ENG110 has successfully taught me how to properly cite my sources, in any text really, but specifically MLA. I know I need to cite my source if I have included a quote or have paraphrased the text in my own words. I know to put the author’s last name and page number -if any- from the text in parenthesis at the end of the sentence with a period after the end parenthetical. If there isn’t an author stated, use the first word of the title. If I have used two quotes or paraphrases from the same source, I don’t need to state the author’s name again, just the page number, unless I have switched between that source and another source, then I must restate the author’s last name. Before ENG110, I didn’t even know that I had to cite sources in MLA format. But, now I can cite all my sources successfully and correctly. I have also learned how to properly create a works cited page, at the end of my essay, by myself instead of using a website online to do it for me. The Little Seagull is the textbook which helps me do so. It has everything anyone may need when it comes to writing formats, citing, different writing techniques, etc.

Examples:

In the text, it reads, “First, an American look Laotian as much as an American looks Irish or Rwandan or wears a turban or won’t eat Kansan hog for religious reasons or is quadriplegic” (Paterniti 5.)

“Do you know what it’s like to believe so deeply in something, in a race of people that most often hates you, in a country that is your country now and yet pulls up in your parking lot and flips you the bird? Maybe the difference between you and Donna is that she hates and understands that she is hated back. But more than that: She believes, too” (7.)

David writes, “But most days, if you’re aware enough to give yourself a choice, you can choose to look differently at this fat, dead-eyed, over-made-up lady who just screamed at her kid in the checkout line. Maybe she’s not usually like this. Maybe she’s been up three straight nights holding the hand of a husband who is dying of bone cancer… Of course, none of this is likely, but it’s also not impossible.” (DFW 7.)

He uses a scenario at a supermarket: where after a long day at work you need to go to the supermarket to pick up some things for dinner, but nothing is going right for you, all the lines are so long, the traffic is so bad, all these people around you are so annoying, they’re obnoxious and rude, and you think everybody is just in your way and you are frustrated that they won’t just get out of your way (4, 5, 6.)