Documenting Electronic Sources :: mla documenting

Documenting Electronic Sources Your research for English Literature will likely include looking for online sources. If you find potential sources online, you will probably find that they vary widely in quality, in currency, and in reliability. You should limit yourself to only those sources that show evidence of carrying authority. Does the site identify authors and provide their credentials? Does the site offer documentation so that readers can substantiate information? Does the site avoid seeming to offer political propaganda? Is it free of advertising, commercial or political? Is the site up-to-date? By asking such questions, you can avoid selecting sources which will undermine your own credibility. Specifically, your research assignment for English 111 requires you (unless your instructor grants you exceptional permission) to limit yourself to online sources of two types: 1. articles in online periodicals (journals and magazines actually published on the World Wide Web), and 2. periodical articles available through electronic databases such as ProQuest. The instructions below explain how you can find such sources and how you should include them in your list of "Works Cited." Articles in Online Periodicals Suppose, for example, you are writing a paper on Shakespeare's play The Taming of the Shrew. You might begin your online search by using Netscape to do an Internet search. (Using Netscape, you pull down the "Directory" menu and click on "Internet Search" to reach a search engine.) Then you would type in keywords such as these: Petruchio, Taming, Shrew. Among the many potential sources your search produced, you would find the two listed below, one an article in a scholarly journal, the other an article in a magazine. Both fit into category #1 above of the types of online sources you may use. Each is given here in the MLA form you would use should you end up including it in your list of "Works Cited." Heaney, Peter F. "Petruchio's Horse: Equine and Household Mismanagement in The Taming of the Shrew." Early Modern Literary Studies 4.1 (1998): 12 pars. 3 Feb. 1999 <http://purl.oclc.org/emls/04-1/heanshak.html>. Kerrigan, William W. "The Case for Bardolatry: Harold Bloom Rescues Shakespeare from the Critics." Lingua Franca Nov. 1998. 3 Feb. 1999 <http://sevenbridgespress.com/lf/9811/kerrigan.html>. Full-Text Articles Available through Database In order to locate sources fitting into category #2 above (periodical articles available through an electronic database), you would again begin with Netscape. By typing "voyager.