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MLA Citation Guide

(UNDER CONSTRUCTION to be UPDATED to the NEW EDITION of MLA STYLE MANUAL)

In the meantime, see
MLA Update 2009 from the OWL at Purdue University summarized the changes.
KnightCite has been updated to the new edition of MLA Style.

Works Cited List

In-Text Citations

 

Works Cited List

 

Books

Write information for books in the following order.

You must always include the information in bold; include the other information when indicated in the specific examples below.

1. Author(s)

2. Title of essay in book

3. Title of book

4. Editor

5. Edition

6. Name of the series

7. Number of volumes

8. Place, publisher*, and copyright date

9. Volume number of the book

10. Page numbers of essay in book

11.
Medium of book: "Print." or "Web." (something new for 2009)

* Omit abbreviations (Inc., Ltd., etc.) and descriptive words (Books, House, Press, Publishers, etc.). If the publisher is a university press, write "UP" (Harvard UP).

Title your list "Works Cited" and list your sources alphabetically by author.

One Author

Simpson, Eileen. Reversals: A Personal Account of Dyslexia. New York: Washington Square, 1981. Print.

(Indent second and subsequent lines five spaces.)

Two Authors

Hallowell, Edward M., and John J. Ratey. Answers to Distraction. New York: Pantheon, 1994. Print.

(Indent second and subsequent lines five spaces.)

 

Three Authors

(in an Edited Collection of Essays by Different Authors)

Defries, J. C., Jacquelyn J. Gillis, and Sally J. Wadsworth. "Genes and Genders: A Twin Study of Reading Disability." Dyslexia and Development: Neurobiological Aspects of Extra-Ordinary Brains.Ed. Albert M. Galaburda. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP, 1993. 187-204. Print.

(Indent second and subsequent lines five spaces.)

 

Same Author, Different Works

(List in alphabetical order by title.)

Hallowell, Edward M., and John J. Ratey. Answers to Distraction. New York: Pantheon, 1994.

---. Driven to Distraction. New York: Pantheon, 1994. Print.

(Indent second and subsequent lines five spaces.)

Edited Collection of Essays by Different Authors


Wilsher, C.R. "Unconventional Treatments for Dyslexia." Dyslexia Matters: A Celebratory Volume to Honour Professor T.R. Miles. Ed. Gerald Hales. San Diego, CA: Singular, 1994. 161-71. Print.

(Indent second and subsequent lines five spaces.)


Cross-References

(for citing different essays from the same book)

Duane and Wilsher each authored essays in a book edited by Hales:

Duane, Drake D. "Neurobiological Patterns in Dyslexia." Hales 30-39.

Hales, Gerald, ed. Dyslexia Matters: A Celebratory Volume to Honour Professor T.R. Miles. San Diego, CA: Singular, 1994.

Wilsher, C.R. "Unconventional Treatments for Dyslexia." Hales 161-71.

(Indent second and subsequent lines five spaces.)

 

Encyclopedia

"Desegregation." Encyclopedia of Social Issues. Ed. John Smith and Sara Jones. 6 vols. New York: Marshall Cavendish, 1997. Print.

(Indent second and subsequent lines five spaces.)

Need an example not listed here?

Go to the Front Desk and ask for the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers.

 

Periodicals

Write information for periodical articles in the following order:

1. Author(s)

2. Title of article

3. Name of periodical*

4. Volume, issue, year, and page numbers** (for journals)

or Complete date, year, and page numbers** (for magazines and newspapers)

5. Medium of periodical: "Print." or "Web." (new to the 7th edition of MLA)

* Omit the "The" or "A" when it begins a periodical title. (For example: write The New York Times as New York Times.)

** List the pages for the entire article. If the article skips pages (for example, there are pages with ads between the article pages), then list only the first page of the article, followed by a plus symbol.

You may wonder, "What's the difference between magazines and journals?"

Magazines Journals
• glossy cover and pages • dull cover and pages
• includes advertisements • few or no advertisements
• many photos and graphics • few or no photos and graphics
• easier to read • harder to read (more jargon)
• catchy, even sensational article titles • informative, but rarely catchy article titles
• of general interest (Newsweek), trade or technical interest (PC World), business interest (Forbes), or political interest (The Nation) • of scholarly interest for members of a specific professional field

 

Magazine Article, Monthly

Gagnon, Paul. "What Should Children Learn?" Atlantic Monthly Dec. 1995: 65+. Print.

(Indent second and subsequent lines five spaces.)

Magazine Article, Weekly

Leland, John, and Nadine Joseph. "Hooked on Ebonics." Newsweek 13 Jan. 1997: 78. Print.

(Indent second and subsequent lines five spaces.)

Anonymous Author (Journal or Magazine)

"Tracking Down the Roots of Dyslexia." Newsweek 16 Mar. 1998: 57. Print.

(Indent second and subsequent lines five spaces.)

Journal Article, with All Issues for a Volume Paged Consecutively

Patterson, Karalyn, and Marlene Behrmann. "Frequency and Consistency Effects in a Pure Surface Dyslexic Patient." Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 23 (1997): 1217-32. Print.

(Indent second and subsequent lines five spaces.)

 

Journal Article, with Each Issue Paged Separately

Lippi-Green, Rosina. "What We Talk about When We Talk about Ebonics: Why Definitions Matter." Black Scholar 27.2 (1997): 7-12. Print.

(Indent second and subsequent lines five spaces.)

 

Abstract of a Journal Article

(Indent second and subsequent lines five spaces.)

 

Newspaper Article

Browne, Malcom W. "If a Platypus Had a Dream, What Would It Mean?" New York Times 16 Dec. 1997: B11. Print.

(Indent second and subsequent lines five spaces.)

Newspaper Article, Anonymous Author

"Managing Managed Care." New York Times 10 Jan. 1998: A14. Print.

(Indent second and subsequent lines five spaces.)

Need an example not listed here?

Go to the Front Desk and ask for the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers.

 

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Online Databases

Journal, Magazine, or Newspaper Article from an Online Database

Follow the appropriate citation format (journal, magazine, or newspaper), and then add the following information:

1. Database name in italics (e.g., etc.)

2. "Web" as the Medium.

3. Your date of access.

 

Example:

Vance, Theresa A. and Lisa Weyandt. " Professor Perceptions of College Students with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder." Journal of American College Health, 57.3 (Nov./Dec. 2008): 303-308. EBSCO Academic Search Premier. Web. 18 Jun. 2009.

(Italicize the database name and indent second and subsequent lines five spaces.)

 

Why should you bother citing the database?

Suppose you want to quote the above article on professors' perceptions of college students with ADHD. The citation shows that the article is covered in the Journal of American College Health on pages 303-308, but the article you printed from Academic Search Premier says pages 1 through 6. If you want to quote from page 4 of your printout, you can't know for sure whether that quote appeared on page 306 or 307 (or some other page) in the original article. Therefore, if you need to cite page 4 as the page you are quoting, you need to indicate that it's page 4 from the Academic Search Premier article, and not page 4 of the Journal of American College Health.

 

Abstract from an Online Database

Follow the appropriate citation format (journal, magazine, or newspaper), but after the article title, add the word "Abstract." After the page numbers, add the following information:

1. Database name in italics (e.g., etc.)

2. "Web" as the Medium.

3. Your date of access.

Example:

Sarkis, Stephanie Moulton. "Success for the ADHD College Student." Abstract. ADHD Report.  16.5 (Oct. 2008): 1-5. EBSCO Academic Search Premier. Web. 18 Jun. 2009.

(Indent second and subsequent lines five spaces.)

 

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World Wide Websites

Write information for websites in the following order:

1. Author or editor of website (if listed--check the top and the bottom of the web page)

2. Title of website

3. Date of last update (if listed--check the bottom of the web page)

4. Name of institution or organization sponsoring the website (if listed)

5. Date you accessed the website

6. URL (address) of the website

Examples:

Professional Sites
(sites by or for an organization, company, the government, or a college or university--look for the ".org", ".com", ".gov" or ".edu" in the URL/web address)

About Dyslexia. International Dyslexia Association. 1 May 1998 <http://www.interdys.org/about_dy.stm>.

Fact Sheet: Nuclear Power Plant Emergency. 27 Feb. 1997. Federal Emergency Management Agency. 1 May 1998 <http://www.fema.gov/home/fema/radiolo.htm>.

(Indent second and subsequent lines five spaces.)

Personal Sites
(sites by an individual who has created the sites for the general public--or at least for members of the general public with the same interests as him or her--and not on behalf of a company, organization, the government, or a college or university)

Priven, Michael. Daliweb: Biography and Artistic Style: The Surreal Years. 8 Feb. 1998. 1 May 1998 <http://members.xoom.com/daliweb>.

(Indent second and subsequent lines five spaces.)

Photographs from Websites

Write information for websites in the following order:

1. Last Name of Photographer, First Name of Photographer.

2. Title of Photograph OR Description of Photograph.

3. The word "Photograph."

4. Year photograph was taken.

5. Copyright Holder.

6. Name of Database or Website hosting the photograph underlined.

7. Day Month Year of Access

8. URL of Website

Examples:

Format example:

Last Name of Photographer, First Name of Photographer. Title of Photograph OR Description

of Photograph. [Photograph]. Year photograph was taken. Copyright Holder. Year of Electronic Publication. Day Month Year of Access <URL of website>.

Actual example:

Leibovitz, Annie. Emmylou Harris, Franklin Tennessee, 2001. [Photograph]. 2001. Annie Leibovitz.

2004. June 25, 2008 <http://www.andrewsmithgallery.com/exhibitions/annieleibovitz/

americanmusic/al_1452.html>

 

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In-Text Citations

When you paraphrase or quote a source:

Cite only the last name of the author.

Cite the page number(s) of the paraphrased information.

  • Exceptions: don't include the page number if:
    • the source is only a page long
    • the source is a website
    • the source is an article from an online database
    • you wish to cite the entire source

Within a paragraph, the second (or third, etc.) time you site a source, list only the page number. No page number? Then you can write "(ibid.)"

Use the present tense to explain what an author wrote.

If your quote contains a quote, use single quotation marks (' ') around the original quote.

One Author

Smith agrees with this assertion (33).
or

This point has been argued before (Smith 33).

Two Authors

Others, like Warren and Jones (314-15), argue an opposite point of view.
or
Others argue an opposite point of view (e.g., Wellek and Warren, 314-15).

Same Author, Different Works

Include the title or a shortened version of the title:

In Driven to Distraction, Hallowell and Ratey explain . . . (24).

or

. . . may be one solution (Hallowell and Ratey Answers to Distraction 48).

 

Anonymous Author

Just list the title or a shortened version of the title:

Because Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) reveals differences in brain activity between dyslexics and non-dyslexics, it may someday be used to diagnose dyslexia ("Tracking Down").

The above sentence is a paraphrase of the Newsweek article, "Tracking Down the Roots of Dyslexia" and is listed as an example of an "Anonymous Author (Magazine or Journal)" on page 3 of this guide. The reason no page number is listed in the in-text citation is because the article is only one page long, and therefore there's no need to distinguish between page numbers.

Article from an Online Database

The difference between citing an online database article and citing any other article is that you do not need to cite the page numbers. (Like with websites, the pagination may differ between printouts from different computers and different web browsers.)

Gagnon argues that the lack of a national educational standards is largely responsible for the poor performance of American students.

American schools need national educational standards in order to improve the quality of education they offer (Gagnon).

Website

The author is the person, organization, institution, or company that created or is represented by the website. Because websites will print out differently from different computers and web browsers, you do not need page numbers in your citations.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency provides the online "Fact Sheet: Nuclear Power Plant Emergency" to inform the public about nuclear power plant emergencies and how to respond to them.

In a nuclear power plant emergency, any school children with a 10-mile radius of a power plant would be evacuated before the general public (Federal Emergency Management Agency).

Good news: after you've spelled out the lengthy name of an organization such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the next time you need to cite it, you can use their abbreviated name, such as in this case, "FEMA".

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Quotation

(how to punctuate)

Many people find definitions of LD to be confusing. Balter admits that "there is no easy definition, free of jargon, that just 'tells it like it is'" (41).

When your quote is longer than four lines:

Start the quote on a new line.

Indent the entire quote by ten spaces (two tabs).

Don't use quotation marks.

Double-space the entire quote (just like the rest of the paper).

If your quote contains a quote, use double quotation marks (" ") around the original quote.

Example:

In Answers to Distraction, Hallowell and Ratey explain that setting realistic

obligations can help people with ADD focus on what they need

to accomplish:

Choosing the right set of goals and then making

them obligations is crucial. An obligation can

mobilize "good guilt" that will help you make the

goal that you set with your coach or team. This

"good guilt" focuses you, and because it functions

as a demand for action, it lets you escape from the

trap of procrastination. (219)

Need an example not listed here?

Go to the Front Desk and ask for the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers.

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