Using Parenthetical References

When are parenthetical references necessary?

• to give the sources of a direct quotation

• to give credit for other people's ideas written in the student's words and sentence structure

• to give the original source of diagrams, statistics, and figures

When are parenthetical references not necessary?

Parenthetical references are not necessary for information that is common knowledge:

• The student knew the information before researching.

• The student found the information in several sources.

How are parenthetical references written?

• Parenthetical references are brief and give only the information needed to identify a source: the first word of the bibliography, usually the author's last name, and the page number on which the material appears. There is no punctuation between these two parts of the parenthetical reference.

• The parenthetical reference follows as closely as possible the information it documents. It precedes the punctuation mark that ends the sentence, clause or phrase containing the cited material.

Sample

Runaways without money sell drugs for pushers (Kane 9). Runaways don't realize that the longer they're on the streets the worse it gets. One advisor suggests, "if you must run away, the message is clear--never leave without a plan" (Kane 9).