how do i reference book in an essay

How to Reference in an Essay (9 Strategies of Top Students)

Are you feeling overwhelmed by referencing?

When you’re first asked to do referencing in an essay it can be hard to get your head around it. If it’s been a while since you were first taught how to reference, it can be intimidating to ask again how to do it!

I have so many students who consistently lose marks just because they didn’t get referencing right! They’re either embarrassed to ask for extra help or too lazy to learn how to solve the issues.

So, here’s a post that will help you solve the issues on your own.

Already think you’re good at referencing? No worries. This post goes through some surprising and advanced strategies for anyone to improve no matter what level you are at!

In this post I’m going to show you exactly how to reference in an essay. I’ll explain why we do it and I’ll show you 9 actionable tips on getting referencing right that I’m sure you will not have heard anywhere else!

The post is split into three parts:

• What is a Reference and What is a Citation?
• Why Reference? (4 Things you Should Know)
• How to Reference (9 Strategies of Top Students)

If you think you’ve already got a good understanding of the basics, you can jump to our 9 Advanced Strategies section.

Part 1: What is a Reference and What is a Citation?

What is a citation.

An in-text mention of your source. A citation is a short mention of the source you got the information from, usually in the middle or end of a sentence in the body of your paragraph. It is usually abbreviated so as not to distract the reader too much from your own writing. Here’s two examples of citations. The first is in APA format. The second is in MLA format:

• APA: Archaeological records trace the original human being to equatorial Africa about 250,000–350,000 years ago (Schlebusch & Jakobsson, 2018) .
• MLA: Archaeological records trace the original human being to equatorial Africa about 250,000–350,000 years ago (Schlebusch and Jakobsson 1) .

In APA format, you’ve got the authors and year of publication listed. In MLA format, you’ve got the authors and page number listed. If you keep reading, I’ll give some more tips on formatting further down in this article.

And a Reference is:

What is a Reference?

A reference is the full details of a source that you list at the end of the article. For every citation (see above) there needs to be a corresponding reference at the end of the essay showing more details about that source. The idea is that the reader can see the source in-text (i.e. they can look at the citation) and if they want more information they can jump to the end of the page and find out exactly how to go about finding the source.

Here’s how you would go about referencing the Schlebusch and Jakobsson source in a list at the end of the essay. Again, I will show you how to do it in APA and MLA formats:

• APA: Schlebusch, C. & Jakobsson, M. (2018). Tales of Human Migration, Admixture, and Selection in Africa. Annual Review of Genomics and Human Genetics , 11 (33), 1–24.
• MLA: Schlebusch, Carina and Mattias Jakobsson. “Tales of Human Migration, Admixture, and Selection in Africa.” Annual Review of Genomics and Human Genetics , vol. 11, no. 33, 2018, pp. 1–24.

In strategy 1 below I’ll show you the easiest and fool proof way to write these references perfectly every time.

One last quick note: sometimes we say ‘reference’ when we mean ‘citation’. That’s pretty normal. Just roll with the punches. It’s usually pretty easy to pick up on what our teacher means regardless of whether they use the word ‘reference’ or ‘citation’.

Part 2: Why Reference in an Essay? (4 Things you Should Know)

Referencing in an essay is important. By the time you start doing 200-level courses, you probably won’t pass the course unless you reference appropriately. So, the biggest answer to ‘why reference?’ is simple: Because you Have To!

Okay let’s be serious though … here’s the four top ‘real’ reasons to reference:

1. Referencing shows you Got an Expert’s Opinion

You can’t just write an essay on what you think you know. This is a huge mistake of beginning students. Instead this is what you need to do:

Top Tip: Essays at university are supposed to show off that you’ve learned new information by reading the opinions of experts.

Every time you place a citation in your paragraph, you’re showing that the information you’re presenting in that paragraph was provided to you by an expert. In other words, it means you consulted an expert’s opinion to build your knowledge.

If you have citations throughout the essay with links to a variety of different expert opinions, you’ll show your marker that you did actually genuinely look at what the experts said with an open mind and considered their ideas.

This will help you to grow your grades.

2. Referencing shows you read your Assigned Readings

Your teacher will most likely give you scholarly journal articles or book chapters to read for homework between classes. You might have even talked about those assigned readings in your seminars and tutorials.

Great! The assigned readings are very important to you.

You should definitely cite the assigned readings relevant to your essay topic in your evaluative essay (unless your teacher tells you not to). Why? I’ll explain below.

• Firstly, the assigned readings were selected by your teacher because your teacher (you know, the person who’s going to mark your essay) believes they’re the best quality articles on the topic. Translation: your teacher gave you the best source you’re going to find. Make sure you use it!
• Secondly, by citing the assigned readings you are showing your teacher that you have been paying attention throughout the course. You are showing your teacher that you have done your homework, read those assigned readings and paid attention to them. When my students submit an essay that has references to websites, blogs, wikis and magazines I get very frustrated. Why would you cite low quality non-expert sources like websites when I gave you the expert’s article!? Really, it frustrates me so, so much.

So, cite the assigned readings to show your teacher you read the scholarly articles your teacher gave to you. It’ll help you grow your marks.

3. Referencing deepens your Knowledge

Okay, so you understand that you need to use referencing to show you got experts’ opinions on the topic.

But there’s more to it than that. There’s actually a real benefit for your learning.

If you force yourself to cite two expert sources per paragraph, you’re actually forcing yourself to get two separate pieces of expert knowledge. This will deepen your knowledge!

So, don’t treat referencing like a vanity exercise to help you gain more marks. Actually view it as an opportunity to develop deeper understandings of the topic!

When you read expert sources, aim to pick up on some new gems of knowledge that you can discuss in your essays. Some things you should look out for when finding sources to reference:

• Examples that link ideas to real life. Do the experts provide real-life examples that you can mention in your essay?
• Facts and figures. Usually experts have conducted research on a topic and provide you with facts and figures from their research. Use those facts and figures to deepen your essay!
• Short Quotes. Did your source say something in a really interesting, concise or surprising way? Great! You can quote that source in your essay .
• New Perspectives. Your source might give you another perspective, angle or piece of information that you can add to your paragraph so that it’s a deep, detailed and interesting paragraph.

So, the reason we ask you to reference is at the end of the day because it’s good for you: it helps you learn!

4. Referencing backs up your Claims

You might think you already know a ton of information about the topic and be ready to share your mountains of knowledge with your teacher. Great!

So, should you still reference?

Yes. Definitely.

You need to show that you’re not the only person with your opinion. You need to ‘stand on the shoulders of giants.’ Show what other sources have said about your points to prove that experts agree with you.

You should be saying: this is my opinion and it’s based on facts, expert opinions and deep, close scrutiny of all the arguments that exist out there .

If you make a claim that no one else has made, your teacher is going to be like “Have you even been reading the evidence on this topic?” The answer, if there are no citations is likely: No. You haven’t.

Even if you totally disagree with the experts, you still need to say what their opinions are! You’ll need to say: “This is the experts’ opinions. And this is why I disagree.”

So, yes, you need to reference to back up every claim. Try to reference twice in every paragraph to achieve this.

Part 3: Strategies for How to Reference in an Essay (9 Strategies of Top Students)

Let’s get going with our top strategies for how to reference in an essay! These are strategies that you probably haven’t heard elsewhere. They work for everyone – from beginner to advanced! Let’s get started:

1. Print out your Reference Style Cheat Sheet

Referencing is hard and very specific. You need to know where to place your italics, where the commas go and whether to use an initial for full name for an author.

There are so many details to get right.

And here’s the bad news: The automated referencing apps and websites nearly always get it wrong! They tell you they can generate the citation for you. The fact of the matter is: they can’t!

Here’s the best way to get referencing right: Download a referencing cheat sheet and have it by your side while writing your essay.

Your assignment outline should tell you what type of referencing you should use. Different styles include: APA Style, MLA Style, Chicago Style, Harvard Style, Vancouver Style … and many more!

You need to find out which style you need to use and download your cheat sheet. You can jump onto google to find a cheat sheet by typing in the google bar:

Download a pdf version of the referencing style cheat sheet, print it out, and place it on your pinboard or by your side when writing your essay.

2. Only cite Experts

There are good and bad sources to cite in an essay.

You should only cite sources written, critiqued and edited by experts. This shows that you have got the skill of finding information that is authoritative. You haven’t just used information that any old person popped up on their blog. You haven’t just gotten information from your local newspaper. Instead, you got information from the person who is an absolute expert on the topic.

Here’s an infographic listing sources that you should and shouldn’t cite. Feel free to share this infographic on social media, with your teachers and your friends:

3. Always use Google Scholar

Always. Use. Google. Scholar.

Ten years ago students only had their online university search database to find articles. Those university databases suck. They rarely find the best quality sources and there’s always a big mix of completely irrelevant sources mixed in there.

Google Scholar is better at finding the sources you want. That’s because it looks through the whole article abstract and analyses it to see if it’s relevant to your search keywords. By contrast, most university search databases rely only on the titles of articles.

Use the power of the best quality search engine in the world to find scholarly sources .

Note: Google and Google Scholar are different search engines.

To use Google Scholar, go to: https://scholar.google.com

Then, search on google scholar using keywords. I’m going to search keywords for an essay on the topic: “What are the traits of a good nurse?”

If you really like the idea of that first source, I recommend copying the title and trying your University online search database. Your university may give you free access.

4. Cite at least 50% sources you found on your Own Research

Okay, so I’ve told you that you should cite both assigned readings and readings you find from Google Scholar.

Here’s the ideal mix of assigned sources and sources that you found yourself: 50/50.

Your teacher will want to see that you can use both assigned readings and do your own additional research to write a top essay . This shows you’ve got great research skills but also pay attention to what is provided in class.

I recommend that you start with the assigned readings and try to get as much information out of them, then find your own additional sources beyond that using Google Scholar.

So, if your essay has 10 citations, a good mix is 5 assigned readings and 5 readings you found by yourself.

5. Cite Newer Sources

As a general rule, the newer the source the better .

The best rule of thumb that most teachers follow is that you should aim to mostly cite sources from the past 10 years . I usually accept sources from the past 15 years when marking essays.

However, sometimes you have a really great source that’s 20, 30 or 40 years old. You should only cite these sources if they’re what we call ‘seminal texts’. A seminal text is one that was written by an absolute giant in your field and revolutionized the subject.

Here’s some examples of seminal authors whose old articles you would be able to cite despite the fact that they’re old:

• Education: Vygotsky, Friere, Piaget
• Sociology: Weber, Marx, C. Wright Mills
• Psychology: Freud, Rogers, Jung

Even if I cite seminal authors, I always aim for at least 80% of my sources to have been written in the past 10 years.

6. Reference twice per Paragraph

How much should you reference?

Here’s a good strategy: Provide two citations in every paragraph in the body of the essay.

It’s not compulsory to reference in the introduction and conclusion . However, in all the other paragraphs, aim for two citations.

Let’s go over the key strategies for achieving this:

• These two citations should be to different sources, not the same sources twice;
• Two citations per paragraph shows your points are backed up by not one, but two expert sources;
• Place one citation in the first half of the paragraph and one in the second half. This will indicate to your marker that all the points in the whole paragraph are backed up by your citations.

This is a good rule of thumb for you when you’re not sure when and how often to reference. When you get more confident with your referencing, you can mix this up a little.

7. The sum total of your sources should be minimum 1 per 150 words

You can, of course, cite one source more than once throughout the essay. You might cite the same source in the second, fourth and fifth paragraphs. That’s okay.

But, you don’t want your whole essay to be based on a narrow range of sources. You want your marker to see that you have consulted multiple sources to get a wide range of information on the topic. Your marker wants to know that you’ve seen a range of different opinions when coming to your conclusions.

When you get to the end of your essay, check to see how many sources are listed in the end-text reference list. A good rule of thumb is 1 source listed in the reference list per 150 words. Here’s how that breaks down by essay size:

• 1500 word essay: 10 sources (or more) listed in the reference list
• 2000 word essay: 13 sources (or more) listed in the reference list
• 3000 word essay: 20 sources (or more) listed in the reference list
• 5000 word essay: 33 sources (or more) listed in the reference list

8. Instantly improve your Reference List with these Three Tips

Here’s two things you can do to instantly improve your reference list. It takes less than 20 seconds and gives your reference list a strong professional finish:

a) Ensure the font size and style are the same

You will usually find that your whole reference list ends up being in different font sizes and styles. This is because you tend to copy and paste the titles and names in the citations from other sources. If you submit the reference list with font sizes and styles that are not the same as the rest of the essay, the piece looks really unprofessional.

So, quickly highlight the whole reference list and change its font to the same font size and style as the rest of your essay. The screencast at the end of Step 8 walks you through this if you need a hand!

b) List your sources in alphabetical order.

Nearly every referencing style insists that references be listed in alphabetical order. It’s a simple thing to do before submitting and makes the piece look far more professional.

If you’re using Microsoft Word, simply highlight your whole reference list and click the A>Z button in the toolbar. If you can’t see it, you need to be under the ‘home’ tab (circled below):

You’ve probably never heard of a hanging indent. It’s a style where the second line of the reference list is indented further from the left-hand side of the page than the first line. It’s a strategy that’s usually used in reference lists provided in professional publications.

If you use the hanging indent, your reference list will look far more professional.

Here’s a quick video of me doing it for you:

9. Do one special edit especially for Referencing Style

The top students edit their essays three to five times spaced out over a week or more before submitting. One of those edits should be specifically for ensuring your reference list adheres to the referencing style that your teacher requires.

To do this, I recommend you get that cheat sheet printout that I mentioned in Step 1 and have it by your side while you read through the piece. Pay special attention to the use of commas, capital letters, brackets and page numbers for all citations. Also pay attention to the reference list: correct formatting of the reference list can be the difference between getting the top mark in the class and the fifth mark in the class. At the higher end of the marking range, things get competitive and formatting of the reference list counts.

A Quick Summary of the 9 Top Strategies…

Follow the rules of your referencing style guide (and that cheat sheet I recommended!) and use the top 9 tips above to improve your referencing and get top marks. Not only will your referencing look more professional, you’ll probably increase the quality of the content of your piece as well when you follow these tips!

Here’s a final summary of the 9 top tips:

Strategies for How to Reference in an Essay (9 Strategies of Top Students)

• Print out your Reference Style Cheat Sheet
• Only cite Experts
• Always use Google Scholar
• Cite at least 50% sources you found on your Own Research
• Cite Newer Sources
• Reference twice per Paragraph
• The sum total of your sources should be minimum 1 per 150 words
• Instantly improve your Reference List with these Three Tips
• Do one special edit especially for Referencing Style

Chris Drew (PhD)

Dr. Chris Drew is the founder of the Helpful Professor. He holds a PhD in education and has published over 20 articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education. [Image Descriptor: Photo of Chris]

• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ The Six Principles of Andragogy (Malcolm Knowles)
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ What are Pedagogical Skills? - 15 Examples
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 44 Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Examples
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Systems Theory (Pros & Cons)

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How to Write an Academic Essay with References and Citations

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Written by  Scribendi

If you're wondering how to write an academic essay with references, look no further. In this article, we'll discuss how to use in-text citations and references, including how to cite a website, how to cite a book, and how to cite a Tweet, according to various style guides.

You might need to cite sources when writing a paper that references other sources. For example, when writing an essay, you may use information from other works, such as books, articles, or websites. You must then inform readers where this information came from. Failure to do so, even accidentally, is plagiarism—passing off another person's work as your own.

You can avoid plagiarism and show readers where to find information by using citations and references. 

Citations tell readers where a piece of information came from. They take the form of footnotes, endnotes, or parenthetical elements, depending on your style guide. In-text citations are usually placed at the end of a sentence containing the relevant information. 

A reference list , bibliography, or works cited list at the end of a text provides additional details about these cited sources. This list includes enough publication information allowing readers to look up these sources themselves.

Referencing is important for more than simply avoiding plagiarism. Referring to a trustworthy source shows that the information is reliable. Referring to reliable information can also support your major points and back up your argument. 

Learning how to write an academic essay with references and how to use in-text citations will allow you to cite authors who have made similar arguments. This helps show that your argument is objective and not entirely based on personal biases.

How Do You Determine Which Style Guide to Use?

Often, a professor will assign a style guide. The purpose of a style guide is to provide writers with formatting instructions. If your professor has not assigned a style guide, they should still be able to recommend one. 

If you are entirely free to choose, pick one that aligns with your field (for example, APA is frequently used for scientific writing). 

Some of the most common style guides are as follows:

AP style for journalism

Chicago style for publishing

APA style for scholarly writing (commonly used in scientific fields)

MLA style for scholarly citations (commonly used in English literature fields)

Some journals have their own style guides, so if you plan to publish, check which guide your target journal uses. You can do this by locating your target journal's website and searching for author guidelines.

How Do You Pick Your Sources?

When learning how to write an academic essay with references, you must identify reliable sources that support your argument. 

As you read, think critically and evaluate sources for:

Objectivity

Keep detailed notes on the sources so that you can easily find them again, if needed.

Tip: Record these notes in the format of your style guide—your reference list will then be ready to go.

How to Use In-Text Citations in MLA

An in-text citation in MLA includes the author's last name and the relevant page number: 

(Author 123)

How to Cite a Website in MLA

Here's how to cite a website in MLA:

Author's last name, First name. "Title of page."

Website. Website Publisher, date. Web. Date

retrieved. <URL>

With information from a real website, this looks like:

Morris, Nancy. "How to Cite a Tweet in APA,

Chicago, and MLA." Scribendi. Scribendi

Inc., n.d. Web. 22 Dec. 2021.

<https://www.scribendi.com/academy/articles/how_to_cite_a_website.en.html>

How Do You Cite a Tweet in MLA ?

MLA uses the full text of a short Tweet (under 140 characters) as its title. Longer Tweets can be shortened using ellipses. 

MLA Tweet references should be formatted as follows:

@twitterhandle (Author Name). "Text of Tweet." Twitter, Date Month, Year, time of

publication, URL.

With information from an actual Tweet, this looks like:

@neiltyson (Neil deGrasse Tyson). "You can't use reason to convince anyone out of an

argument that they didn't use reason to get into." Twitter, 29 Sept. 2020, 10:15 p.m.,

https://twitter.com/neiltyson/status/1311127369785192449 .

How to Cite a Book in MLA

Here's how to cite a book in MLA:

Author's last name, First name. Book Title. Publisher, Year.

With publication information from a real book, this looks like:

Montgomery, L.M. Rainbow Valley. Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1919.

How to Cite a Chapter in a Book in MLA

Author's last name, First name. "Title of Chapter." Book Title , edited by Editor Name,

Publisher, Year, pp. page range.

With publication information from an actual book, this looks like:

Ezell, Margaret J.M. "The Social Author: Manuscript Culture, Writers, and Readers." The

Broadview Reader in Book History , edited by Michelle Levy and Tom Mole, Broadview

Press, 2015,pp. 375–394.

How to  Cite a Paraphrase in MLA

You can cite a paraphrase in MLA exactly the same way as you would cite a direct quotation. 

Make sure to include the author's name (either in the text or in the parenthetical citation) and the relevant page number.

How to Use In-Text Citations in APA

In APA, in-text citations include the author's last name and the year of publication; a page number is included only if a direct quotation is used: 

(Author, 2021, p. 123)

How to Cite a Website in APA

Here's how to cite a website in APA:

Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Year, Month. date of publication). Title of page. https://URL

Morris, N. (n.d.). How to cite a Tweet in APA, Chicago, and MLA. 

https://www.scribendi.com/academy/articles/how_to_cite_a_website.en.html       

Tip: Learn more about how to write an academic essay with  references to websites .

How Do You  Cite a Tweet in APA ?

APA refers to Tweets using their first 20 words. 

Tweet references should be formatted as follows:

Author, A. A. [@twitterhandle). (Year, Month. date of publication). First 20 words of the

Tweet. [Tweet] Twitter. URL

When we input information from a real Tweet, this looks like:

deGrasse Tyson, N. [@neiltyson]. (2020, Sept. 29). You can't use reason to convince anyone

out of an argument that they didn't use reason to get into. [Tweet] Twitter.

https://twitter.com/neiltyson/status/1311127369785192449

How to Cite a Book in APA

Here's how to cite a book in APA:   

Author, A. A. (Year). Book title. Publisher.

For a real book, this looks like:

Montgomery, L. M. (1919). Rainbow valley.

Frederick A. Stokes Company.

How to Cite a Chapter in a Book in APA

Author, A. A. (Year). Chapter title. In Editor Name (Ed.), Book Title (pp. page range).

With information from a real book, this looks like:

Ezell, M. J. M. (2014). The social author: Manuscript culture, writers, and readers. In

Michelle Levy and Tom Mole (Eds.), The Broadview Reader in Book History (pp. 375–

394). Broadview Press.

Knowing how to cite a book and how to cite a chapter in a book correctly will take you a long way in creating an effective reference list.

How to Cite a Paraphrase in APA

You can cite a paraphrase in APA the same way as you would cite a direct quotation, including the author's name and year of publication. 

In APA, you may also choose to pinpoint the page from which the information is taken.

Referencing is an essential part of academic integrity. Learning how to write an academic essay with references and how to use in-text citations shows readers that you did your research and helps them locate your sources.

Learning how to cite a website, how to cite a book, and how to cite a paraphrase can also help you avoid plagiarism —an academic offense with serious consequences for your education or professional reputation.

Scribendi can help format your citations or review your whole paper with our Academic Editing services .

Take Your Essay from Good to Great

Hire an expert academic editor , or get a free sample, about the author.

Scribendi's in-house editors work with writers from all over the globe to perfect their writing. They know that no piece of writing is complete without a professional edit, and they love to see a good piece of writing transformed into a great one. Scribendi's in-house editors are unrivaled in both experience and education, having collectively edited millions of words and obtained numerous degrees. They love consuming caffeinated beverages, reading books of various genres, and relaxing in quiet, dimly lit spaces.

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"The Complete Beginner's Guide to Academic Writing"

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• Knowledge Base
• Referencing

A Quick Guide to Referencing | Cite Your Sources Correctly

Referencing means acknowledging the sources you have used in your writing. Including references helps you support your claims and ensures that you avoid plagiarism .

There are many referencing styles, but they usually consist of two things:

• A citation wherever you refer to a source in your text.
• A reference list or bibliography at the end listing full details of all your sources.

The most common method of referencing in UK universities is Harvard style , which uses author-date citations in the text. Our free Harvard Reference Generator automatically creates accurate references in this style.

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Table of contents

Referencing styles, citing your sources with in-text citations, creating your reference list or bibliography, harvard referencing examples, frequently asked questions about referencing.

Each referencing style has different rules for presenting source information. For in-text citations, some use footnotes or endnotes , while others include the author’s surname and date of publication in brackets in the text.

The reference list or bibliography is presented differently in each style, with different rules for things like capitalisation, italics, and quotation marks in references.

Your university will usually tell you which referencing style to use; they may even have their own unique style. Always follow your university’s guidelines, and ask your tutor if you are unsure. The most common styles are summarised below.

Harvard referencing, the most commonly used style at UK universities, uses author–date in-text citations corresponding to an alphabetical bibliography or reference list at the end.

Harvard Referencing Guide

Vancouver referencing, used in biomedicine and other sciences, uses reference numbers in the text corresponding to a numbered reference list at the end.

Vancouver Referencing Guide

APA referencing, used in the social and behavioural sciences, uses author–date in-text citations corresponding to an alphabetical reference list at the end.

APA Referencing Guide APA Reference Generator

MHRA referencing, used in the humanities, uses footnotes in the text with source information, in addition to an alphabetised bibliography at the end.

MHRA Referencing Guide

OSCOLA referencing, used in law, uses footnotes in the text with source information, and an alphabetical bibliography at the end in longer texts.

OSCOLA Referencing Guide

Prevent plagiarism, run a free check.

In-text citations should be used whenever you quote, paraphrase, or refer to information from a source (e.g. a book, article, image, website, or video).

Quoting and paraphrasing

Quoting is when you directly copy some text from a source and enclose it in quotation marks to indicate that it is not your own writing.

Paraphrasing is when you rephrase the original source into your own words. In this case, you don’t use quotation marks, but you still need to include a citation.

In most referencing styles, page numbers are included when you’re quoting or paraphrasing a particular passage. If you are referring to the text as a whole, no page number is needed.

In-text citations

In-text citations are quick references to your sources. In Harvard referencing, you use the author’s surname and the date of publication in brackets.

Up to three authors are included in a Harvard in-text citation. If the source has more than three authors, include the first author followed by ‘ et al. ‘

The point of these citations is to direct your reader to the alphabetised reference list, where you give full information about each source. For example, to find the source cited above, the reader would look under ‘J’ in your reference list to find the title and publication details of the source.

Placement of in-text citations

In-text citations should be placed directly after the quotation or information they refer to, usually before a comma or full stop. If a sentence is supported by multiple sources, you can combine them in one set of brackets, separated by a semicolon.

If you mention the author’s name in the text already, you don’t include it in the citation, and you can place the citation immediately after the name.

• Another researcher warns that the results of this method are ‘inconsistent’ (Singh, 2018, p. 13) .
• Previous research has frequently illustrated the pitfalls of this method (Singh, 2018; Jones, 2016) .
• Singh (2018, p. 13) warns that the results of this method are ‘inconsistent’.

The terms ‘bibliography’ and ‘reference list’ are sometimes used interchangeably. Both refer to a list that contains full information on all the sources cited in your text. Sometimes ‘bibliography’ is used to mean a more extensive list, also containing sources that you consulted but did not cite in the text.

A reference list or bibliography is usually mandatory, since in-text citations typically don’t provide full source information. For styles that already include full source information in footnotes (e.g. OSCOLA and Chicago Style ), the bibliography is optional, although your university may still require you to include one.

Format of the reference list

Reference lists are usually alphabetised by authors’ last names. Each entry in the list appears on a new line, and a hanging indent is applied if an entry extends onto multiple lines.

Different source information is included for different source types. Each style provides detailed guidelines for exactly what information should be included and how it should be presented.

Below are some examples of reference list entries for common source types in Harvard style.

• Chapter of a book
• Journal article

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Your university should tell you which referencing style to follow. If you’re unsure, check with a supervisor. Commonly used styles include:

• Harvard referencing , the most commonly used style in UK universities.
• MHRA , used in humanities subjects.
• APA , used in the social sciences.
• Vancouver , used in biomedicine.
• OSCOLA , used in law.

Your university may have its own referencing style guide.

If you are allowed to choose which style to follow, we recommend Harvard referencing, as it is a straightforward and widely used style.

References should be included in your text whenever you use words, ideas, or information from a source. A source can be anything from a book or journal article to a website or YouTube video.

If you don’t acknowledge your sources, you can get in trouble for plagiarism .

To avoid plagiarism , always include a reference when you use words, ideas or information from a source. This shows that you are not trying to pass the work of others off as your own.

You must also properly quote or paraphrase the source. If you’re not sure whether you’ve done this correctly, you can use the Scribbr Plagiarism Checker to find and correct any mistakes.

Harvard referencing uses an author–date system. Sources are cited by the author’s last name and the publication year in brackets. Each Harvard in-text citation corresponds to an entry in the alphabetised reference list at the end of the paper.

Vancouver referencing uses a numerical system. Sources are cited by a number in parentheses or superscript. Each number corresponds to a full reference at the end of the paper.

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Quick guide to Harvard referencing (Cite Them Right)

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There are different versions of the Harvard referencing style. This guide is a quick introduction to the commonly-used Cite Them Right version. You will find further guidance available through the OU Library on the Cite Them Right Database .

For help and support with referencing and the full Cite Them Right guide, have a look at the Library’s page on referencing and plagiarism . If you need guidance referencing OU module material you can check out which sections of Cite Them Right are recommended when referencing physical and online module material .

This guide does not apply to OU Law undergraduate students . If you are studying a module beginning with W1xx, W2xx or W3xx, you should refer to the Quick guide to Cite Them Right referencing for Law modules .

Table of contents

In-text citations and full references.

• Secondary referencing
• Page numbers
• Citing multiple sources published in the same year by the same author

Full reference examples

Referencing consists of two elements:

• in-text citations, which are inserted in the body of your text and are included in the word count. An in-text citation gives the author(s) and publication date of a source you are referring to. If the publication date is not given, the phrase 'no date' is used instead of a date. If using direct quotations or you refer to a specific section in the source you also need the page number/s if available, or paragraph number for web pages.
• full references, which are given in alphabetical order in reference list at the end of your work and are not included in the word count. Full references give full bibliographical information for all the sources you have referred to in the body of your text.

To see a reference list and intext citations check out this example assignment on Cite Them Right .

Difference between reference list and bibliography

a reference list only includes sources you have referred to in the body of your text

a bibliography includes sources you have referred to in the body of your text AND sources that were part of your background reading that you did not use in your assignment

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Examples of in-text citations

You need to include an in-text citation wherever you quote or paraphrase from a source. An in-text citation consists of the last name of the author(s), the year of publication, and a page number if relevant. There are a number of ways of incorporating in-text citations into your work - some examples are provided below. Alternatively you can see examples of setting out in-text citations in Cite Them Right .

Note: When referencing a chapter of an edited book, your in-text citation should give the author(s) of the chapter.

Online module materials

(Includes written online module activities, audio-visual material such as online tutorials, recordings or videos).

When referencing material from module websites, the date of publication is the year you started studying the module.

Surname, Initial. (Year of publication/presentation) 'Title of item'. Module code: Module title . Available at: URL of VLE (Accessed: date).

OR, if there is no named author:

The Open University (Year of publication/presentation) 'Title of item'. Module code: Module title . Available at: URL of VLE (Accessed: date).

Rietdorf, K. and Bootman, M. (2022) 'Topic 3: Rare diseases'. S290: Investigating human health and disease . Available at: https://learn2.open.ac.uk/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=1967195 (Accessed: 24 January 2023).

The Open University (2022) ‘3.1 The purposes of childhood and youth research’. EK313: Issues in research with children and young people . Available at: https://learn2.open.ac.uk/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=1949633&section=1.3 (Accessed: 24 January 2023).

You can also use this template to reference videos and audio that are hosted on your module website:

The Open University (2022) ‘Video 2.7 An example of a Frith-Happé animation’. SK298: Brain, mind and mental health . Available at: https://learn2.open.ac.uk/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=2013014&section=4.9.6 (Accessed: 22 November 2022).

The Open University (2022) ‘Audio 2 Interview with Richard Sorabji (Part 2)’. A113: Revolutions . Available at: https://learn2.open.ac.uk/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=1960941&section=5.6 (Accessed: 22 November 2022).

Note: if a complete journal article has been uploaded to a module website, or if you have seen an article referred to on the website and then accessed the original version, reference the original journal article, and do not mention the module materials. If only an extract from an article is included in your module materials that you want to reference, you should use secondary referencing, with the module materials as the 'cited in' source, as described above.

Surname, Initial. (Year of publication) 'Title of message', Title of discussion board , in Module code: Module title . Available at: URL of VLE (Accessed: date).

Fitzpatrick, M. (2022) ‘A215 - presentation of TMAs', Tutor group discussion & Workbook activities , in A215: Creative writing . Available at: https://learn2.open.ac.uk/mod/forumng/discuss.php?d=4209566 (Accessed: 24 January 2022).

Note: When an ebook looks like a printed book, with publication details and pagination, reference as a printed book.

Surname, Initial. (Year of publication) Title . Edition if later than first. Place of publication: publisher. Series and volume number if relevant.

For ebooks that do not contain print publication details

Surname, Initial. (Year of publication) Title of book . Available at: DOI or URL (Accessed: date).

Example with one author:

Bell, J. (2014) Doing your research project . Maidenhead: Open University Press.

Adams, D. (1979) The hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy . Available at: http://www.amazon.co.uk/kindle-ebooks (Accessed: 23 June 2021).

Example with two or three authors:

Goddard, J. and Barrett, S. (2015) The health needs of young people leaving care . Norwich: University of East Anglia, School of Social Work and Psychosocial Studies.

Example with four or more authors:

Young, H.D. et al. (2015) Sears and Zemansky's university physics . San Francisco, CA: Addison-Wesley.

Note: You can choose one or other method to reference four or more authors (unless your School requires you to name all authors in your reference list) and your approach should be consistent.

Note: Books that have an editor, or editors, where each chapter is written by a different author or authors.

Surname of chapter author, Initial. (Year of publication) 'Title of chapter or section', in Initial. Surname of book editor (ed.) Title of book . Place of publication: publisher, Page reference.

Franklin, A.W. (2012) 'Management of the problem', in S.M. Smith (ed.) The maltreatment of children . Lancaster: MTP, pp. 83–95.

Surname, Initial. (Year of publication) 'Title of article', Title of Journal , volume number (issue number), page reference.

If accessed online:

Surname, Initial. (Year of publication) 'Title of article', Title of Journal , volume number (issue number), page reference. Available at: DOI or URL (if required) (Accessed: date).

Shirazi, T. (2010) 'Successful teaching placements in secondary schools: achieving QTS practical handbooks', European Journal of Teacher Education , 33(3), pp. 323–326.

Shirazi, T. (2010) 'Successful teaching placements in secondary schools: achieving QTS practical handbooks', European Journal of Teacher Education , 33(3), pp. 323–326. Available at: https://libezproxy.open.ac.uk/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/log... (Accessed: 27 January 2023).

Barke, M. and Mowl, G. (2016) 'Málaga – a failed resort of the early twentieth century?', Journal of Tourism History , 2(3), pp. 187–212. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/1755182X.2010.523145

Surname, Initial. (Year of publication) 'Title of article', Title of Newspaper , Day and month, Page reference.

Surname, Initial. (Year of publication) 'Title of article', Title of Newspaper , Day and month, Page reference if available. Available at: URL (Accessed: date).

Mansell, W. and Bloom, A. (2012) ‘£10,000 carrot to tempt physics experts’, The Guardian , 20 June, p. 5.

Roberts, D. and Ackerman, S. (2013) 'US draft resolution allows Obama 90 days for military action against Syria', The Guardian , 4 September. Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/04/syria-strikes-draft-resolut... (Accessed: 9 September 2015).

Surname, Initial. (Year that the site was published/last updated) Title of web page . Available at: URL (Accessed: date).

Organisation (Year that the page was last updated) Title of web page . Available at: URL (Accessed: date).

Robinson, J. (2007) Social variation across the UK . Available at: https://www.bl.uk/british-accents-and-dialects/articles/social-variation... (Accessed: 21 November 2021).

The British Psychological Society (2018) Code of Ethics and Conduct . Available at: https://www.bps.org.uk/news-and-policy/bps-code-ethics-and-conduct (Accessed: 22 March 2019).

Note: Cite Them Right Online offers guidance for referencing webpages that do not include authors' names and dates. However, be extra vigilant about the suitability of such webpages.

Surname, Initial. (Year) Title of photograph . Available at: URL (Accessed: date).

Kitton, J. (2013) Golden sunset . Available at: https://www.jameskittophotography.co.uk/photo_8692150.html (Accessed: 21 November 2021).

stanitsa_dance (2021) Cossack dance ensemble . Available at: https://www.instagram.com/p/COI_slphWJ_/ (Accessed: 13 June 2023).

Note: If no title can be found then replace it with a short description.

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Home / Guides / Citation Guides / MLA Format / How to Cite an Essay in MLA

How to Cite an Essay in MLA

The guidelines for citing an essay in MLA format are similar to those for citing a chapter in a book. Include the author of the essay, the title of the essay, the name of the collection if the essay belongs to one, the editor of the collection or other contributors, the publication information, and the page number(s).

Citing an Essay

Mla essay citation structure.

Last, First M. “Essay Title.” Collection Title, edited by First M. Last, Publisher, year published, page numbers. Website Title , URL (if applicable).

MLA Essay Citation Example

Gupta, Sanjay. “Balancing and Checking.” Essays on Modern Democracy, edited by Bob Towsky, Brook Stone Publishers, 1996, pp. 36-48. Essay Database, www . databaseforessays.org/modern/modern-democracy.

MLA Essay In-text Citation Structure

(Last Name Page #)

MLA Essay In-text Citation Example

Click here to cite an essay via an EasyBib citation form.

MLA Formatting Guide

MLA Formatting

• Annotated Bibliography
• Bibliography
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• et al Usage
• In-text Citations
• Paraphrasing
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• Sample Paper
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• View MLA Guide

Citation Examples

• Book Chapter
• Journal Article
• Magazine Article
• Newspaper Article
• Website (no author)
• View all MLA Examples

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To cite your sources in an essay in MLA style, you need to have basic information including the author’s name(s), chapter title, book title, editor(s), publication year, publisher, and page numbers. The templates for in-text citations and a works-cited-list entry for essay sources and some examples are given below:

In-text citation template and example:

For citations in prose, use the first name and surname of the author on the first occurrence. For subsequent citations, use only the surname(s). In parenthetical citations, always use only the surname of the author(s).

Citation in prose:

First mention: Annette Wheeler Cafarelli

Subsequent occurrences: Wheeler Cafarelli

Parenthetical:

….(Wheeler Cafarelli).

Works-cited-list entry template and example:

The title of the chapter is enclosed in double quotation marks and uses title case. The book or collection title is given in italics and uses title case.

Surname, First Name. “Title of the Chapter.” Title of the Book , edited by Editor(s) Name, Publisher, Publication Year, page range.

Cafarelli, Annette Wheeler. “Rousseau and British Romanticism: Women and British Romanticism.” Cultural Interactions in the Romantic Age: Critical Essays in Comparative Literature , edited by Gregory Maertz. State U of New York P, 1998, pp. 125–56.

To cite an essay in MLA style, you need to have basic information including the author(s), the essay title, the book title, editor(s), publication year, publisher, and page numbers. The templates for citations in prose, parenthetical citations, and works-cited-list entries for an essay by multiple authors, and some examples, are given below:

For citations in prose, use the first name and surname of the author (e.g., Mary Strine).

For sources with two authors, use both full author names in prose (e.g., Mary Strine and Beth Radick).

For sources with three or more authors, use the first name and surname of the first author followed by “and others” or “and colleagues” (e.g., Mary Strine and others). In subsequent citations, use only the surname of the first author followed by “and others” or “and colleagues” (e.g., Strine and others).

In parenthetical citations, use only the author’s surname. For sources with two authors, use two surnames (e.g., Strine and Radick). For sources with three or more author names, use the first author’s surname followed by “et al.”

First mention: Mary Strine…

Subsequent mention: Strine…

First mention: Mary Strine and Beth Radick…

Subsequent mention: Strine and Radick…

First mention: Mary Strine and colleagues …. or Mary Strine and others

Subsequent occurrences: Strine and colleagues …. or Strine and others

…. (Strine).

….(Strine and Radick).

….(Strine et al.).

The title of the essay is enclosed in double quotation marks and uses title case. The book or collection title is given in italics and uses title case.

Surname, First Name, et al. “Title of the Essay.” Title of the Book , edited by Editor(s) Name, Publisher, Publication Year, page range.

Strine, Mary M., et al. “Research in Interpretation and Performance Studies: Trends, Issues, Priorities.” Speech Communication: Essays to Commemorate the 75th Anniversary of the Speech Communication Association , edited by Gerald M. Phillips and Julia T. Wood, Southern Illinois UP, 1990, pp. 181–204.

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Referencing - BU Harvard 23-24 Full Guide: Welcome

• Print Versions of Guide
• What information you need: author/date/page numbers
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• No author or identifiable person/organisation
• Author published more than one source in same year
• Inserting Pictures and Tables (Figures)
• More than one source cited
• Abbreviating organisation names
• Source cited or quoted in another source (citing second hand)
• Chapter author of an edited book
• Legislation - UK Statutes (Acts of Parliament)
• Personal communications e.g interviews, photographs
• Unpublished sources e.g lectures
• Scriptural citations(e.g. Bible or Koran/Qur'an)
• Finding information to create a reference list
• Reference list or Bibliography?
• Journal Article
• Guidelines or Codes of Practice (including public and private documents)
• Newspaper Article
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• Reference books, Encyclopedias and Formularies
• Legislation and Cases
• Translated Materials (non-English sources)
• Standards and Patents
• Images or Photographs
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• Social Media (e.g. Twitter, Facebook, blogs, apps)
• Moving Images and Sound (e.g. YouTube, podcast, TV, film, song, radio)
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Referencing at BU

Why you need to reference?

• Anything you use from a source that is written or produced by another author should be cited in the main text of your work and referenced in a list at the end of your work.
• Consistency and accuracy of referencing is important to verify quotations, enable readers to follow up and read cited author’s arguments.
• Referencing correctly is part of demonstrating your  academic integrity  and it's necessary to avoid accusations of academic offences , particularly  plagiarism   which is a serious offence.

This online guide recommends how to cite and reference according to BU’s version of the Harvard style, which is Author Date:

• In the Harvard system all cited publications are referred to in the main body of text by giving the author’s surname/family name and the year of publication.
• Each cited publication must have a corresponding full reference in the list of references at the end of your work. The references are listed in alphabetical order by author surname / name of organisation.

Which referencing style should I use?

All students should use BU Harvard unless they are studying on the following programmes:

• Law students  should follow BU’s online guides  Referencing – UK & EU Law  and  Referencing – International law .
• Psychology students  should follow  APA style .
• History students  should follow  Chicago Style .
• Criminology with Psychology  (Faculty HSS) students need to use both  BU Harvard  and  APA

Criminology with Law  (Faculty HSS) students use  BU Harvard  and OSCOLA referencing style guidance -  UK & EU Law   and   International Law .   Any questions please email HSS Library Team  ([email protected]).

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• Last Updated: May 22, 2024 3:38 PM
• URL: https://libguides.bournemouth.ac.uk/bu-referencing-harvard-style

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Q. How do I refer to a book by title in-text in APA format?

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Answered By: Gabe Gossett Last Updated: Jun 22, 2023     Views: 636004

The basic format for an in-text citation is: Title of the Book (Author Last Name, year).

One author: Where the Wild Things Are (Sendak, 1963) is a depiction of a child coping with his anger towards his mom.

Two authors (cite both names every time): Brabant and Mooney (1986) have used the comic strip to examine evidence of sex role stereotyping. OR The comic strip has been used to examine evidence of sex role stereotyping (Brabant & Mooney, 1986).

Three or more authors (cite the first author plus et al.): Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy (Clare et al., 2016) depicts a young man's experience at the Shadowhunter Academy, a place where being a former vampire is looked down upon.OR Clare et al. (2016) have crafted a unique story about a young man's journey to find himself.

No author: Cite the first few words of the reference entry (usually the title) and the year. Use double quotation marks around the title of an article or chapter, and italicize the title of a periodical, book, brochure, or report. Examples: From the book Study Guide (2000) ... or ("Reading," 1999).

Note: Titles of periodicals, books, brochures, or reports should be in italics and use normal title capitalization rules.

If you are citing multiple sources by multiple authors in-text, you can list all of them by the author's last name and year of publication within the same set of parentheses, separated by semicolons.

Example: (Adams, 1999; Jones & James, 2000; Miller, 1999)

For more information on how to cite books in-text and as a reference entry, see the APA Publication Manual (7th edition) Section 10.2 on pages 321-325 .

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Comments (13)

• This was very useful for me! I was having a really hard time finding information on how to mention an article title AND the author in text in APA so this was very helpful!!! by Ryan Waddell on Jun 27, 2019
• If I just mention that I used a book to teach a topic do I have to include it in the reference list? by Franw on Oct 17, 2019
• @Franw, if it is a source that informs your paper in any way, or if your reader would have reason to look it up, then you should include a full reference list entry for the book. by Gabe [Research & Writing Studio] on Oct 18, 2019
• Maybe I'm misunderstanding the question, but I think the OP is asking how to refer to a book title, not how to cite one. I believe APA uses quotation marks around book titles and MLA uses italics. by AB on Dec 12, 2019
• @AB: The first sentence has been tweaked to clarify title of book usage, reflecting the examples given. For APA style you should use italics for book titles. It would be quotation marks. by Gabe [Research & Writing Studio] on Dec 12, 2019
• Hi, can any one help me with in-text-citation of this, how can i cite it in the text Panel, I. L. (2002). Digital transformation: A framework for ICT literacy. Educational Testing Service, 1-53. by Milad on Aug 20, 2021
• @Milad: In that case it would be (Panel, 2002). If you are quoting, or otherwise choosing to include page numbers, put a comma after the year, then p. and the page number(s). by Gabe Gossett on Aug 20, 2021
• Hey, I'm a little bit curious, what if I'm mentioning a book and paraphrasing it but still want to give credit. Would I put the information into parenthesis instead? Like: Paraphrased info. ("Title in Italics" Author, year) by Kai on Sep 14, 2023
• @Kai: Apologies for not seeing your question sooner! (Our academic year has not started yet). If I am understanding your question correctly, what I suggest is referring to the book title in the narrative of your writing, rather than in the in-text citation. I do not see an examples of using a book title in an in-text citation except for rare circumstances including citing a classic religious text or using the title when there is no author information because it is the start of your reference list entry. Basically, APA's in-text convention is supposed to make it easy for your reader to locate the source being cited in the reference list. So the first part of the in-text citation, usually authors, comes first to locate it alphabetically. Putting the book title first when you have an author name can throw that off. by Gabe Gossett on Sep 21, 2023
• Perhaps this is along the lines of the response to Kai - Can you reference a book title as a common point of social understanding to demonstrate a common concept? Is official citing required if you use widely known titles such as "Where's Waldo" and "Who Moved My Cheese?" to make a point of illustration? by Chez Renee on Sep 30, 2023
• @Chez: Aside from some classical religious texts, if it is a published book, I'd try to make sure that it is appropriately cited for APA style. That said, I think I understand where it gets tricky with things like Where's Waldo, since that is a series of books and stating "Where's Waldo" is a cultural reference many people would understand, though you can't reasonably cite the entire series. I don't believe that APA gives guidance for this particular issue. If it is being referred to in order to back up a claim, it would help to cite a particular book. If not, then it might work to use a statement such as, "Hanford's Where's Waldo series . . ." by Gabe Gossett on Oct 02, 2023
• How to cite a dissertation thesis in apa form? by Elizabeth on Feb 05, 2024
• @Elizabeth: For citing a dissertation or thesis you can check out our page answering that here https://askus.library.wwu.edu/faq/153308 by Gabe Gossett on Feb 05, 2024

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Footnote/Endnote

Author First M. Last Name, "Chapter or Essay Title," in  Book Title , ed. First M. Last Name (Place of Publication: Publisher, date), page cited.

Short version: Author Last Name, "Chapter or Essay Title (shortened if necessary)," page cited.

Bibliography

Author Last Name, First M.   "Chapter or Essay Title."  In  Book Title ,   edited by First M. Last Name,  page range.   Place of Publication: Publisher, date.

Eric Charry, "Music and Islam in Sub-Saharan Africa," in  The History of Islam in Africa , eds. Nehwmia Levtzion and Randall L. Pouwels  (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2000), 550.

Short version: Charry, "Music and Islam in Sub-Saharan Africa," 550.

Charry, Eric.   "Music and Islam in Sub-Saharan Africa."  In  The History of Islam in Africa ,   edited by Nehwmia Levtzion and Randall L. Pouwels,   545-573.   Athens, OH: Ohio  University Press, 2000.

Alan Liu, "Where is Cultural Criticism in the Digital Humanities?," in  Debates in the Digital Humanities , ed. Matthew K. Gold (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2013), accessed January 23, 2014,  http://dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/debates/text/20. 

Short version: Liu, "Where is Cultural Criticism."

Liu, Alan.  "Where is Cultural Criticism in the Digital Humanities?."   In  Debates in the Digital Humanities ,   edited by Matthew K. Gold.   Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2013.   A ccessed January 23, 2014.   http://dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/debates/text/20. 

Strobe Talbott, foreword to   Beyond Tianamen: The Politics of U.S.-China Relations 1989-2000 , by Robert L. Suettinger (Washington, D. C.: Brookings Institute Press, 2003), x.

Short version: Talbott, foreword, x.

Talbott, Strobe.   Foreword to   Beyond Tianamen: The Politics of U.S.-China Relations 1989-2000 ,   by Robert L. Suettinger,  ix-x.   Washington, D. C.: Brookings Institute  Press, 2003.

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How to Write a Paper about Your Favorite Book

Students are often asked to read a lot of literature. Sometimes, teachers also ask you to write an essay on a book you have read.

In this article, we will tell you how to write a paper on your favorite book and what its structure and content is. And then, we will give an example of a paper on the book read.

What Is a Paper About a Book?

A paper on a book is a short essay in which the author describes a certain work and expresses their thoughts and attitude toward the book. Such an essay is written in simple language and the volume is approximately 1-2 pages.

Sometimes, writing such a paper can take a lot of time since a student needs not only to read a book but also analyze it. You can use the help of experienced writers by asking them to “ write my paper ” or use this article as a guide and cope with a paper about your favorite book on your own.

Types of Paper on a Book

Before you start writing a paper on a book, you need to understand what kind of work you need to write. There are three types of paper writing on a book:

If you need to write a comment, then you are required to express a personal opinion about a particular book. Did you like the work or not? What attracted or repelled the story?

The review is an overview of storylines, characters, and their actions.

The summary contains a description and a brief retelling of the most interesting and key points of the book.

Students are most often asked to write the second type of paper on a book – a review.

Paper Structure

Regardless of the type of paper, it will have a standard structure:

• Introduction

In the introduction, the author explains what book will be discussed and what points will be touched on and analyzed.

In the main part, it is necessary to analyze the main storylines that hooked the author the most. Depending on the type of paper, this part will contain either a description of the work or its analysis.

In the final part, the author briefly retells the topic of the paper and its main points and draws conclusions. If you need to write an essay review, then in the conclusion, you need to express your attitude to this work.

How to Write a Paper on a Book

Before writing a paper about your favorite book, use our tips:

• Study the work in detail. Scanning the text or reading a summary will definitely not work here. The book must be read thoughtfully and completely.
• Take notes as you read. You can mark key points with a pencil right in the book or write them out on a draft.
• If you are writing a paper on a book for the first time, write a rough plan. Rely on the structure of the work; write down what you will write in each part of it.
• Clearly formulate the thesis of the paper because it is you who will prove it throughout the work.
• When you give arguments, take examples from the book: the actions of the characters, their relationships, and reasoning.
• If you are writing an essay about your favorite book in English, look at ready-made foreign reviews on the Internet and take key points as a basis.

Book Paper Example

To understand how to write a paper on a book, see examples:

Essay topic: “Don Quixote” by Miguel Cervantes.

This work has a deeper meaning than it seems at first glance, which is why it still causes so much controversy and disagreement. According to the author himself, Don Quixote is a satire and a parody of chivalric novels.

The hero of Cervantes is a knight who despises worldly blessings but not honor. He is sure that all his life, he has gone to the goal, which he saw in standing up for the humiliated people, punishing the unjust people, fighting for the truth, and defeating giants and monsters. He sought to do good to everyone and do no harm to anyone.

In this undoubtedly, his image is very attractive. But in his noble aspirations, Don Quixote goes beyond reality. A “fight windmills” has become a common expression denoting a person’s struggle with non-existent obstacles.

Naturally, such a struggle is absurd and futile. Don Quixote is guided only by good intentions, but he brings only harm to those around him.

At the end of the work, the Knight of the Sad Countenance comes to his senses, his mind returns to him again, and he calmly dies. But before dying, he draws up a will in favor of his niece and warns that he will disinherit if her chosen one is fond of chivalric romances.

After this work was created, the term “quixotic” appeared, which is interpreted as the absurdity of actions and deeds that cause others to laugh and characterize inappropriate behavior.

It is applied to people detached from reality, living in their own world, and weakly responsive to social norms of behavior. But if you look at Don Quixote himself, you can judge that he was a completely normal person until he read a lot of chivalric novels and caught fire with his own dream.

Based on this, the term “quixotic” can be assumed to apply to dreamers, people who are true to their goals and strive to achieve them at all costs. Such people have a wildly developed imagination, like Cervantes’s hero. But for most people, the image of Don Quixote remains a mystery; only one thing is clear – his image is immortal.

It is possible that such “Don Quixote” is sometimes found in the modern world. They are dreamers who follow their goals, even if, for most people, they do not seem real.

The whole novel is endowed with sad irony and filled with deep ideological meaning, which leaves a mark on the mind of every person and spiritually transforms the reader.

Personally, for me, the Knight of the Sad Countenance, created by Cervantes, evoked strong, emotional feelings, and after reading the book, I smiled, but the smile came out sad.

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Python Functions

Python Functions is a block of statements that return the specific task. The idea is to put some commonly or repeatedly done tasks together and make a function so that instead of writing the same code again and again for different inputs, we can do the function calls to reuse code contained in it over and over again.

Some Benefits of Using Functions

• Increase Code Readability 
• Increase Code Reusability

Python Function Declaration

The syntax to declare a function is:

Syntax of Python Function Declaration

Types of Functions in Python

Below are the different types of functions in Python :

• Built-in library function: These are Standard functions in Python that are available to use.
• User-defined function: We can create our own functions based on our requirements.

Creating a Function in Python

We can define a function in Python, using the def keyword. We can add any type of functionalities and properties to it as we require. By the following example, we can understand how to write a function in Python. In this way we can create Python function definition by using def keyword.

Calling a Function in Python

After creating a function in Python we can call it by using the name of the functions Python followed by parenthesis containing parameters of that particular function. Below is the example for calling def function Python.

Python Function with Parameters

If you have experience in C/C++ or Java then you must be thinking about the return type of the function and data type of arguments. That is possible in Python as well (specifically for Python 3.5 and above).

Python Function Syntax with Parameters

The following example uses arguments and parameters that you will learn later in this article so you can come back to it again if not understood.

Note: The following examples are defined using syntax 1, try to convert them in syntax 2 for practice.

Python Function Arguments

Arguments are the values passed inside the parenthesis of the function. A function can have any number of arguments separated by a comma.

In this example, we will create a simple function in Python to check whether the number passed as an argument to the function is even or odd.

Types of Python Function Arguments

Python supports various types of arguments that can be passed at the time of the function call. In Python, we have the following function argument types in Python:

• Default argument
• Keyword arguments (named arguments)
• Positional arguments
• Arbitrary arguments (variable-length arguments *args and **kwargs)

Let’s discuss each type in detail. 

Default Arguments

A default argument is a parameter that assumes a default value if a value is not provided in the function call for that argument. The following example illustrates Default arguments to write functions in Python.

Like C++ default arguments, any number of arguments in a function can have a default value. But once we have a default argument, all the arguments to its right must also have default values.

Keyword Arguments

The idea is to allow the caller to specify the argument name with values so that the caller does not need to remember the order of parameters.

Positional Arguments

We used the Position argument during the function call so that the first argument (or value) is assigned to name and the second argument (or value) is assigned to age. By changing the position, or if you forget the order of the positions, the values can be used in the wrong places, as shown in the Case-2 example below, where 27 is assigned to the name and Suraj is assigned to the age.

Arbitrary Keyword  Arguments

In Python Arbitrary Keyword Arguments, *args, and **kwargs can pass a variable number of arguments to a function using special symbols. There are two special symbols:

• *args in Python (Non-Keyword Arguments)
• **kwargs in Python (Keyword Arguments)

Example 1: Variable length non-keywords argument

Example 2: Variable length keyword arguments

The first string after the function is called the Document string or Docstring in short. This is used to describe the functionality of the function. The use of docstring in functions is optional but it is considered a good practice.

The below syntax can be used to print out the docstring of a function.

Example: Adding Docstring to the function

Python Function within Functions

A function that is defined inside another function is known as the inner function or nested function . Nested functions can access variables of the enclosing scope. Inner functions are used so that they can be protected from everything happening outside the function.

Anonymous Functions in Python

In Python, an anonymous function means that a function is without a name. As we already know the def keyword is used to define the normal functions and the lambda keyword is used to create anonymous functions.

Recursive Functions in Python

Recursion in Python refers to when a function calls itself. There are many instances when you have to build a recursive function to solve Mathematical and Recursive Problems.

Using a recursive function should be done with caution, as a recursive function can become like a non-terminating loop. It is better to check your exit statement while creating a recursive function.

Here we have created a recursive function to calculate the factorial of the number. You can see the end statement for this function is when n is equal to 0. 

Return Statement in Python Function

The function return statement is used to exit from a function and go back to the function caller and return the specified value or data item to the caller. The syntax for the return statement is:

The return statement can consist of a variable, an expression, or a constant which is returned at the end of the function execution. If none of the above is present with the return statement a None object is returned.

Example: Python Function Return Statement

Pass by Reference and Pass by Value

One important thing to note is, in Python every variable name is a reference. When we pass a variable to a function Python, a new reference to the object is created. Parameter passing in Python is the same as reference passing in Java.

When we pass a reference and change the received reference to something else, the connection between the passed and received parameters is broken. For example, consider the below program as follows:

Another example demonstrates that the reference link is broken if we assign a new value (inside the function). 

Exercise: Try to guess the output of the following code. 

Quick Links

• Quiz on Python Functions
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• Recent articles on Python Functions .

FAQs- Python Functions

Q1. what is function in python.

Python function is a block of code, that runs only when it is called. It is programmed to return the specific task. You can pass values in functions called parameters. It helps in performing repetitive tasks.

Q2. What are the 4 types of Functions in Python?

The main types of functions in Python are: Built-in function User-defined function Lambda functions Recursive functions

Q3. H ow to Write a Function in Python ?

To write a function in Python you can use the def keyword and then write the function name. You can provide the function code after using ‘:’. Basic syntax to define a function is: def function_name(): #statement

Q4. What are the parameters of a function in Python?

Parameters in Python are the variables that take the values passed as arguments when calling the functions. A function can have any number of parameters. You can also set default value to a parameter in Python.

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In-Text Citations: The Basics

Welcome to the Purdue OWL

This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice.

Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.

Note:  This page reflects the latest version of the APA Publication Manual (i.e., APA 7), which released in October 2019. The equivalent resource for the older APA 6 style  can be found here .

Reference citations in text are covered on pages 261-268 of the Publication Manual. What follows are some general guidelines for referring to the works of others in your essay.

Note:  On pages 117-118, the Publication Manual suggests that authors of research papers should use the past tense or present perfect tense for signal phrases that occur in the literature review and procedure descriptions (for example, Jones (1998)  found  or Jones (1998)  has found ...). Contexts other than traditionally-structured research writing may permit the simple present tense (for example, Jones (1998)  finds ).

APA Citation Basics

When using APA format, follow the author-date method of in-text citation. This means that the author's last name and the year of publication for the source should appear in the text, like, for example, (Jones, 1998). One complete reference for each source should appear in the reference list at the end of the paper.

If you are referring to an idea from another work but  NOT  directly quoting the material, or making reference to an entire book, article or other work, you only have to make reference to the author and year of publication and not the page number in your in-text reference.

On the other hand, if you are directly quoting or borrowing from another work, you should include the page number at the end of the parenthetical citation. Use the abbreviation “p.” (for one page) or “pp.” (for multiple pages) before listing the page number(s). Use an en dash for page ranges. For example, you might write (Jones, 1998, p. 199) or (Jones, 1998, pp. 199–201). This information is reiterated below.

Regardless of how they are referenced, all sources that are cited in the text must appear in the reference list at the end of the paper.

In-text citation capitalization, quotes, and italics/underlining

• Always capitalize proper nouns, including author names and initials: D. Jones.
• If you refer to the title of a source within your paper, capitalize all words that are four letters long or greater within the title of a source:  Permanence and Change . Exceptions apply to short words that are verbs, nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and adverbs:  Writing New Media ,  There Is Nothing Left to Lose .

( Note:  in your References list, only the first word of a title will be capitalized:  Writing new media .)

• When capitalizing titles, capitalize both words in a hyphenated compound word:  Natural-Born Cyborgs .
• Capitalize the first word after a dash or colon: "Defining Film Rhetoric: The Case of Hitchcock's  Vertigo ."
• If the title of the work is italicized in your reference list, italicize it and use title case capitalization in the text:  The Closing of the American Mind ;  The Wizard of Oz ;  Friends .
• If the title of the work is not italicized in your reference list, use double quotation marks and title case capitalization (even though the reference list uses sentence case): "Multimedia Narration: Constructing Possible Worlds;" "The One Where Chandler Can't Cry."

Short quotations

If you are directly quoting from a work, you will need to include the author, year of publication, and page number for the reference (preceded by "p." for a single page and “pp.” for a span of multiple pages, with the page numbers separated by an en dash).

You can introduce the quotation with a signal phrase that includes the author's last name followed by the date of publication in parentheses.

If you do not include the author’s name in the text of the sentence, place the author's last name, the year of publication, and the page number in parentheses after the quotation.

Long quotations

Place direct quotations that are 40 words or longer in a free-standing block of typewritten lines and omit quotation marks. Start the quotation on a new line, indented 1/2 inch from the left margin, i.e., in the same place you would begin a new paragraph. Type the entire quotation on the new margin, and indent the first line of any subsequent paragraph within the quotation 1/2 inch from the new margin. Maintain double-spacing throughout, but do not add an extra blank line before or after it. The parenthetical citation should come after the closing punctuation mark.

Because block quotation formatting is difficult for us to replicate in the OWL's content management system, we have simply provided a screenshot of a generic example below.

Formatting example for block quotations in APA 7 style.

Quotations from sources without pages

Direct quotations from sources that do not contain pages should not reference a page number. Instead, you may reference another logical identifying element: a paragraph, a chapter number, a section number, a table number, or something else. Older works (like religious texts) can also incorporate special location identifiers like verse numbers. In short: pick a substitute for page numbers that makes sense for your source.

Summary or paraphrase

If you are paraphrasing an idea from another work, you only have to make reference to the author and year of publication in your in-text reference and may omit the page numbers. APA guidelines, however, do encourage including a page range for a summary or paraphrase when it will help the reader find the information in a longer work. 

“Things Happen, As They Do in War”: From Chaucer’s Siege of Troy to the Siege of Gaza

For the love of God, is the siege over? I’m so scared of the Greeks that it’s killing me.

— Troilus and Criseyde, Book II, ll. 123–24

“However you feel about the conflict, these are points of connection worth bearing in mind,” I said. I was teaching the first class of an undergraduate seminar on Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde at the University of Oxford in fall 2023.* I was anxious, and I suspect I garbled my words. I told my students to track how the Trojan War flickers in and out of focus through the poem; I mentioned the old Crusader knights still knocking around court when Chaucer was a young man. In the process, I also attempted to reference the horror that Israel was, at that point, only beginning to unleash on Gaza.

I wanted to talk about Gaza because Israel’s siege against Palestinians has fundamentally changed how I read Troilus . When I read Chaucer in 2024, the pictures that drift through my mind are not of romantic schemes and interpersonal intrigue—ostensibly the bulk of the poem’s plot—but of rubble, bodies, unfathomable grief. Troilus , I began to see, is a poem soaked in blood.

Geoffrey Chaucer is not often thought of as a war poet. Troilus and Criseyde , his epic romance of the 1380s that unfolds against the backdrop of the Trojan War, is not often regarded as war poetry. A story of love, fate, sex, subtly shifting gendered power dynamics: Troilus tends to be described as all these things, before being identified as a poem meaningfully constituted by the conflict through which its main characters are living. Chaucer himself invites us to ignore the violent collisions of bodies playing out in and around Troy. Early in the poem, his narrator claims that explaining Troy’s destruction would be a “long digression” from his twisty love plot. 3 The narrator is almost bored by the conflict: we can imagine him sighing as he tells us that “The thynges fellen, as they don of werre” (Things happened, as they do in war). War is banal, he seems to say, following predictable patterns—it doesn’t make for a good story.

But, recently, while rereading Troilus in order to teach it, I was struck by the blunt reality of what lies at the core of Chaucer’s plot. Troilus is a poem about a city under siege. Its protagonists are a combatant—Troilus—seeking to defend that city, and a civilian woman—Criseyde—trying to negotiate her survival, even while being traded as a hostage as part of political negotiations in which she has no say. The war is not mere “backdrop.” It’s the engine of Troilus ’s plot, grounding its every action: from the vulnerable Criseyde turning to Troilus for “lordshipe” (protection), to the revelation of Criseyde’s “betrayal,” when Troilus sees her brooch pinned on a coat of arms captured from the Greek soldier Diomede.

The realization startled me, and I don’t think that my reading would have shifted so dramatically were it not for a coincidence of timing. I was rereading the poem in October 2023.

Every day, as I cycled to the library, I listened to news about how, following the deadly Hamas attacks of October 7, the Israeli state had unleashed cataclysmic violence on Gaza. Thus far, that violence has seen more than 34,000 Palestinians killed, more than 77,000 wounded, and approximately 1.9 million displaced. Those numbers are probably out of date even as I write this.

I couldn’t shake Palestine from my mind as I read Troilus . I didn’t want to. Now, more than four months into the program of mass Palestinian death recently ruled by the ICJ to risk constituting a genocide, I want to talk about reading and teaching medieval poetry in wartime. I want to talk about how Chaucer’s 600-year-old lines seem utterly changed to me now in light of what’s happening to the people of Gaza and the West Bank. And, most importantly, I want to talk about how that context needs to have a place in our classrooms.

academics—even precarious ones—cannot afford to turn a blind eye to Gaza, because, for many of us, Gaza is inextricably bound up with our work.

Troilus is the one compulsory text on Oxford’s English Literature curriculum. Students have to read it in order to demonstrate a working knowledge of Middle English. That Chaucer’s poem has been accorded this status testifies both to Chaucer’s canonicity and Troilus ’s perceived teachability. Chaucer is a deft craftsman, weaving an elaborate lattice of cloaked jokes, clever rhymes, and literary allusions over 8,239 lines. As an undergraduate, I learned to unpick that lattice, to mine the poem for Boethian phrasings and subtle manipulations of rime royal. Now, as a tutor, I am expected to teach my students how to do the same.

But I wonder now if it might be the other way around: if Chaucer crams his readers’ minds with the tragic love story of two individuals in order to avoid us glancing at the very public tragedy unfolding around them.

Crossings into Indigenous Palestine

If Calais and Acre and Alexandria came to mind for medieval readers when Chaucer describes the Greeks and Trojans spilling out one anothers’ “braynes,” is it any wonder if, reading Troilus in 2024, I think of the images of torn bodies emerging every day from Gaza? As Shokoofeh Rajabzadeh writes, exploring the continuum between medieval and modern Islamophobia, “The historical objects I engage with in my research may be temporally distant from me, but the stories they tell are not old. The violences they describe are not old.” 8 Troilus ’s violences feel piercingly fresh to me now.

When I look from the news app on my phone to the Riverside Chaucer on my desk, for example, I read of Criseyde, constantly calibrating her performance of feminine vulnerability in order to survive. I think of her first speech in the poem, appearing before the Trojan hero Hector in her widow’s habit to beg with “pit[e]ous vois” and “[tendre] wepynge” for protection, and of her last speech, correctly lamenting that she will be “rolled … on many a tonge” for having decided to accept Diomede as a lover-protector while being held hostage in the Greek camp. Criseyde’s gendered calculations recall the similarly devastating contingency of victimhood for Palestinians; the ways in which, to quote Mohammed El-Kurd , that status is accorded only to those, mostly women and children, seen to be “wounded, wailing, and weak,” and the ways in which that status is liable to be rescinded from anyone calling for, or engaging in, resistance.

Or again, I think of Diomede “wooing” Criseyde by telling her that his army will kill everyone she’s ever known; that the “folk of Troie” (Trojan people) are “alle” in “prisoun” (prison) and the city must be given up; his proclamation that “ther shal not scapen oon / That Troian is” (not a single Trojan shall escape). When I first read the poem, I never understood how Diomede could repeat these unspeakable things over and over to a woman he’s supposedly seducing. But I understand them a little better now, because I think of the Law for Palestine database of more than 500 instances of Israeli officials, legislators, army commanders, and other prominent public figures openly inciting genocide; the ease with which Israeli politicians describe their will to destroy the “ empire of evil ” that amounts to a population half made up of children; the gleeful TikToks made by IDF soldiers as they bomb and bulldoze homes and schools; and the impunity with which the Israeli state can declare its intent over and over on the international stage while hovering its finger above the detonator of the next bomb.

When I read Chaucer in 2024, I began to see that “Troilus” is a poem soaked in blood.

I want to be clear here: I am not drawing parallels for the sake of drawing parallels. I am a white British scholar, living thousands of miles from the bombings. I do not want to make Palestinian death into an academic exercise. There can be no equivalency between the Trojan War and the war in Gaza. The war in Gaza does not arise from the ‘“ravysshyng” (abduction) of legendarily beautiful women, and it is not being fought by demigods and princes. There is no question as to Gaza’s historicity and reality: Troy, by contrast, is a hazy concatenation of fantasy and garbled memories. The critical distinction is that Troy, for the medieval reader, is “always already destroyed,” available as an inert jumble of ruins onto which to project whatever national or personal grief lies to hand. 10 The destruction of Gaza City, of Khan Yunis, and, now, of Rafah, are not historical objects. They are unfolding before our eyes; they demand our intervention.

Myth and poetry, like all language, fail us when we confront Gaza. As the poet Mahmoud Darwish wrote in 1973 , “We do injustice to Gaza when we turn it into a myth, because we will hate it when we discover that it is no more than a small poor city that resists.”

Still, I can’t help thinking of Gaza when I read Troilus in the same way that I can’t help reading Troilus by anachronistic electric light: because it is the stuff of my modern world, because it is sifted into everything I think and do. Gaza is being bombed when I get dressed in my bedroom in Oxford to give a seminar, when I walk through the beautiful buildings of a centuries-old university.

It is still being bombed when I sit down in a cool quiet room with a group of 19- and 20-year-olds and read a medieval poem.

Solidarity with Palestinians is often treated, in UK higher education and elsewhere, as a controversial position. Suspicion from university administrators and government ministers alike has only intensified since October 7.

In October 2023, Education Secretary Gillian Keegan circulated a letter to university vice-chancellors urging them to act “swiftly and decisively” against pro-Palestinian groups that threatened the “welfare” of Jewish students. Also in October, the national research funding agency UKRI suspended an Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion advisory group, following pro-Palestine posts by members that another minister, Michelle Donelan, had branded “extremist.” At UCL, the Marxist Student Society was suspended for refusing to remove posters that called for “Intifada Until Victory” in Palestine. At my own institution, our branch of UCU, the lecturers’ trade union, came under fire from the national press for proposing to hear a motion that contained similar language; a different Palestine solidarity motion was overwhelmingly passed months later. And, in January, a SOAS student was reportedly raided and arrested at her home for statements she had made at a Palestine protest held in October.

These threats are only the palest shadow of the attacks academic institutions are facing in Gaza , where, as of May, every single university has been bombed, and at least 231 educators have been killed. Still, anxiety surrounding public solidarity with Palestine is hardly conducive to pedagogy that confronts the violent realities of our current moment—especially for racialized or precariously employed academics.

But academics—even precarious ones—cannot afford to turn a blind eye to Gaza, because, for many of us, Gaza is inextricably bound up with our work. Like many UK institutions, the university in which I teach and study benefits from the profits of Gaza’s destruction. My institution received an estimated £19 million from arms manufacturers between 2013 and 2021, placing it within the top five UK universities for arms trade research funding. These funders—Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce, to name a few —also supply products to the Israeli military, handing out cash for labs with one hand and components for F-35 fighter jets with the other.

My students and I are part of the university; we are, therefore, complicit in the contacts it forges with weapons dealers. It seems preferable for us to at least try to reckon with what, exactly, we are being made complicit in.

Our Siege Is Long

After I’d made my opening remarks in the fall of 2023, the seminar moved on—probably to talk about rhyme or sources or themes, or one of the other hefty Chaucerian components one has to discuss in an introductory Troilus class. As the class progressed, I wondered if I had made the right decision—if I should have plotted out my phrasing more carefully, or waited, or said nothing at all.

But when, weeks later, a student emailed me to ask if they could leave class a little early to help facilitate a Palestine solidarity demonstration, I was glad I had spoken, if only to create an environment in which that was something they felt empowered to declare. I am glad, too, that I still have classes to teach, and, therefore, that the conversation is not over.

There is a Chaucer quotation that I didn’t include in that first anxious introduction, but now wish I had. Not being a Chaucer scholar, I wasn’t familiar with it until I came across it in a paper by Jamil Al-Asmar, an academic at Al-Azhar University, which was destroyed around November 6, 2023 , after repeated airstrikes. The quotation is from the Canterbury Tales , and is, as far as I know, the only explicit reference to Gaza in Chaucer’s corpus.

While recounting the story of the Jewish hero Samson—an Israelite locked into bitter conflict with the Philistines—Chaucer’s Monk relates an incident from the Book of Judges:

By verray force at Gazan on a nyght, Maugree Philistiens of that citee, The gates of the toun he hath up plyght, And on his bak ycaryed hem hath hee Hye on an hill whereas men myghte hem see… 11 (By sheer force, one night at Gaza, despite the Philistines of that city, he yanked up the gates of the town, and carried them on his back, placing them high up on a hill where men might see them…)

As Chaucer’s audience would have known, Samson’s stand against the Philistines does not hold: his hair is cut, his strength is lost, and he is imprisoned, only escaping by pulling a temple down on himself and his captors, killing everyone inside. But here, just for a moment, we catch a glimpse of wild resistance, of liberation, of the instant in which that which had been inconceivable becomes possible.

• Here, I am thinking, as I often am, about Dorothy Kim’s description in her essay “ Teaching Medieval Studies in a Time of White Supremacy ” of medievalists as “ideological arms dealers,” who must actively “choose a side” in order to defend against racist appropriations of the history that preoccupies our working days. ↩
• Refaat Alareer, “Gaza Asks: When Shall This Pass?”, in Light in Gaza: Writings Born of Fire , edited by Jehad Abusalim, Jennifer Bing, and Michael Merryman-Lotze (Haymarket Books, 2022). ↩
• Geoffrey Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde , in The Riverside Chaucer , edited by Larry D. Benson (Houghton Mifflin, 1987), Book I, l. 143. All subsequent references are to this edition. All translations from the Middle English are my own. ↩
• Jenni Nuttall, Troilus and Criseyde: A Reader’s Guide (Cambridge University Press, 2012), p. 81. ↩
• On the Hundred Years’ War’s traces in the poem, see Patricia Clare Ingham, “Chaucer’s Haunted Aesthetics: Mimesis and Trauma in Troilus and Criseyde ,” College English vol. 72, no. 3 (2010), pp. 226–47; Ardis Butterfield, The Familiar Enemy: Chaucer, Language, and Nation in the Hundred Years War (Oxford University Press, 2009), pp. 187–200; and Daniel Davies, “‘Wereyed on every side’: Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde and the Logic of Siege Warfare,” in New Medieval Literatures 20, edited by Kellie Robertson, Wendy Scase, Laura Ashe, and Philip Knox (Boydell & Brewer, 2020), pp. 74–106. ↩
• On Chaucer’s experience of the Hundred Years’ War as a soldier, see Marion Turner, Chaucer: A European Life (Princeton University Press, 2019), pp. 71–88. ↩
• On crusading anxieties as reflected in Chaucer’s work, see Marcel Elias, “Chaucer and Crusader Ethics: Youth, Love, and the Material World,” Review of English Studies , vol. 70, no. 296 (2019), pp. 618–39; and Celia M. Lewis, “History, Mission, and Crusade in the Canterbury Tales,” Chaucer Review , vol. 42, no. 4 (2008), pp. 353–82. ↩
• Shokoofeh Rajabzadeh, “The Depoliticized Saracen and Muslim Erasure,” Literature Compass , vol. 16, no. 9-10 (2019), pp. 1-8 (p. 2). ↩
• Adania Shibli, Minor Detail , translated by Elisabeth Jaquette (Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2020), p. 60. ↩
• Marilynn Desmond, “Trojan Itineraries and the Matter of Troy,” in The Oxford History of Classical Reception in English Literature : Vol. 1, 800–1558 , edited by Rita Copeland (Oxford University Press, 2016), pp. 251–68 (251). ↩
• Chaucer, Canterbury Tales , in The Riverside Chaucer , ll. 2047–51. ↩

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Hate job interviews? New book promises lighter, brighter career process for 'very best stuff'

New book, 'i hate job interviews,' helps candidates quell stress and pump up performance.

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When a person searching for a new job receives an interview invitation, the opportunity can present a wave of emotions — everything from excitement to anxiety to stress. 

A new book by Colorado-based author Sam Owens, "I Hate Job Interviews: Stop Stressing. Start Performing. Get the Job You Want," to be released on June 4 from HarperCollins Leadership, is proposing to help job hunters land their dream jobs by mastering job interviewing. 

The timing not only resonates with new grads — but for anyone looking to start a new career opportunity . 

TOUGHEST JOB INTERVIEW QUESTION OF ALL: ‘WHAT CAN YOU IMPROVE ABOUT YOURSELF?’

Owens is a career coach who has worked with clients to boost confidence for job interviews. 

"Most of my clients are highly talented and qualified people with low interview confidence, either because they are new at it or because they’ve been out of the interview game for a long time," Owens told FOX Business.

A new book about job interviewing takes candidates "through a step-by-step process, including practicing with them and giving real-time feedback — which helps them get the jobs they want." (iStock / iStock)

"They haven't made job interview prep a priority, and it's hurting their ability to land jobs. So I take them through a step-by-step process, including practicing with them and giving real-time feedback — which helps them get the jobs they want."

VIRAL CAREER TREND HAS PEOPLE ENGAGING IN ‘JOB CUFFING’: HERE'S WHY AND WHAT IT MEANS

The new book, said Owens, teaches people to develop answers to virtually any job interview question.

3 job-interviewing tips

1. do your research.

"Get inside information before the interview by talking with people familiar with the job or company," noted Owens. 

"Inside information is bad in financial trading, but it's good in the job search world." 

"When an interviewer asks you to describe your leadership ability, tell them a specific story of when you demonstrated leadership." (iStock / iStock)

When done right, he said, inside information can give applicants a huge advantage in the interview — and the initiative shown by getting it can impress companies.

2. Reference a specific achievement  

When interviewers ask you to describe your leadership ability, tell them a specific story of when you demonstrated leadership, suggested Owen. 

THESE CAREER BLIND SPOTS COULD BE HOLDING YOU BACK AT WORK: ‘GAIN CONTROL,’ SAYS AUTHOR

"They will never forget it, and it will leave no doubt in their minds on the matter," he said.

3. Highlight your skills  

Owens suggested that interviewees read the job description to understand the skills that a potential employer seeks.

"This will make sure you're highlighting your very best stuff in every response," he noted. 

What should people wear to an interview? 

This is where researching the company comes into play again, said Owens. 

"They should find out what the dress code is at the company, and dress a little nicer," he said. 

A lack of planning for an interview "is the greatest single fault found in the interviewing process." (iStock / iStock)

"You want them to remember your amazing responses, not that you wore a tux."

How can people stand out in an interview?  

Owens said that the notion of standing out is a common question he’s asked. The key points are preparation and practice, he said.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ON FOX BUSINESS

To that point, the Harvard Business Review reported that a lack of planning for an interview "is the greatest single fault found in the interviewing process."

"Be the clear winner."

It also said, "All too often, the inexperienced interviewer launches into a discussion only to find midway through that his preparation is incomplete."

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Owens shared that landing a dream job or big promotion often comes down to performance in the job interview. 

"The way to stand out is to be fully prepared, to have amazing responses to questions and to be the clear winner," he said.  

The new book is available at Amazon . 

For more Lifestyle articles, visit www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle .