Mary McCormick
When my teacher announced that every student must select an internship for a tenth-grade project, I was flabbergasted. While all of my friends had distinct goals—Madison wanted to be astronaut and Tyler wanted to be a professional rugby player—I could never answer that longstanding question: What do you want to be when you grow up?
2Subjects interested me, such as science, but I wasn’t good with people. As friendly as I tried to be, people didn’t understand me, and I tended to spend time alone. As I examined the list of possible careers, I felt downtrodden when I realized the exciting internships had already been assigned. A marine biologist had offered his time; I wished I could nab that internship, but Rosa Stanley had already seized the opportunity.
Mr. Leyland, the internship coordinator, suggested I choose Dr. Farber, a veterinarian. He said I’d learn about careers and plenty about myself by spending time with Dr. Farber. I’d never owned a pet and was worried that I’d make a poor veterinarian’s assistant, but Mr. Leyland had been matching students and careers forever, and I figured he was probably capable of helping students discover occupations. I completed the necessary forms and noted Dr. Farber's address in my copybook.
4On my first day at Dr. Farber’s office, I entered the building feeling confident. As soon as the bells on the door chimed, a rotund kitty came running over to greet me. He rubbed his face against my calves and purred. Dr. Farber’s assistant then emerged from the reception area and exclaimed a piercing, sing-songy “hello, I’m Sherrilee.” As I bent down to scratch the cat’s ears, another person leaned out from the reception area and called, “Is he here? Is he here?” in a big booming voice. I silently nodded, taken aback by the enthusiastic salutations. I tended to be quiet and shy until I got to know a person, so I began to worry that maybe this group of people wasn’t suitable for me.
With a staff like this, I reflected that Dr. Farber would be just as outgoing and rowdy, so when I met him, I was surprised to discover that he was very reserved. He shifted the large cat that had greeted me over to his other arm so that he could shake my hand. He introduced himself and introduced the feline in his arms as Mr. Nicholas, the office cat. At the sound of his own name, Mr. Nicholas meowed and reached his fluffy white paw toward me. “That’s quite a compliment,” Dr. Farber explained. “Mr. Nicholas is particular about the humans with whom he associates.”
6Over the course of the day, I noticed that Mr. Nicholas greeted only a handful of the customers. He spent most of the day curled up on a comfortable bed that Dr. Farber kept next to his desk. My day went pretty simply: The receptionist and the veterinarian’s assistant kept me busy with basic assignments. All morning, they attempted to engage me in conversations and chitchat, but I think they realized that my personality was not that type. They must have noticed how I shied away from their forwardness, because they mostly gave me tasks that I could perform on my own.
7Toward the end of the day, the entire staff was occupied, and Sherrilee, the receptionist asked if I could answer the phone. On the other end of the line, a frantic woman was attempting to explain that she thought her cat was in need of immediate assistance. She explained the problem and I neatly recorded the information for Dr. Farber. One of my tasks had been updating the schedule where a patient had cancelled his appointment. Since I knew about the opening, I told the woman that she could come in then. She thanked me and said she’d be at the office with her cat, Sphinx, at the time that I specified.
8When I told Sherrilee about the woman on the phone, she said I had done exactly the right thing; she was thrilled with my behavior in the situation. The woman, however, did not wait until the time when I had scheduled the appointment. She arrived twenty minutes later, saying that she felt helpless at home. Sherrilee showed the woman to a room, but since the doctor was in surgery, he would not be able to see them for a while. Sherrilee asked if I would take the important job of sitting with Sphinx until Dr. Farber was ready.
9As I sat with Sphinx, I felt petrified, wondering if I was cut out for veterinarian’s work, but as Sphinx lay there, I was drawn to him. He rolled on his back, and I lightly stroked his belly. He closed his eyes and purred lightly. Then, he did something touching. He curled around my hand, wrapped his legs around my forearm, and rubbed his face against me. A smile emerged on my face, and Dr. Farber walked through the door at that moment and complimented my bedside manner.
Working with Dr. Farber showed me that animals understood kindness even though humans sometimes didn’t. Unlike the difficulty I experienced relating to people, connecting with animals came easily. At the end of the day, I reflected on my tenth-grade project, wondering if it would help me answer that age-old question with which I had struggled for so long.
Question
A student is writing an essay about internships. She wants to quote a section of this two-page passage in her essay. Which information will be MOST useful to her if she is using MLA style?
Responses
A Put the group's name where the author's normally goes.Put the group's name where the author's normally goes.
B Include each author's name in the parentheses, separated by and.Include each author's name in the parentheses, separated by and .
C You must use semicolons to separate different authors within one parenthetical citation.You must use semicolons to separate different authors within one parenthetical citation.
D If you name the author in the text, include only the page number in parentheses after the quotation.If you name the author in the text, include only the page number in parentheses after the quotation.
1 answer
The correct response is:
D If you name the author in the text, include only the page number in parentheses after the quotation.
In MLA style, if you mention the author's name in your sentence, you only need to include the page number in the citation at the end of the quote. For example, if you were to quote a passage from Mary McCormick's text, it would look like this: "quote" (page number).
