Daniel Kies Department of English College of DuPage
Composition 2 English 1102		Contact Form

MLA Documentation

Lab 8

This lab will allow you to practice using the MLA documentation format.

Citing one's sources is one of the most important aspects of the research paper writing process for several reasons: By citing reputable sources you are indirectly saying to your reader, "Look. I have done my homework; I know all the relevant material in my research area." An impressive list of resources also says of you that you have educated yourself in your particular research area. You are the expert. By citing a good number of reputable sources you are also adding a degree of credibility and trustworthiness to your paper. You are building ethical appeal, as Aristotle would say. You avoid plagiarism by giving credit where credit is due. Thus for this lab, I have an exercise for you in the preparation of in text citations and Works Cited pages using the MLA format.		Current work:   Days remaining this term: Notes: Add Note |  Log in? | Privacy | Change Name & Email Mail this page to a friend
Lab 8 Directions For Lab 8, I want you to edit the example text below, correcting the errors in the use of the MLA documentation format. Either work on this exercise directly in the text box below, or copy|paste the example into your word processor (as in Lab 1). Make the necessary changes in accordance with the MLA format. You can consult several of the online resources below. Send the revision to me either as an attachment or by editing the exercise in the space below. !   Note: Browsers do not allow special text formatting when you add or edit text on "form pages" such as this one. So use an underscore [ _ ] to indicate underlining or italics. For example, _War and Peace_ would represent the italics for War and Peace in the text box below. New: Try the improved lab 8, with text editing, and you don't have to worry about this problem.   Some helpful resources: In Text Citation in the MLA Format Our page from the English 1102 HyperTextBook on how to prepare an in text citation. Citing Sources: APA & MLA Styles A page of examples and links to more information about in text citations and Works Cited pages from the College of DuPage library. Montana State University's Library Has a downloadable copy of the MLA Style Guide available as a PDF file. PDF files require the Acrobat reader, available free from Adobe. MLA Handbook citation examples from Honolulu Community College Exemplifies both in text citations and Works Cited pages. Using Modern Language Association (MLA) Format A page of in text and Works Cited examples brought to you by the Purdue University Online Writing Lab. The Columbia Guide to Online Style Another well-organized discussion of electronic citations by Janice Walker and the Alliance for Computers & Writing. Many examples. The old page is still online at MLA-Style Citations of Electronic Sources. Example Text: Much of the work on gradience has focused on syntactic gradience in grammatical forms, e.g., forms that exhibit syntactic properties of both nouns and verbs, adverbs and adjectives, or verbs and adjectives. (The gradient nature of grammatical forms was often noted in scholarly grammars of English, cf. Curme (1931, volume 1, p. 89) and Fries (1983, 118), and one can trace this discussion to Dionysius Thrax, who raised the first questions about gradient forms by positing the participle as one of eight word classes of Greek grammar.) However, equally interesting are the syntactic gradients found in grammatical functions, e.g., the grammatical object that shares some of the syntactic features of the subject or object complement and the subject complement that shares some of the syntactic features of the adverbial (Francis and Kucera. 1982 Frequency Analysis of English Usage, p.112). Gradience in grammatical function has often been dismissed as examples of 'structural ambiguity' or 'multiple analysis,' cf. Eiler (1986:49-51). Yet such an easy label seems to suggest, incorrectly, that gradience in grammatical function is simply (or only) a binary choice: the ambiguous sentence can be analyzed into both structure A and structure B. Those analyses of structural ambiguity miss some important generalizations: cases of structural ambiguity often represent only two of many discrete points on a gradient, and gradience in function is not independent of gradience elsewhere in English grammar. The gradient can be demonstrated through several syntactic tests — passive, coordination, interrogation, movement, and deletion. Understanding gradience is central to understanding how grammar works in real language. We can illustrate and examine both formal and functional gradience at many levels of grammar. Consider, for example, passive voice verb phrases as in John is tired. The participle in that verb phrases illustrates a gradient between the adjective and the verb word classes, Dillon, 27. The participle is verb-like in that it has a verb ending ("-ed"), it has an auxiliary verb preceding it ("is"), and exhibits the hallmarks of the passive voice verb phrase. Yet the participle is adjective-like too in that it can be modified with adjectives such as "very", as in "John is very tired." Notice, by contrast, that verbs as a group do not use premodifiers like "very." Compare sentences like "John is running" and "*John is very running." Works Cited Dillon, George. 1981 Constructing Texts, Indiana University Press: Bloomington, IN. Eiler, Mary Ann. 1986 "Thematic Distribution as a Heuristic for Written Discourse Function." in Functional Approaches to Writing: Research Perspectives, pp. 49-68, Barbara Couture (ed.), Norwood, N.J.: Ablex. Curme,  George. 1931 A Grammar of the English Language, New York. 2 volumes. D. C. Heath and Company. Francis , W. Nelson, and Henry Kucera. Frequency Analysis of English Usage: Lexicon and Grammar, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1982. Fries, Peter H. 1983 On the Status of Theme in English: Arguments from Discourse. in Micro and Macro Connexity of Texts, pp. 116-52, J. S. Petofi and E. Sozer (eds.), Hamburg: Helmut Buske. To From Your Email Address  Subject File Attachment Lab Exercise Much of the work on gradience has focused on syntactic gradience in grammatical forms, e.g., forms that exhibit syntactic properties of both nouns and verbs, adverbs and adjectives, or verbs and adjectives. (The gradient nature of grammatical forms was often noted in scholarly grammars of English, cf. Curme (1931, volume 1, p. 89) and Fries (1983, 118), and one can trace this discussion to Dionysius Thrax, who raised the first questions about gradient forms by positing the participle as one of eight word classes of Greek grammar.) However, equally interesting are the syntactic gradients found in grammatical functions, e.g., the grammatical object that shares some of the syntactic features of the subject or object complement and the subject complement that shares some of the syntactic features of the adverbial (Francis and Kucera. 1982 Frequency Analysis of English Usage, p.112). Gradience in grammatical function has often been dismissed as examples of 'structural ambiguity' or 'multiple analysis,' cf. Eiler (1986:49-51). Yet such an easy label seems to suggest, incorrectly, that gradience in grammatical function is simply (or only) a binary choice: the ambiguous sentence can be analyzed into both structure A and structure B. Those analyses of structural ambiguity miss some important generalizations: cases of structural ambiguity often represent only two of many discrete points on a gradient, and gradience in function is not independent of gradience elsewhere in English grammar. The gradient can be demonstrated through several syntactic tests — passive, coordination, interrogation, movement, and deletion. Understanding gradience is central to understanding how grammar works in real language. We can illustrate and examine both formal and functional gradience at many levels of grammar. Consider, for example, passive voice verb phrases as in John is tired. The participle in that verb phrases illustrates a gradient between the adjective and the verb word classes, Dillon, 27. The participle is verb-like in that it has a verb ending ("-ed"), it has an auxiliary verb preceding it ("is"), and exhibits the hallmarks of the passive voice verb phrase. Yet the participle is adjective-like too in that it can be modified with adjectives such as "very," as in "John is very tired." Notice, by contrast, that verbs as a group do not use premodifiers like "very." Compare sentences like "John is running" and "*John is very running." Works Cited Dillon, George. 1981 Constructing Texts, Indiana University Press: Bloomington, IN. Eiler, Mary Ann. 1986 "Thematic Distribution as a Heuristic for Written Discourse Function." in Functional Approaches to Writing: Research Perspectives, pp. 49-68, Barbara Couture (ed.), Norwood, N.J.: Ablex. Curme, George. 1931 A Grammar of the English Language, New York. 2 volumes. D. C. Heath and Company. Francis, W. Nelson, and Henry Kucera. Frequency Analysis of English Usage: Lexicon and Grammar, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1982. Fries,Peter H. 1983 On the Status of Theme in English: Arguments from Discourse. in Micro and Macro Connexity of Texts, pp. 116-52, J. S. Petofi and E. Sozer (eds.), Hamburg: Helmut Buske.   To Take Note! | Table of Contents | Syllabus | Course Calendar | eForum | Search The HyperTextBooks | The English Main Page | College of DuPage