After you find the sources that you need for your research paper, you need to know how to use them correctly. If you wanted to use information or ideas from Martinson's "American Dreamscape", you would have to give him credit as the author of this material. If you don't give credit to an author for his/her material, then you commit plagiarism, the stealing of another's words, information, or ideas by passing them off as your own. Plagiarism is a serious offense which will subject you to disciplinary measures by your instructor and the college. 

For most English classes, the preferred method of documenting sources is the MLA
(Modern Language Association) style. 

Citing a Source in Your Paper 

In the MLA style, the basic method of citing (or giving credit to) a source that you use in your paper is to put in parentheses the author's last name and the page number on which you found the borrowed information. So, if you use information from page 179 of a book by Tom Martinson, you would write (Martinson 179) to give credit to this author. This parenthetical reference should be placed directly after the borrowed material. In addition, you should make clear how much of the material is being attributed.  After you find the sources that you need for your research paper, you need to know how to use them correctly. If you wanted to use information or ideas from the Martinson book, you would have to give him credit as the author of this material. If you don't give credit to an author for his/her material, then you commit plagiarism, the stealing of another's words, information, or ideas by passing them off as your own. Plagiarism is a serious offense which will subject you to disciplinary measures by me and the college.