with Joplin that mentioned his
symphony.
The story is told on
page 238 of Berlin’s
book King of Ragtime.

30. Here’s the Works Cited entry for Edward Berlin’s
book.

31. The publisher is the Oxford University Press. MLA
style requires a capital “U”—you don’t spell out
“University” in a citation.

32. Let’s do one more citation. Here’s a story from
page two of the research paper.

33. This story is useful because it shows how popular ragtime
was—even the President’s daughter loved it! But is this
story true?

34. The answer is yes. H. Loring White verified the story
and included it in his book Ragging It.

35. Here are the story and the citation:
Ragtime was heard everywhere: Alice Roosevelt, daughter of
President Theodore Roosevelt, once interrupted a diplomatic
reception at the White House to ask the Marine Band to play
Joplin’s “Maple Leaf Rag” (White 216).

36. Notice that I provided the author and page
number so that readers can find the source…
Ragtime was heard everywhere: Alice Roosevelt, daughter of
President Theodore Roosevelt, once interrupted a diplomatic
reception at the White House to ask the Marine Band to play
Joplin’s “Maple Leaf Rag” (White 216).

37. …on the Works Cited page at the end of the
research paper.

38. The Works Cited page at the end of the research
paper lists complete information about each source:
 author
 title
 date of publication
 publisher
 city of publication

39. You should write down this information while you’re
reading so that you’ll have it when you need it.
 author
 title
 date of publication
 publisher
 city of publication

40. Be sure to include every source on your Works
Cited page.

41. And remember that librarians can help you with
sources.

42. Here’s another tip: Encyclopedia entries often
have recommended reading lists that are good
starting points for research.

43. If you have questions about research or
documentation, talk to your instructor or a
librarian.

44. You can read the entire ragtime paper free at
www.ragtimeresearchpaper.com.
Please take a few minutes
to look at it!
You’ll see how it’s
organized and how all the
parts work together.

45. And be sure to watch all five parts of the Writing
Your Research Paper series at
www.ResearchPaperSteps.com:
I Researching Your Topic
II Focusing Your Research Paper
III Organizing Your Paper
IV Drafting Your Research Paper
V Documenting Your Sources

46. If you’d like to sharpen your writing skills…
…go to Amazon.com
for a free preview of
What Your English
Teacher Didn’t Tell You
by Jean Reynolds, Ph.D.

47. And remember to check out the free resources at
www.WritewithJean.com.