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Purdue OWL News
June 15, 2001

Welcome to the Purdue OWL News!

This is an online newsletter about happenings in the Purdue University Writing Lab and the Purdue University Online Writing Lab (OWL). Wešre always glad to hear from you at owlnews@owl.english.purdue.edu!

Writing Question of the Week

Herešs our grammar question of the week, brought to you by the Online Writing Lab Tutors here at Purdue. You can send mail to the online tutors at this form.

I am writing a research paper and I need to know how to cite an interview that I conducted in the text of my paper as well as in the reference section of the paper. Could you help me out?

Herešs the answer.

The correct way to cite a source depends on the citation style you're using, which in turn depends on the field in which you're writing. In language and literature studies, the Modern Language Association (MLA) style is used. In the social sciences (psychology, anthropology, and economics, for example) the American Psychological Association (APA) style is used. The Council of Biology Editors (CBE) sets style guidelines for work in the biological sciences. Writers in history and philosophy often follow the Chicago Manual of Style. Other fields also have their own style manuals and conventions for citing sources.

Here are some ways to cite an interview in both text and references for MLA and APA style. Of course, itšs always best to consult a style manual for your specific discipline whenever you have questions. We have a list of various style manuals available at http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/research/r_docsources.html.

MLA style

The index of the MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing (2nd Edition) points readers to sections 7.4.1 and 7.4.2 for citing interviews in the text. However, after consulting these sections and others, we in the Writing Lab unable to find specific examples for citing personal interviews in the text. The opinion of most of the Writing Lab staff is therefore that you would make reference to the intervieweešs name and mention that it was a personal interview in the text. For example, "John Brown, in a personal interview, noted that many translators have differing interpretations of that particular passage." If you had to mention it in an in-text citation, you could do something along the lines of (Brown, personal interview). If anyone out there does know the correct in-text citation format and can send it to us along with a citation for where they found it, wešd love to know and promise to publish it next week!

The information you need for citing a personal interview in the Works Cited of a paper is under section 4.8.7. of the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers (5th edition). They say: "[t]o cite an interview that you have conducted in the Works Cited list, give the name of the person interviewed, the kind of interview, and the date."

For example: Brown, John. Personal Interview. 30 March, 2001. Allen, Christina. Telephone Interview. 29 Dec. 2000.

APA style

The APA Manual (4th ed.) says the following about personal communication (section 3.102): "Personal communications may be letters, memos, some electronic communications, telephone conversations, and the like. Because they do not provide recoverable data, personal communications are not included on the reference list. Cite personal communications in text only. Give the initials as well as the surname of the communicator, and provide as exact a date as possible ."

Herešs an example. "According to I.M. Boza (personal interview, June 18, 1995), no population studies of the problem were done before 1993."

The OWL Help Nest

Many of our readers write to us with questions or requests for help with their writing. Readers also write to us with suggestions about how to help people learn more about writing. In this section of the newsletter, wešll try to bring together both the people looking for help and the people who can help them.

Each week wešll publish a request for advice or information. If you have information or advice about this topic, please write to us at owlnews@owl.english.purdue.edu. Please let us know if you want us to include your name and/or your email address when we publish your information or advice. The following week, wešll publish the best information and advice that we receive in the newsletter.

Last weekšs question was from people who are homeschooling their children or working on writing with children or students who are in middle or high school. Our readers contributed lots of helpful advice. Herešs some of what they had to say.

Amanda Pottle recommends the following resources for teaching writing to middle and secondary students:

In The Middle: Writing, Reading , and Learning with Adolescents by Nanci Atwell

Guide to Good Writing: Master the Writing Process by Diane P. Kostick

Bridging English (2nd Edition) by Joseph O'Beirne Milner, Lucy Floyd Morcock Milner

A special needs teacher who works with fifth and sixth grade students offers the following advice about teaching story writing. "We read picture books (eg. The Velveteen Rabbit, Where the Wild Things Are); mapped the PLOT (wrote each event in order); analyzed what happens in the beginning (introduce CHARACTERS, establish SETTING, set up the CONFLICT); analyzed what happens in the middle (build SUSPENSE, and CLIMAX); and what happens at the end (everything comes full circle and the world makes sense again -- RESOLUTION). Then the students wrote their own stories following the map already in front of them. I found this method helped them see the formula for story writing, and they were happy with the ¨completenessš of their stories."

Several readers wrote in to say that they have used many of the materials from our OWL, with their middle and high school students to help them learn some of the basics of composition. Specific materials they found useful were our general writing concerns section (http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/general/index.html), our PowerPoint presentations on basic writing skills (http://owl.english.purdue.edu/workshops/pp/index.html) and our handouts (http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/index.html).

Thanks to everyone who wrote in with your suggestions! Herešs our next request from some of our readers.

I will be teaching introductory writing for the first time in the fall and would like some suggestions re: lesson plans, interesting ideas etc. Some of the people who wrote to us with this question are also teaching their courses entirely online, and so would like suggestions for how other teachers have taught introductory writing over the Internet.

Got some help for our readers? Send it to owlnews@owl.english.purdue.edu. Your advice and information about this will appear in next weekšs newsletter. If you have a general request for help and information, you can send it to us at owlnews@owl.english.purdue.edu and wešll try to include it in the newsletter as soon as possible.

What's Happening On OWL

OWL Eye On... Starting Points for Internet Research

Do you need to do Internet research but donšt know where to start? Here are some helpful resources on our OWL.

If youšre new to searching the World Wide Web for information, we have a tutorial that will take you through the various kinds of search engines and offer you some search strategies that you can try right away. Visit http://owl.english.purdue.edu/internet/search/index.html to learn all about how to conduct effective searches.

If youšre just looking for a large list of different search engines and directories, we maintain just such a list at http://owl.english.purdue.edu/internet/tools/searchtools.html.

We also maintain a list of starting points for Internet research, organized by various categories and fields of interest, at http://owl.english.purdue.edu/internet/tools/research.html

We also have a large amount of links to other Internet resources related to writing in our resources section at http://owl.english.purdue.edu/internet/resources/index.html.

New on OWL

We have a new handout on documenting sources that contains resources for documenting sources and formatting papers in a variety of disciplines. We have also substantially revised our documenting electronic sources handout to include updated content about citing sources in many popular formats.

Resources for Documenting Sources http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/research/r_docsources.html

Resources for Documenting Electronic Sources http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/research/r_docelectric.html

We also have two updated handouts with new graphics and expanded content, courtesy of Michelle Hansard, our new graphic design consultant.

Adjective or Adverb? http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/esl/esladjadv.html

Appositives http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/grammar/g_appos.html

What's Happening In the Writing Lab

OWL Eye on ... Reading Groups for ESL Students

Are you a Purdue student? Is English not your native language? Are you interested in improving your reading skills in English? Why not join a Writing Lab reading group? Join us in the Writing Lab for informal meetings to improve your English reading skills.

Serkan Gorkemli, a Writing Lab tutor, has started two groups, which will each meet for an hour every day of the week during the summer semester. Tentative times are 9 a.m.-10 a.m. and 11 a.m.-12 p.m. Please contact Serkan via email at gorkemli@purdue.edu if you would like to be part of either group.

What's New in the Writing Lab

In addition to our new ESL reading groups, we have also received some new reference books. Other than that, we continue to offer our usual services of tutorials, workshops, handouts, computers, software, and self-study tapes, along with a helpful and friendly staff ready to answer your questions.

Final Thoughts

Thanks for reading our newsletter, and please email us any suggestions you might have! We really enjoy hearing from our readers. You can mail us at any time at owlnews@owl.english.purdue.edu. You can also email the OWL coordinator, Geoff Stacks, at coordinator@owl.english.purdue.edu and the webmaster, Erin Karper, at webmaster@owl.english.purdue.edu. (Erin and Geoff take turns writing the newsletter.)

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