How Do I Document a Source Within My Essay? (Parenthetical Documentation)

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When you cite (quote) someone, you must acknowledge the source. There are several ways to do this. First, if you mention the person's name in the body of your paper, put the page number in parentheses after the citation. Put the quotation mark after the citation and place the period after the last parentheses, not before.

1. 1. Miles Orvell explains that "Maus is committed to its function as an authentic, factual record of the Holocaust..." (118).
      

2. 
   

3. If you don't mention the author's name, then you need to place the name next to the page number.
   

1. 1. Scholars suggest that "Maus is committed to its function as an authentic, factual record of the Holocaust..." (Orvell 118).
      

2. 
   

3. If you have a long citation (four or more lines of typed text), then you will need to indent one inch on the left side only and keep the passage double spaced. Also, place the period at the end of the sentence, not on the right side of the last parentheses. And don't use any quotation marks.
   

Example:

Spiegelman readily admits his father's story is a kind of collection of experiences:

1. 1. 1. In spite of the fact that everything's so concretely portrayed box-by-box, it's not what happened. It's what my father tells me of what happened and it's based on what my father remembers and is willing to tell and, therefore, is not the same as some kind of omniscient camera that sat on his shoulders between the years 1939 and 1945. (96)
         

2. Brown points out that Spiegelman consulted...
   

Also, when you cite a source, the source needs to end up on the Works Cited page.