Writing Your Research Paper

Part VDocumenting Your Sources

By Jean Reynolds, Ph.D.

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

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

This task involves showing where you found your information.

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.

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

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 humanitiesAPA is recommended for papers in the physical

and social sciencesSome institutions prefer the Chicago Manual of

Style or Turabian.Ask your instructor!

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).

www.CitationMachine.net

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

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

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

And you must always give sources for…quotationsstatisticsdata

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).

How to Insert SourcesIf 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.

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

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

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.

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

But we WILL need to document other kinds of information:

✓ Quotations✓ Information from experts ✓ Historical facts that require verification

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

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).

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…

…Art of Ragtime.

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

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).

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

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?

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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).

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).

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

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

You should write down this information while you’re reading so that you’ll have it when you need it.

authortitledate of publicationpublishercity of publication

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

And remember that librarians can help you with sources.

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

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

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.

And be sure to watch all five parts of the Writing Your Research Paper series at www.ResearchPaperSteps.com:

I Researching Your TopicII Focusing Your Research Paper

III Organizing Your PaperIV Drafting Your Research Paper

V Documenting Your Sources

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.

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