MLA Format
MLA is the Modern Language Association, which produces the MLA Handbook. This book is used as a reference for essays or research papers, especially in English and literature courses.
An MLA formatted paper will have 1" margins, use Times New Roman in a 12 point font, and the paper will be double spaced. There is no requirement for a title page, but the top left of the first page will have; Student's name, Professor's name, Course number, and the date. Each of these will be on a separate line. A header is required and will be in the upper right corner of each page with the student's last name and the page number. The title will be one line down and centered. The body of your paper will begin one line down from the title. You can find a quick reference to the MLA style guide here.
When you write a research paper for a class, at the end of the paper you will create a Works Cited list of the sources used, such as magazine and journal articles, books, electronic databases, or websites. If your instructor asks you to use MLA format for your paper, the Works Cited list will contain a list of the sources you have used for your paper. This provides the information for someone reading your paper to locate these materials. The Works Cited list should be in alphabetical order, double spaced, and have hanging indentations.
If you have a citation for a research paper that doesn’t fit the examples below, remember the library’s website has links that you can consult for additional help, as well as a remote chat with a librarian.
The Works Cited section of your paper will list the citations for all of the sources you have used in your paper. You will begin the Works Cited page on a new page at the end of your paper. It will have the same margins and last name, page number headers as the rest of your paper. The title will be Works Cited and it will be centered on the top of the page, do not italicize or put the title in quotation marks.
There are up to nine elements in an MLA citation, if you do not have the information simply skip that element and move on to the next. The citation should be left margin aligned for the first line and the subsequent lines will have hanging indentations. The citation entries should be in alphabetical by author’s last name. The core elements will follow a standard order, note that the punctuation at the end of each element will be used in the citation:
The first element in your citation will be the source's author. The author’s last name will be listed first, followed the rest of the author’s name as it is appears on the source, for a group author use the name of the organization as the author. For works with two authors list the first author's Last name, and the rest of the author's name as it appears on the source material, then "and" with the second author's name as it appears on the source material. For works with three or more authors list the first author's Last name, then the rest of the author's name as it appears on the source, and use et al. for the rest of the authors. The author element will end with a period.
Examples:
One Author:
Austen, Jane.
Dick, Philip K.
Two Authors:
Oswald, Ruth A., and Lynn Atkinson Smolen.
Three or More Authors:
Barnet, Sylvan, et al.
Group/Organization Author:
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The title of the source will follow the author. Depending on the type of source you are using this element will be in italics or quotation marks. All of the major words in the title will be capitalized.
What is a container? In MLA the source may come from a larger whole, for example a collection of short stories. The container will be the the book and the source will be a short story within that book. The container is important to identifying the source. The container will be italicized and followed by a comma.
In many works there are more contributors than just the author(s). This citation element will only be used if the contributor played an important role in your research or if it will help in identifying the source material. Examples of Other Contributors are:
Some of your sources will indicate that it is one version of multiple works, this information can come as an edition or as a different version of a film or play. The following are examples of the version:
Books:
Film or play:
Some of your sources will be contained within a larger work, this work can be listed as volume and issue numbers, episodes of television show, or podcasts. The number element will end with a comma, if the source has both a volume and issue number they will also be separated by a comma. The following examples show how this element will appear in a citation:
Scholarly Journal:
Magazines and Newspapers:
The publisher is the entity responsible for producing and distributing the work being cited. The publisher could be a book publisher, a television or movie studio, or a library hosting a website. This element will end with a comma. The following examples show how to structure the element and how to locate the information.
Book:
Film or Television:
Website:
The date of publication can take a couple different forms, some may just be the year, in the case of books, other will have the day, month, and year. When you come across a source that has multiple dates use the one that is most relevant. The structure will be Day Month Year, in MLA the month will be abbreviated. The following examples show how to structure the element and how to locate the information.
Book:
Periodicals:
Website:
Books:
Journals and Periodicals:
Journals from the Library Databases:
Website:
The Optional Elements section is used if there needs to be more information to identify your source. This element is used to identify the original date of a republished work, to signify it is a lecture or other address, or to identify the date a website was accessed. This last one is important when citing websites as they may change over time. The following examples would appear at the very end of your citation and will end with a period.
Examples:
In-text Citations
MLA format uses the parenthetical method for in-text citations, meaning the citation information is enclosed in ( ). An in-text citation requires both the author and page number of the quote/paraphrase. They can both be included in the parenthesis and located at the end of the quote/paraphrase, the in-text citation will follow the closing quotation mark. You can also use the author's name in the body of your text then list the page numbers in parenthesis at the end of the quote/paraphrase.
Examples:
The following, "quote," helps to support the argument of this paper (Schott 3).
or
Schott argues, "the following quote..." (3).
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