A quick note on what to cite

You do not need to give bibliographic citation information for the primary text(s) with which you are working, although I do ask you to give line and page numbers wherever you quote or paraphrase from the text.

However, if you refer to any outside source for factual or interpretive information - even to something as benign as Wikipedia - I really need to see a citation. Thankfully, citing Wikipedia is easy: travel to our Writing Center's MLA handbook page and check out its listing of electronic sources; look under "Article in an online encyclopedia."

This also goes for lectures: if you are getting concrete, factual information or something that sounds like it could be an independent interpretation from one of Prof. Wolfe's lectures, that should be cited as well. This gets into slightly trickier territory: there are plenty of things Prof. Wolfe has said - for example, his definition of modernity - which you really don't need to cite because he is, in these cases, simply sharing received knowledge with you.

However, when Prof. Wolfe says "I am going to make the argument that" (for example) "As I Lay Dying is Faulkner's satiric representation of an epic quest transplanted into the modern world," that is a claim which is not received knowledge and which, if you choose to treat it as plain fact, you will need to cite.

To simplify: facts (authors' birthdates, definitions of terms, historical backgrounds) and characterizations (the meaning of modernity and modernism, Hemingway's style) do not need to be cited. Conjectures and arguments do.

How do you cite a lecture? Consult the Writing Center's guide to citing non-print sources; replace "Interview" with "Lecture." Voilá!