Juan del Pueblo Afuego

Prof. Alan Valle

Engl. 3104, Sec. 071

Citation, Format and Works Cited Examples

The Modern Language Association (MLA) and American Psychological Association

(APA) are the primary writing formats used for academic writing. These formats should be

taught to students as soon as junior high, so that when students arrive at colleges or universities,

they are not completely clueless as to how they must format their essays. For this course, we are

going to be using the MLA format, so everything you see written here is in MLA format.

Like all forms of art, writing is about creative expression. Our creative expression is

limited by our medium. As academic writers, students are asked to write formally, which usually

means not writing any contractions in your essays. If you are communicating your feelings about

a work of art, try framing your experience as objectively as possible by getting to know yourself

and the groups and subcultures you belong to. For example: For young adults who have suffered

from traumatizing break-ups, Nirvana’s “Heart-Shaped Box” from the album In Utero provides

them with a relatable perspective on relationships. The lyrics “I wish I could eat your cancer /

when you turn bad” (4-5), reflects the destructive nature of toxic relationships.

Writing is an art, and to make our writing more beautiful we utilize synonyms. Because

many of us speak English as our second language, wordreference.com contains a useful Spanish-

English translator, a tool many of us Puerto Rican writers will find useful when we cannot find

the right word. Finally, here is a list of words you should avoid, press Ctrl+f on your keyboard to

find and replace these words.

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Avoid Use Instead

States (as a verb) Soul-search for synonyms. Are the authors
Says arguing (strongly) or are they suggesting
Mentions (weakly)? Are they referring to the work of
Writes another peer?
Very Substitute weaker word for a stronger one.
Agree (in regards to another author) Concur if they reach the same conclusions, or
differ, if they reach opposite conclusions.

The following words are usually unnecessary and should be eliminated:

Just They usually do not add anything important to

Really a sentence, and only serve to make writers
Quite sound unsure of themselves
Probably

Due to our Spanish language heritage and our word ‘que’, we tend to overuse ‘that’ and

‘the’ when communicating in English. Whenever you catch yourself writing ‘the’ try rewriting

and reframing your sentence. Only keep these words in your sentences if they are necessary to

make your sentence streamlined. We frequently use the word ‘that’ when we should be saying

‘which’. Try substituting ‘that’ for ‘which’, ‘how’ or any other suitable word you can think of.

When quoting a person, use the following format:

 Karla said, "donuts" (“She Said”).

 “Donuts” (Oppenheimer, “She Said”).

 In the article “She Said” Karla clarified how donuts are her favorite food (2).

 In an article titled Shark Week, John Smith reported, "More cows kill people than

sharks every year” (#).

Note: Always use a comma instead of a colon when introducing quotes.

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Works Cited

AuthorLastName, FirstName. Title of the Book Being Referenced. City Name: Name of

Publisher, Year. Type of Medium (e.g. Print).

LastName, First, Middle. "Article Title." Journal Title (Year): Pages From - To. Print.

Gore, Albert. An Inconvenient Truth: The Crisis of Global Warming. New York: Viking,

2007. Print.