Over this semester my in text citations have greatly improved, as well as my works cited page. In class we spent a lot of time on how to cite our papers better. Specifically citing the page numbers of the books or articles we used. Before this class I wasn’t sure exactly how to cite the page numbers or when I need to cite the page numbers. Reflecting back on my Project 1 first draft, my citation use is very weak. I did not add any paragraph or page numbers, and I did not add in text citations for many quotes. My peer review for that first draft is filled with comments telling me to add citations, and fix my citations.

Here is just one example of a quotation without citation from my Project 1 first draft. This quote should have been a parenthetical citation. Although I thought that since I had mentioned the speaker earlier in the paragraph that a citation was unnecessary.

Having a growth mindset is about overcoming obstacles, and not quitting. People with a growth mindset when encountering a problem “engage deeply. They process the error. They learn from it and they correct it.”

Now here is an example of a parenthetical citation from my final draft for Project 2. In this example you can see I have inserted a a citation for the quotes, and have correctly cited the page number as well.

The concept of the liberal arts has changed much since then. A more modern definition describes the liberal arts as “a wellspring of ideas and questions, and a way of promoting flexibility and openness to diverse perspectives,” (Scheuer 3).

The biggest improvement to my citations was my works cited page. Before this year I didn’t know how to correctly write my own citations page. Through resources given in class I was able to write my own works cited page for my Project 3 final.