... it occurred to me there is no manual that deals with the real business of motorcycle maintenance, the most important aspect of all. Caring about what you are doing is considered either unimportant or taken for granted.

-- Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (25).

What follows ... should in no way be associated with that great body of factual information relating to orthodox Zen Buddhist practice. It's not very factual on motorcycles either.

-- Pirsig, Author's Note, Zen (iii).

What does Zen Buddhism have to do with freshman English papers? If asked, a Zen master might say, "nothing" (except he, or she, would probably use the Japanese word "mu," which means more or less the same thing). But Zen is about simplicity, and an attitude of simplicity doesn't hurt when it comes to doing MLA documentation for a freshman English paper. The Modern Language Association's rules for scholarly citations are extremely complicated, and they're constantly changing. But the idea behind them is simple.

"Our minds end up with a lot of clutter," says Cate Pfeifer, who teaches Zen meditation in Peoria. "When we turn things over in our mind, it just adds clutter and confusion. When we meditate, we let the mud in our mind start to settle. Once our mind settles, we can see clearly. Once we can see clearly, we can have compassion for this world and help it. I'm not going to say we get rid of clutter, but we can become undisturbed about it" (Miller E5-E6). My goal for this webpage is to help you become undisturbed about writing documented research papers.

1. An in-text citation with a 'signal phrase'

If we remember why people cite their sources, it's easy to finesse some of the mental clutter. It's primarily so readers can look them up. So you give them what people in the freshman English composition biz call a "signal phrase." Journalists call it attribution. Its function, according to journalism prof Ken Blake of Middle Tennessee State University, is to "the source of some piece of information" ("Media Writing Tips"). There are several ways to do ... depending on whether you're writing for print or broadcast, and so on. In academic life, we tend to be more inflexible. Think of using an academic signal phrase as if it were pouring Jell-O into a mold. Here's the basic format, the Jell-O mold:

Here's how it works: "A" is the author, and "B" is the quote. What about "C?" It's the other stuff you may need to tell your reader exactly where to go. It's optional, so you put it in parentheses. We'll say more about that in a minute. For now, here's the basic idea: The signal phrase introduces the source of your information. Here's an example: Author Robert Pirsig says his Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance "should in no way be associated with that great body of factual information relating to orthodox Zen Buddhist practice" (iii). It's as simple, literally, as ABC. Here's another: Tony Karp, author of "Art and the Zen of Web Sites," suggests that beginning website designers "[s]tart small and simple - you can always make it wondrous and complex later on." Since Karp's essay is on the web, there's no page number. But you still use a signal phrase.

2. A corresponding entry on your Works Cited page

Again, doing a Works Cited entry is as easy as pouring Jell-O into a mold. It's similar to a signal phrase because it begins with the author and ends with other stuff your reader may need to know. But it serves a different purpose, and it comes at the very end of your paper. So I'm going to use different letters to help keep it separate in your mind from the signal phrase. "X" is the author, and "Y" is the title of your source. And, yes, there's usually a "Z." It's the other stuff you may need to tell your reader exactly where to go. For a book, it's usually the place, the publisher and date of publication. For a magazine, it includes date and page numbers (or web address if you're reading it on the Internet). They are listed in alphabetical order, so readers can find them in a hurry. That's important. I'll repeat it. The stuff listed in your Works Cited is in alphabetical order. If it isn't, you can't find things in it - and that means it's useless to your reader as well.

Susan Full, SCI's library director, has a good way of remembering how to punctuate a Works Cited entry. "The title of a whole publication, you underline," she explains. "The title of of a section of the work, you put in quotation marks. So for a poem in an anthology, for a chapter in a book, for an article in a periodical, it's the same principle." Ms. Full says the principle even applies to non-print media: "In a music CD, the title of a song would be in quotation marks, and the title of the CD would be underlined." So your basic format looks like this:

"X" and "Y," the first two parts of the cite, are pretty straightforward. The author can be a person. Robert Pirsig. Michael Miller of the Peoria Journal Star. Shakespeare. Emily Dickinson. Eminem. Whoever. Or it can be an institution. The Journal Star reports ... The Royal Shakespeare Company announces ... The San Francisco Zen Center has scheduled workshops on ... And so on. The third part, "Z," unfortunately, can vary considerably. Best to look it up. There are links in a box at the bottom of this page to help you do that.

1 + 2 = __. Linkage between your text and your Works Cited

Since the purpose of MLA documentation is to tell your reader where to find your sources, it has to link the text with the Works Cited list at the end. The best way to do that is to make sure you repeat the first word of the Works Cited entry in the text -- in other words, the one you use to put it in alphabetical order. For example, let's go back to the epigraphs -- or quotes -- at the top of this page. Let's write it up in the box below, using a signal phrase. Pirsig's name in the text (the upper box) phrase refers you to "Pirsig, Robert" in the Works Cited (the lower box). That's why it's called a "signal phrase." See how the name in the text gives signals you which name to look for in the Works Cited?

Robert Pirsig says his Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance "should in no way be associated with that great body of factual information relating to orthodox Zen Buddhist practice" (iii).

Pirsig, Robert. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. New York: Bantam, 1980.

There are infinite variations on this theme.

A couple of frequently asked questions. What happens, for example, when you quote from a website that doesn't name its author? You leave it out, that's what. And you alphabetize it by the first word of the title. If you're quoting the Police Beat column in The State Journal-Register, for example, you list it as "Police Beat" and alphabetize it under "P." What happens if you quote one person in a book, article or website written by somebody else? You make sure you've got that first word of the Works Cited somewhere in the corresponding in-text citation. Example: Look at the quotations in Journal Star reporter Michael Miller's story at the top of the page. He's quoting Zen instructor Cate Pfeifer, but the Journal Star story is alphabetized under his name, so I mention him in the third part of the citation right before the page number. See how Miller's name in the text signals where to look in the Works Cited?

Cate Pfeifer says, "I'm not going to say we get rid of clutter, but we can become undisturbed about it" (Miller E6).

Miller, Michael. "Clearing One's Mind." The Journal Star [Peoria] 6 Nov. 2002: E-5-E6.

Zen in the art of anything ...

A keyword search in Google on "Zen in the art of" once got 125,000 hits, including numerous references to Pirsig's motorcycle book and webpages on Zen and such matters as the Internet, "creative career design," ferrets, divebombing, slamdancing and filing a complaint in small claims court. One last thought, from "Art and the Zen of Web Sites" by Tony Karp of TLC Systems Corp. Sure, it isn't about MLA citation. It's about websites. Well, duh. That's why the title says "Web Sites" and not "MLA." Right? But it's worth looking at. Karp's final advice holds true when you're practicing the art of anything -- "you have to know when to stop." It's also very zen.

Links

• Academic writing (the "why" of citation). Guides to the conventions for college-level writing: (1) Dallas TeleCollege Library and Richland College Library. Library and Research Services: Module for the Distance Learner. Dallas County Community College District, Dallas, Texas. http://ollie.dcccd.edu/library/Contents.htm (2) Margaret Proctor, "How Not to Plagiarize," Writing at the University of Toronto. http://www.utoronto.ca/writing/plagsep.html (3) University of Northern British Columbia, "Plagiarism." Learning Skills Centre, UNBC. http://quarles.unbc.edu/lsc/rpplagia.html. Arguably the best short essay on academic writing, is "Overview of the Academic Essay: Thesis, Argument, and Counterargument" by Kathy Duffin of the Writing Center at Harvard University at http://fas-www.harvard.edu/~wricntr/overview.html. Duffin doesn't even mention the nuts and bolts of citation, but she explains the context, shows why we do what we do in academic writing.
• Nuts & bolts (the "how" of in-text citation). For a handy summary of how to use a "signal phrase" tagging: (1) your source; (2) your information; and (3) a citation to your list of sources or Works Cited, go to a University of Arizona handout at http://www.gened.arizona.edu/eslweb/works.htm. For an explanation by Monica Smith of the University of Georgia of why a quotation without a signal phrase in the text "has the same effect on your paper that a blob of bird poop has on your car windshield," go to http://www.english.uga.edu/~msmith/DQ.htm.

1. Blake, Ken. "Media Writing Tips." School of Journalism, Middle Tennessee State University. 15 Dec. 2006. <http://mtsu32.mtsu.edu:11178/171/tips.htm>.
2. Herrigel, Eugen. Zen in the Art of Archery. Trans. R.F.C. Hull. New York: Bantam, 1971.
3. Karp, Tony. "Art and the Zen of Web Sites." TLC Systems Corp. 31 March 1999. <http://www.tlc-systems.com/webtips.shtml>.
4. Miller, Michael. "Clearing One's Mind." The Journal Star [Peoria] 6 Nov. 2002: E-5-E6.
5. Pirsig, Robert. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. New York: Bantam, 1980.

Artwork: Dr. Xiaowen Li (a.k.a. the Emerald Mantis) by Scott McCullar. From his Thrill Seeker Comics. For more information, visit Scott's website at http://www.thrillseekercomics.com/.