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Where to Find Sources | Citing Sources Overview | Verb List and Sample Sentences | 

Let's start with two definitions

Primary Source: The actual literary text you are writing about.  In an essay on Keats' “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” the primary source would be “Ode on a Grecian Urn.”  In an essay on Hamlet, the primary source would be Hamlet.

Secondary Source: In literature, this refers to letters, notes, or journals from the author, essays or books by critics, historical documents, etc., which are used when writing a research paper to support your ideas. The primary source would be the work itself.

Broadly, you have two choices for secondary sources: literary criticism (professor's interpretations of the work -- much like your own work) or non-literary sources which are connected to your topic -- the work itself. For example, if writing about "Shiloh," you could research the role of communication in relationships which never even mentions "Shiloh," but find information that helps prove your point and works well in your essay.

Instructions on citing sources are in your textbooks, on the Citing Sources link, and below.

Where to Find Sources
General online sources from the open web are generally not scholarly and should not be used. Instead, try the Literature Resource Center and Literary Reference Center (in that order) from the Library Links to the left.

Two fine online databases from our library for historical information are Facts on File and the Oxford Reference Collection.

Textbooks are an often overlooked but very good source.

For some topics, you may not even use a "literary" secondary source. For instance, if writing about "Shiloh," an appropriate source may address communication or some other aspect of relationships. Likewise, a secondary source for "Cathedral" may address the role of physical contact in human behavior.

So . . . to recap resources for secondary sources:

1. Literature Resource Center (OCC library database)
2. Literary Reference Center (OCC library database)
3. Facts on File (OCC library database)
4. Oxford Reference Collection (OCC library database)
5. Textbooks (particularly psychology, sociology, anthropology and history)
6. EBSCOHost or other database on a non-literary topic (OCC library database)
7. Other print sources associated with your topics

Sources to not use unless you want an automatic D, the open internet (i.e. Wikipedia,

Citing Sources Overview

Citing Sources Quiz (PDF)

"When do I cite a source?"
Whenever you include a word, phrase, or idea from a source, it needs to be cited. That source can include a web page, classroom lecture, an interview with your Uncle Pete, quote or summary from a book, magazine, etc. And note that I wrote "a" word -- singular. Even a single word from someone else, when included in your own essay, needs to be set off with quotation marks and then cited.

"How do I cite using MLA?"
The number two is important to remember when using MLA citation because it consists of two parts: an in-text citation (which includes the author and page number) and works cited entry, as shown in the examples below:

1) Sample In-Text Citation (the part that goes in your essay)

Note that the author's name and page number is enclosed in parenthesis (no p. or page is needed) and that the period goes to the right. If this was an HTML based source, no page number would be cited.

2) Sample Works Cited Entry (the part that goes on a separate page at the end) for In-text Citation above

Together, these two parts let the reader know who wrote your article, where they can find it, and approximately how long the article is.

This two part citation method works like a code. In general, the reader looks for the author's name and page number in the in-text citation, and then goes to the works cited entry for additional information. Your job is to supply the correct parts of the code in the correct order. You have to be sure that the name/word you include in your in-text citation will match the first word of one of your works cited entries. Thus, the word "McFarland" in the in-text example above matches the word "McFarland" in the sample works cited entry. Get it? Readers would know that the information before the citation is from a writer named "McFarland." If they wanted to check your source, they would turn to the Works Cited page and scan the first word of the alphabetically arranged list of Works Cited entries until the word "McFarland" appeared. 

List of Verbs and Example Sentences

See the Citing Sources link on the course site for detailed instructions on citing sources for held by OCC library.

Below you'll find a list of verbs which are often used to incorporate quotes into sentences and a list of sentences including sources.

Use both as tools to help you work quotes into your own prose.

These verbs can also come in handy when providing context and for shifting into arguments.

What follows are a series of sentences which successfully incorporate an outside source. Review these to get a sense of the rhythm and cadence involved in setting up a quote and how the verb list above can help "launch" a quote. These sentences conclude with a works cited page which would be needed if these quotes were included in a single essay.

From the beginning of the text, Bradford sets the Puritans apart from others. He writes that "many became enlightened by the Word of God and had their ignorance and sins discovered" (157). Separating the "enlightened" from what seems to be the unenlightened makes a clear "us v. them" distinction.

The power of O'Connor's "The Revelation" is derived from its moral tenacity. As the writer Joyce Carol Oates observes, the story "questions the very foundations of our assumptions of the ethical life" (52). Since Mrs. Turpin's "foundation" was based upon a shallow and limited view of religion, she was ripe for a fall.

Although some critics argue that surrealism began in 1924 after the publication of the Surrealist Manifesto by Andre Breton (Kershner 52), Kafka's work, published a decade earlier, shares many qualities of surrealist art, and should be considered a precursor to the later movement.

The critics David Boxer and Cassandra Phillips also note Carver's seeming lack of style. They write that "what seems to be casual talk, virtually empty of communication, is really very deliberately and finely wrought" (99). This emphasis on the craft of his fiction -- it is "deliberately and finely wrought" -- underscores the nature of Carver's oxymoronic talent: he made conversation seem so natural that it seems to merely record what is being said.

As Dickens wrote in an essay published in the same decade as Hard Times, "It is probable that nothing will ever root out from among the common people an innate love they have for dramatic entertainment in some form or other" (305-306). That Lousia and Tom, members of the upper-class, would also find amusement in the circus shows that the differences between classes -- between people -- is not as well defined as we would think.

F. R. Leavis argues that the circus performers are symbols of "human spontaneity" (344). As such, they operate according to emotions rather than from the slow and measured intellect of Gradgrind.

Mitchell Domhnal notes that "some critics allege that to read Dickinson in any standard typographic edition is effectively to read her in translation." This suggests that the usual method of reading a poem in a textbook isn't the best way to read Dickinson.

Leypoldt Gunter argues that there are "two types of Carver stor[ies]," with one being realistic and the other more experimental (320).

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Instructions on how to set up these entries are found on the Citing Sources link (on the left).

Works Cited

Boxer, David and Cassandra Phillips. From "'Will You Please

Be Quiet, Please?': Voyeurism, Dissociation, and the Art of

Raymond Carver." Iowa Review. 10 (1979): 75-90. Rprt. In

"Raymond Carver." Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed.

Sharon R. Gunton and Jean C. Stue. Vol. 22. Detroit : Gale

Research, 1982. 98-101. Print.

Bradford, William. From Of Plymouth Plantation. The Norton

Anthology of American Literature. Vol. A. Eds. Nina

Baym, et al . New York : Norton, 2003. 157-196. Print.

Dickens, Charles. "The Amusements of the People." From

Household Words 30 March 1850.  Rprt. in Hard Times. Ed.

George Ford and Sylvere Monod.  New York: Norton, 1990.

305-307. Print.

Kershener, R. B. The Twentieth-Century Novel: An Introduction.

New York: Bedford Books, 1997. Print.

Leavis, F. R. "Hard Times: An Analytic Novel." From

The Great Tradition. London: Chatto and Windus, 1948. 227-

48. Rprt. in Hard Times. Ed. George Ford and Sylvere Monod.

New York :Norton, 1990. 340-360. Print.

Mitchell, Domhnall. "The Grammar of Ornament: Emily

Dickinson's Manuscripts and Their Meanings." Nineteenth-

Century Literature 55:2 (2001): 179-204.

Academic Search Premier. Web. 23 August 2001.

Oates, Joyce Carol. "The Visionary Art of Flannery

O'Connor." Flannery O'Connor. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York:

Chelsea House Publishers, 1986. 43-53. Print.

© David Bordelon 2015