MLA Research Paper Documentation Why do you need to cite sources?
Most of what you write will be summaries and paraphrases of what someone else has already said or written about. Not to give credit to the original source of your ideas would be considered PLAGIARISM. Plagiarism is considered an academic crime and at most schools results in failure or
expulsion.
In text citations: When you are using information that you learned from any other source, you must give credit to that source. There are 3 ways to incorporate cited information in your text:
1. Paraphrasing - a paraphrase is taking the information and re-stating in your own
words.
2. Summarizing - is basically the same as paraphrasing but you re-state the information
in a condensed summary.
3. Direct Quotes - a direct quote is when you use the exact words from another source
and set it apart with quotations. e.g. Famous author Mark Twain says,Adam was the only man who, when he said a good thing, knew that nobody had said it before him.
Works Cited: Besides in text citations, a separate Works Cited page needs to list all sources that were paraphrased, summarized or directly quoted in your paper. Sources that you have
read or skimmed but not used in your writing should not be included.
Resources: Help with in-text citations and formatting a Works Cited page:
Check
Purdue OWL for help with Paraphrasing, summarizing and quoting
Go to your Writers, INC. pages 260-274 for correct formatting of resources for works
12
cited.
Web sites like Landmark Citation Machine
can help you generate a works cited entry by typing in information for each or your resources.
Citation Machine is a free service by David Warlicks Landmark Project funded by the Public Speaking, Professional Development and Consulting Activities of that organization.
Help with formatting your entire paper using MLA style and sample papers:
MLA Format Guidelines
Sample MLA research paper
More help with all writing concerns
The last two links are from The Guide to Grammar and Writing is sponsored by the Capital Community College Foundation, a nonprofit 501 c-3 organization that supports scholarships, faculty
development, and curriculum innovation.
Reflection
List of activities learning unit is tentative activities. The focus of activities is practices rather than theory. At the end of this semester, the students have to write and collect any kinds of poems, at least in 5 five
poems or 5 five short story in English, and must be submitted to lecturer based on a certain limit time agreed by lecturer and students.
13
Module 3
Forms of Writing
Induction
Lecturer and student can try to browse many writing materials in the internet. There is an excellent writing materials in
http:greatsource.com . Student can open the materials and try to study and practice writing
individually or with their classmate.
The Writing Process
Start Here X
14
The Writing Process
15
Writing is a process that involves at least four distinct steps: prewriting, drafting, revising, and editing. It is known as a recursive process. While you are revising, you might have to return to the prewriting step to develop and expand your ideas.
Prewriting
1. Prewriting is anything you do before you write a draft of your document. It includes thinking, taking notes, talking to others, brainstorming, outlining, and gathering information e.g., interviewing people, researching in the library, assessing data.
2. Although prewriting is the first activity you engage in, generating ideas is an activity that occurs throughout the writing process.
Drafting
1. Drafting occurs when you put your ideas into sentences and paragraphs. Here you concentrate upon explaining and supporting your ideas fully. Here you also begin to connect your ideas. Regardless of how much thinking and planning you do, the process of putting
your ideas in words changes them; often the very words you select evoke additional ideas or implications.
2. Dont pay attention to such things as spelling at this stage.
3. This draft tends to be writer-centered: it is you telling yourself what you know and think about the topic.
Revising
1. Revision is the key to effective documents. Here you think more deeply about your readers needs and expectations. The document
becomes reader-centered. How much support will each idea need to convince your readers? Which terms should be defined for these particular readers? Is your organization effective? Do readers need to know X before they can understand Y?
16
2. At this stage you also refine your prose, making each sentence as concise and accurate as possible. Make connections between ideas explicit and clear.
Editing
1. Check for such things as grammar, mechanics, and spelling. The last thing you should do before printing your document is to spell check it.
2. Dont edit your writing until the other steps in the writing process are complete. http:web.mit.eduwritingWriting_Processwritingprocess.html
Forms of Writing
“Teaching writing can be tricky. Students sometimes have trouble getting started, cant organize their ideas, or pay too much or too little attention to conventions to create an interesting piece of writing. Here are some
resources and lessons that will help you to guide student writers through the process of writing in a variety of forms
http:www.greatsource.com .
Forms of writing can be classified in a table bellow:
Forms of Writing Lessons
Narrative Writing Biographical Narrative
Fictional Narrative
17
Personal Narrative
Expository Writing Compare-contrast Essay
How-to Essay Informative Essay
Persuasive Writing Opinion Essay
Problem-solution Essay Pro-con Essay
Response to Literature Character Sketch
Plot Summary Theme Analysis
Research Writing Research Report
Reflection
The students can simply click every lesson to practice how to write based on forms of writing.
18
Module 4 What is Essay Writing
Induction
In this module, we are going to understand what the meaning of essay writing is. This module also tries to explain the two types of essays, both of real essays and non-real
Biographical Narrative
A biographical narrative shares an important experience from someone elses life. This section includes step- by-step directions to help guide students as they create a biographical narrative.
This sample biographical narrative will help students understand the form. You can print out these pages to share them with your students or direct them to the Biographical Narrative
section on the student site.
The word essay derives from the French infinitive essayer, to try or to attempt. In English essay first meant a trial or an attempt, and this is still an alternative meaning.
An essay is usually a short piece of writing
. It is often written from an authors personal point of view
. Essays can be literary criticism
, political
manifestos , learned
arguments , observations of daily life, recollections, and reflections of the author.
The definition of an essay is vague, overlapping with those of an article
and a short story
. Almost all modern essays are written in prose
, but works in
verse have been dubbed essays e.g.
Alexander Pope s An Essay on Criticism and An Essay on Man. While brevity usually defines
an essay, voluminous works like John Locke
s An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
and Thomas Malthus
s An Essay on the Principle
of Population provide counterexamples
19
1. Prewriting