Term paper about the American National Red Cross

Hello,

I'm working on a term paper about the American National Red Cross' new proposed governance structure and have a few generic questions for you:

1) The first few pages of my paper cover the American Red Cross' history and details about its congressional charter. My professor would prefer that I use articles as much as possible in the paper rather than the Red Cross website but I can't seem to locate any articles that give details about the Red Cross' history and Congressional Charter. Do you have any other suggestions? To me, it makes sense that I'd be using the redcross.org website for such information since what I need is facts about the organization...

2) If I find that I MUST use the redcross.org website, how do I cite its use within my paper when my professor specifically requests we use (author, date) format? Since there is no specific author and date, what do I do?

3) Lastly, since most of the information at the beginning of my paper is fact-based, when do I have to use quotations when referring to the material found on the redcross.org website versus simply citing redcross.org at the end of my first sentence? I assume that since I'm getting all info. from one source that I should not continue to cite the source throughout the paper until I switch sources and go back to the redcross.org source again, right?

Thanks!

Aline

Greetings!

You ask some very good questions! I'll give you the answers within the best of my knowledge, though it never hurts to check the MLA (or APA) manual.

1) If the Red Cross's website does not have any links to other useful information you'll want to use a database like JSTOR or Questia; on Questia, I found several books about the Red Cross, including Champions of Charity: War and the Rise of the Red Cross, by John F. Hutchinson.

2) The main purpose of an in-text citation is simply to point readers to the correct entry on the "Works Cited" page. If there is no author and you are citing an article withing the website, put the name of the article in quotation marks within your parenthetical citation; if there is no title, use the name of the website and where to find it on the site, e.g., (American Red Cross-Home page). In your Works Cited list, list the article title alphabetically, as you would do with the author's name; if there's no title, or to cite an entire website using MLA : Name of Site. Date of Posting/Revision. Name of institution/organization affiliated with the site (sometimes found in copyright statements). Date you accessed the site <electronic address>.

3), Yes, you're right. If you can specifically identify the section or page from which you are quoting, though, do so: ("Our History" par. 3). Any time you quote directly, you are supposed to give the page number, assuming there is one.

I hope this helps!

Thanks,

Sarah, EssayForum.com