Documentation and Preferred Stylesheet

In Spanish, we conform to the Modern Languages Association (MLA) stylesheet where documentation is concerned.  For more information on proper MLA style, consult Joseph Gibaldi's MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 5th ed.  New York: the Modern Language Association of America, 1999.  This work is in the Reference section of our library.)  Here are a few simple but important rules to follow when you write papers in Spanish courses.

Titles of  works.  You may italicize any work of art (written, painted, sculpted, filmed, etc.).  Alternatively, titles of novels may be underlined (but not both underlined and italicized, just one or the other); if not italicized, titles of stories and other literary pieces that do not appear in a volume of their own --such as a single poem or a one act play from a collection of one act plays--are given between quotation marks.  Titles of paintings and other works of art should be underlined if they are not italicized, as should film and magazine titles.  Song titles should be between quotation marks if they are not italicized.

Quotations.  Short quotations (50 or fewer words) may be included in your paper without indenting the quotation.  For quotes over fifty words, the left margin only should be indented five spaces.

Quotations should be an exact reproduction of what you read.   You should never translate the words you are quoting.  Leave the quotation in the language you read it in, regardless of the language in which you are writing.  If you are using a translation of a literary work, for example, use the language of the translation.  This is true for both Spanish and English.  If the quotation is in some language other than Spanish or English, you should still transcribe the quoted passage exactly as you found it,  but then you should include a paraphrased translation, into English, in an end note.

How to document a reference in your paper.  This depends somewhat on the source and the context, but the idea is always (1) to provide complete information, somewhere in the paper, for anyone who wants to consult  your source, and (2) to distract a reader as little as possible while s/he is reading your text.

For a reference to the same edition of a work we have studied in class, the only reference necessary in the body of your paper is the page number.  This should be included in parentheses, and should not be preceded by "p." or "pg." or any other such abbreviation.  The number of the page alone suffices [for example: (31)].  If the paper is short, and you are analyzing just one work, no "Works Cited" or "Works Consulted" pages need be appended to your paper.  If the reference in question is a quotation that occurs at the end of a sentence, then the acceptable form for handling the quotation marks, the period and the parenthetical page number is as follows: the quotation marks closing the quote are first, followed by the parenthesis with the page number inside, and then the period: "Y así," dijo, "el arte debe ser "dulce et utile" (54).

For a reference from a source not common to the class , a simple parenthetical reference is often still the only documentation needed in the body of your paper.  Here you would include not only the page number, but also the last name of the author [for example, (García Márquez 228)].  There should be no comma between the name of the author and the page number, just a single space.  You should also include a "List of  Sources Cited" page at the end of your paper, where you provide a reader with more complete information on your source.  The idea is that "(García Márquez 228)" will not distract a reader from following the flow of your arguments; it is the minimum information necessary to identify the source, and refers any reader interested in consulting your source to the page where the "Sources Cited" are given.  There s/he will find the rest of the information needed to locate the source from which you took your reference.

If you quote from more than one source by the same person or persons, then the parenthetical reference in your paper must be a little longer, to let a reader know which work you are referencing.  In a paper on several works by Gabriel García Márquez, for instance, different references in the body of the text might look like these: "(García Márquez, Crónica 121); (García Márquez, Cien años  353); (García Márquez, El otoño 86)," where Crónica refers to Crónica de una muerte anunciada, Cien años refers to Cien años de soledad, and El otoño refers to El otoño del patriarca, three different novels by this Colombian author.  The complete titles of these novels would, of course, appear in the list of "Sources Cited" at the end of the paper, along with the additional bibliographic information that would allow an interested reader to consult your source directly. In the body of your text, however, abbreviate the titles, just giving enough information so that a reader will know from which work of an author the information has come.

An example of documentation in a paper (from  Joseph Gibaldi's MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 5th ed.  New York: Modern Languages Association of America, 1999).  Here Mr. Gibaldi gives an example of how quoted information is referenced in a research paper.  This example can be found on pages 114-115 of Gibaldi's text.

In MLA documentation style, you acknowledge your sources by keying brief parenthetical citations in your text to an alphabetical list of works that appears at the end of the paper.  The parenthetical citation that concludes the following sentence is typical of MLA style.  "Ancient writers attributed the invention of the monochord to Pythagoras, who lived in the sixth century BC (Marcuse 197)."  

The citation "(Marcuse 197)" tells readers that the information in the sentence was derived from page 197 of a work by an author named Marcuse.  If readers want more information about this source, they can turn to the works-cited list, where, under the name Marcuse, they would find the following information.

Marcuse, Sybil.  A Survey of Musical Instruments.  New York: Harper, 1975.

A citation in MLA style contains only enough information to enable readers to find the source in the works-cited list.  If the author's name is mentioned in the text, only the page number appears in the citation: "(197)".  If more than one work by an author is in the list of works cited, a shortened version of the title is given: "(Marcuse, Survey 197)".

For more detailed information about MLA style--for instance, how to enter information in the list of works cited--consult Joseph Gibaldi's book in the Reference section of the library (especially pages vii-x and 117-202).  Here you will find instructions on how to reference books, magazine articles, anthologies, films, electronic sources, etc.