In-textCitations
The CQC Method
Now let's take a look at how to cite your sources within the body of an essay. A great way to start is to use the Claim-Quote-Comment method, or CQC for short. Basically, when you use the CQC method, you make a claim, back it up with a quote from your source, and then comment on or explain the quote for your reader.
Here's an example from a sample paragraph:
Abraham Lincoln was vehemently opposed to slavery. Lincoln proved this when he said that “those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves and under a just God cannot long retain it” (Marrin, 39). By saying this, Lincoln showed that he was aware of the hypocrisy of slave owners who would not want to be slaves themselves.
For more tips and examples, check out the PDF file below.
Here's an example from a sample paragraph:
Abraham Lincoln was vehemently opposed to slavery. Lincoln proved this when he said that “those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves and under a just God cannot long retain it” (Marrin, 39). By saying this, Lincoln showed that he was aware of the hypocrisy of slave owners who would not want to be slaves themselves.
- The section marked in blue is our claim. It's the topic sentence and what we're trying to prove in this paragraph.
- The section underlined is our quote. This is information directly taken from one of our sources.
- The section that is in bold is our comment. Here, we tell the reader what the quote means and explain how it relates to the main idea of our paragraph.
For more tips and examples, check out the PDF file below.
cqc_instructions_writing.pdf | |
File Size: | 85 kb |
File Type: |
Citing Sources Within a Paragraph
Anytime you use information from a source that is not common knowledge, you have to cite it! Since we use MLA format, in-text citation uses the following formula:
(Author's Last Name, Year of Publication Date).
As a result, if we were citing a source by Jane Doe written in 2008, it would look like the following: (Doe, 2008). This is called a "citation."
(Author's Last Name, Year of Publication Date).
As a result, if we were citing a source by Jane Doe written in 2008, it would look like the following: (Doe, 2008). This is called a "citation."
Here's another example, taken from an article written by a woman named Helen Nnama in 2010:
An overconsumption of alcohol can also have a severe effect on the liver. Specifically, individuals can suffer from a fatty liver, alcohol hepatitis, and cirrhosis of the liver. The reason the liver is so susceptible to alcohol poising is quite simple, for the liver “metabolizes 90 percent of the alcohol, while a person excretes 10 percent through the urine” (Nnama, 2010). Since metabolism changes the functions of any organ, it becomes clear that the 90% of any alcohol drunk begins to affect and even alter the properties of the liver, a staggering statistic by any means.
As you can see, I inserted the author's name at the end of the sentence that contains her information. Because it's a direct quote, the citation goes after the quotation mark and before the period. On a side note, did you catch how I also used the CQC method?
If we're not using a direct quote but we still paraphrased information from a source, I still need an in-text citation! Here's how that might look:
An overconsumption of alcohol can also have a severe effect on the liver. Specifically, individuals can suffer from a fatty liver, alcohol hepatitis, and cirrhosis of the liver. The reason the liver is so susceptible to alcohol poising is quite simple, for the liver retains 90% of the properties of alcohol (Nnama, 2010). Since metabolism changes the functions of any organ, it becomes clear that the 90% of any alcohol drunk begins to affect and even alter the properties of the liver, a staggering statistic by any means.
Here, I paraphrased what the author said, but since it is not common knowledge, it MUST be cited. In addition, remember that the period at the end still follows the citation.
An overconsumption of alcohol can also have a severe effect on the liver. Specifically, individuals can suffer from a fatty liver, alcohol hepatitis, and cirrhosis of the liver. The reason the liver is so susceptible to alcohol poising is quite simple, for the liver “metabolizes 90 percent of the alcohol, while a person excretes 10 percent through the urine” (Nnama, 2010). Since metabolism changes the functions of any organ, it becomes clear that the 90% of any alcohol drunk begins to affect and even alter the properties of the liver, a staggering statistic by any means.
As you can see, I inserted the author's name at the end of the sentence that contains her information. Because it's a direct quote, the citation goes after the quotation mark and before the period. On a side note, did you catch how I also used the CQC method?
If we're not using a direct quote but we still paraphrased information from a source, I still need an in-text citation! Here's how that might look:
An overconsumption of alcohol can also have a severe effect on the liver. Specifically, individuals can suffer from a fatty liver, alcohol hepatitis, and cirrhosis of the liver. The reason the liver is so susceptible to alcohol poising is quite simple, for the liver retains 90% of the properties of alcohol (Nnama, 2010). Since metabolism changes the functions of any organ, it becomes clear that the 90% of any alcohol drunk begins to affect and even alter the properties of the liver, a staggering statistic by any means.
Here, I paraphrased what the author said, but since it is not common knowledge, it MUST be cited. In addition, remember that the period at the end still follows the citation.
What About the Internet?
Although the best research papers do not rely heavily on internet sources, there is certainly a growing number of legitimate websites that provide helpful information for budding scholars. Once again, I defer to the helpful English connoisseurs over at Purdue Owl to help guide us in this area. Here are their tips (emphasis mine):
"Sometimes writers are confused with how to craft parenthetical citations for electronic sources because of the absence of page numbers, but often, these sorts of entries do not require any sort of parenthetical citation at all. For electronic and Internet sources, follow the following guidelines:
"Sometimes writers are confused with how to craft parenthetical citations for electronic sources because of the absence of page numbers, but often, these sorts of entries do not require any sort of parenthetical citation at all. For electronic and Internet sources, follow the following guidelines:
- Include in the text the first item that appears in the Work Cited entry that corresponds to the citation (e.g. author name, article name, website name, film name).
- You do not need to give paragraph numbers or page numbers based on your Web browser’s print preview function.
- Unless you must list the Web site name in the signal phrase in order to get the reader to the appropriate entry, do not include URLs in-text. Only provide partial URLs such as when the name of the site includes, for example, a domain name, like CNN.com or Forbes.com as opposed to writing out http://www.cnn.com or http://www.forbes.com."