The Literary Reserach Paper - Notes - Day 2: Incorporating Material

So . . .

Now you have stories, research, works cited, rough draft, thesis statement and you're ready to incorporate material into your paper.  The question now is . . .

HOW?

Assume for a moment that your topic for research and study is The Importance of Storytelling in Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried"

Your thesis statement: In addition to the narrator himself, several characters demonstrate the need for telling stories . . . [this will be refined later]

After researching the story and storytelling, you find that Tim O'Brien was very much aware of the importance of storytelling, and you find yourself wanting to let the reader know this. In the introduction, you might write:

In an interview with Patrick Hicks, O'Brien makes the comment that,  "The Things They Carried is a book largely about storytelling and issues about truth."  In the story of the same title, one  is aware of the importance of storytelling to the men of Alpha Company, particularly Kiowa.

Important in this example:

• there needs to be a signal phrase that introduces the quote; in the sample, it is " . . . O'Brien makes the comment that, . . . .  A signal phrase sets up or introduces the quote, maintaining fluency in the paper
• there needs to be  follow up statement(s) that explains the relevancy of the quote or information used: In the story of the same title, one  is aware of the importance of storytelling to the men of Alpha Company, particularly Kiowa.
• Note that since the referenced person's name [Patrick Hicks] is given, there is no need for a parenthetical citation. However, note the next example, which has the same information, but is written differently, and so, logically, the citation is different

Storytelling becomes important to the men of Alpha Company, particularly to Kiowa, as well as the narrator. In an interview, Tim O'Brien, author of "The Things They Carried," indicated that storytelling is one of the major aspects of his novel of the same name as well as this story (Hicks).

What happened here:

There is NO direct quote; the information has been paraphrased, but because it is informationt the writer did not have to begin with, and because it is obviously been researched, there MUST be a citiation.

Note that since this is researched material from a website, one need only add correct MLA citation, as indicated by the Purdue OWL: MLA Formatting In-Text Citations


NOTE: Referenced Material:

Title: A Conversation with Tim O'Brien

Author(s): Tim O'Brien and Patrick Hicks

Publication Details: Indiana Review 27.2 (Winter 2005): p85-95.

Source: Short Story Criticism.

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Ed. Jelena O. Krstovic. Vol. 123. Detroit: Gale. From Literature Resource Center.

Document Type: Critical essay, Interview

Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2009 Gale, Cengage Learning