Citing - MLA
The purpose of this page is to equip you with what you need to know in order to do college-level research. This includes tutorials, worksheets, and more to assist you in the process of research.
Examples include:
The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr
Celebrated Stanford University historian Clayborne Carson is the director and editor of the Martin Luther King Papers Project; with thousands of King's essays, notes, letters, speeches, and sermons at his disposal, Carson has organized King's writings into a posthumous autobiography. In an early student essay, King prophetically penned: "We cannot have an enlightened democracy with one great group living in ignorance.... We cannot have a nation orderly and sound with one group so ground down and thwarted that it is almost forced into unsocial attitudes and crime." Such statements, made throughout King's career, are skillfully woven together into a coherent narrative of the quest for social justice. The autobiography delves, for example, into the philosophical training King received at Morehouse College, Crozer Theological Seminary, and Boston University, where he consolidated the teachings of Afro-American theologian Benjamin Mays with the philosophies of Locke, Rousseau, Gandhi, and Thoreau. Through King's voice, the reader intimately shares in his trials and triumphs, including the Montgomery Boycott, the 1963 "I Have a Dream Speech," the Selma March, and the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize. In one of his last speeches, King reminded his audience that "in the final analysis, God does not judge us by the separate incidents or the separate mistakes that we make, but by the total bent of our lives." Carson's skillful editing has created an original argument in King's favor that draws directly from the source, illuminating the circumstances of King's life without deifying his person. --Eugene Holley Jr.
Examples include:
Let the Trumpet Sound by
An affectionate look at the life and accomplishments of the civil rights leader who was killed in 1968.
Eyes on the prize. Vol. 2, Ain't scared of your jails (1960-1961) by
Ain't scared of your jails (1960-1961) : Covers lunch counter sit-ins and their impact on the Kennedy and Nixon presidential race of 1960, the formation of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, and the freedom rides of 1961.
Examples include:
Understanding a Raisin in the Sun by
A Raisin in the Sun is the first play by a black woman to be produced in a Broadway theater. First performed in 1959, before the civil rights and women's movements came to the fore, it raises issues of segregation, family strife, and relationships between men and women that are both representative of the time and timeless in their universality. This interdisciplinary collection of commentary and forty-five primary documents will enrich the reader's understanding of the historical and social context of the play. A wide variety of primary materials sheds light on integration and segregation in the 1950s and 1960s; relationships between African Americans and Africans; relationships between men and women within African American culture; Chicago as a literary setting for the play; and contemporary race relations in the 1990s. Documents include first-person accounts, magazine articles and editorials espousing opposing arguments, excerpts from the works of Toni Morrison, W.E.B. DuBois, Marcus Garvey, bell hooks, Malcolm X, and Richard Wright, and a selection of pertinent government documents and eye-opening statistics. Many of the documents are available in no other printed form. Each chapter concludes with study questions and topics for research papers and class discussion, as well as lists of further reading for examining the themes and issues raised by the play. The casebook begins with a literary analysis of the play, its themes and dramatic structure. Two chapters on the historical context provide commentary and documents on the history of segregation and integration in the United States, focusing on segregation in employment and education as well as in housing, and relationships between African Americans and Africans and the back to Africa movement. A chapter situates the play within the context of the literature of Chicago, including articles about race problems, as well as excerpts from Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, Richard Wright's Native Son, Carl Sandburg's poem Chicago, and other pieces. The topic of the relationship between African American men and women is explored in a variety of articles on the African American family, black fatherhood, black masculinity, and the problems of African American women. A chapter on contemporary race relations examines the current situation and includes first-person accounts by two African American teenagers, current employment statistics for African Americans, and articles on current problems facing them. Each document is preceded by an explanatory introduction, and each chapter concludes with study questions and topics for research papers and class discussion, as well as lists of further reading for examining the themes and issues raised by the play.
Citing - MLA
Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) MLA - includes how to cite in-text, Works Cited page, and examples
Evaluating Information
Research assistance - help finding sources, evaluating sources
Online workshops for citing and plagiarism are held throughout the semester. To request a citing workshop, please email library@rcbc.edu