Historical Investigation Citation MLA style

[argenTINA]

Hey guys,

I was so happy when 20 minutes ago I finally finished my Historical Investigation. Then I noticed that actually one thing was still missing, my bibliography. This led me to the problem that I don't know how to cite my source. We have to use MLA style and on the internet I didn't find any appropriate solution for my problem.

I used a speech from Ernesto Che Guevara and Nelson Mandela, which I found

here: http://web.archive.o...od.ru/atthe.htm

and here: http://web.archive.o...hes/mandela.htm

The question is who exactly is the Author and Editor etc.?

And furthermore, when I have a quotation, what do I write in the brackets after my quote?

Thanks a lot for your help, you will make me very happy, when at long last I can print my Investigation and go to bed

Cheers,

Christina

Edited October 29, 2012 by argenTINA

[alefal]

Hi Christina!

Well, good thing you noticed you lacked a bibliography!

I found a page whilst searching on how to cite speeches using MLA style which said this:

To cite a lecture or a speech, provide the speaker's name, title of the lecture or speech in quotation marks, the meeting and the sponsoring organization (if applicable), the location [including place and city], and the date. If there is no title, use an appropriate descriptive label (e.g., Lecture, Address, Keynote speech). Do not underline or enclose in quotation marks (MLA Handbook, 204).

Libris, Lola. "Introduction to Online Databases." 2003 Arkadelphia Library Association.

ZaZa Hotel, Arkadelphia. 28 March 2003.

You can find it here: http://library.hsu.edu/Tutorial/MLAReference.html

As shown, the author will be the speech holder, and there is usually no editor if I'm not mistaken.

For in-text citations, you would write author's surname and page number in the brackets. For instance: (Wordsworth 283). However, if you have mentioned the author's name earlier in the sentence, you would only write the page number. For instance: 'Weathersby asserts that the Korean War was a war in the Far East (12).'

Good luck with your Historical Investigation!

[argenTINA]

Hey,

thanks a lot for replying. What you wrote is absoloutely correct and your link is good, but still not really matching my problem....

It is that the sources of my speeches are webpages on the internet. So there are basically two difficulties, it is a speech AND a web page. Of those in general you also have to give the link, what works like this:

Web Page

Author(s). Name of Page. Date of Posting/Revision. Name of institution/organization

affiliated with the site. Date of Access <electronic address>.

Schafer, Nancy Imelda. "Maya Angelou." April 1998.

http://www.spydersempire.com/empirezine/spotlight/published/april/maya1.htm

(8 Feb. 1999).

So is Che Guevara or Nelson Mandela still the Author or do I have to give the name of the person who maybe posted the speech (and wrote the little introduction, like where and when it was given) ?

And beyond that: There are no numbers of pages so it gets really difficult to comprehend.

So is there any idea what to put in the brackets instead?

Thanks a lot!!!

Christina

[alefal]

Hi again,

As far as I can understand, Che Guevara and Nelson Mandela will still be the author.

By using the APA style, you can write 'Cited in [source]' after the actual reference - for instance:

Schafer, N. I. (1998, April).

Maya Angelou

. Cited in Gray, K. (1999).

A Study of Maya Angelou

. London: Oxford University Press.

Now, of course the APA style won't be to any help for you, who is using the MLA style, but isn't there a similar way of doing this by using MLA? I would be surprised if there aren't any ways of doing exactly the same. Unfortunately, I cannot be to more help, as I am more accustomed with the APA style.

Given that there are such a solution to your problem, you would have to cite both the author of the speech (that being either Guevara or Mandela) and the author of the internet page (if accessible). If it is impossible to solve the issue this way, and it is clear that you should cite the internet page, you would use the author of the internet page. However, if there are not any simple solution, I believe it would be much better to cite the speech itself, as was demonstrated in my previous post.

As for your last question; if you don't have any page numbers, you simply don't write anything in the brackets. If you mention the author's name in the sentence, there would not be any need for brackets. If not, you would of course mention the author in the brackets.

Edited October 30, 2012 by alefal

[argenTINA]

Thank you very much, to keep up replying to such a bugging topic!!

I'll just cite it as casual speech and add the link

Best wishes form Germany