How do I cite eNotes's page on Waverley for my homework assignment?

Expert Answers

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You would treat eNotes like any other scholarly source. For example, if you are citing the eNotes page on characters in Sir Walter Scott's Waverley, the page which your question links to, you would most likely use the MLA style sheet as your format guide.

Conveniently, eNotes offers you a preset MLA citation. You will find this in a little bluish-green box that says Cite as you scroll down the page . You can copy this citation, which will read as follows:

"Waverley - Characters Discussed" Great Characters in Literature Ed. A. J. Sobczak and Frank N. Magill. eNotes.com, Inc. 1998 eNotes.com 2 Dec. 2022 <https://www.enotes.com/topics/waverley#characters-characters-discussed>

What you want to make sure of is that the second date is the same date as the day you read the article. For instance, the date above—2 Dec. 2022—correctly reflects today's date as I write. If you are reading and citing the eNotes article as it exists on December 2, 2022, that is the date to use.

The purpose of a citation is to allow readers to see what source material you looked at so that they can evaluate it for themselves. This is a core element of scholarship. If the citation provides a link that leads back to the page as it appeared on the day you viewed it, you are providing the reader with an accurate trail back through your own research, which is exactly what you want to do. Good luck with this.

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