MLA Survival Guide
MLA
stands for the Modern Language Association.
Their format for citations and layout is the most commonly used. APA (American Psychological Association) is
the second most common. The greater
majority of Liberal Arts majors will use the MLA format throughout their
college and post graduate careers, while many Bachelor of Science majors will
most likely use APA. In this class, and
in most classes offered at this high school and others, the MLA format will be
the standard. The format for page layout
and citations is as follows:
Formatting:
Ø
Never use a title page
unless specifically told to do so by your instructor.
Ø
Set all margins to 1
inch.
Ø
Use Times New Roman
font at 12pt size.
Ø
Double space your
paper.
Ø
On the first page, in
the top left hand corner and double spaced, type your name, instructor’s name,
course number, and date (in military format).
Ø
After double spacing,
center your title. Do not underline or italicize your title. You may put your title in bold, but it must
be at 12pt size.
Ø
The first line of each
paragraph must be indented by ½ an inch, five spaces, or one press of the tab
button. Place no more than two spaces between sentences.
Ø
When writing the title
of longer works underline or italicize.
For shorter works or poetry, place in quotations.
Ø
A header in the top
right corner of your paper displaying you last name and the page number is
required. The header should be ½ of an
inch from the top and flush with the right margin. Depending on the instructor, you may, or may
not, be asked to omit the header on the first page. In this class, this will be the
standard. You will start numbering on
page two. To achieve this in Microsoft
Word: go to View >> Headers and Footers >> click the right
justified button >> type your last name >> close // Insert >>
Page Numbers >> select Top of Page and finally, unclick Show number on
first page >> OK.
↓↓↓
Sample Paper ↓↓↓
Citations and the
Works Cited page
In most formal essays, citations are an integral component
and must be structured according to strict guidelines. Improper formatting of citations and/or works
cited page could potentially lead to accusation of academic dishonesty.
Citing your
sources: when choosing a source to cite,
be sure to pick the most relevant and academically respected sources (do not
cite sources like The Inquirer or Wikipedia, as they are not well
respected sources [non-academic]).
Another thing to remember is that you CANNOT place an entry in your works cited if you do not cite
that source in your paper.
Now that you’ve
got your sources: To embed citations in
your text, there are several methods.
Embedded quotes become a part of your sentence. Let’s use the quote in the sample paper,
above: The reader can easily see this
element when Rip’s “only alternative to escape the labor of the farm and the
clamor of his wife, was to take gun in hand and stroll away into the woods” (
“If your quote is more than two lines long, it needs to be
separated from the regular text. Double
space and indent the entire quote. Try
not to do this too often, as you can’t have the greater part of your paper
being someone else’s words. In that
instance, you’re running the risk of
plagiarizing” (Author-lname 23).
You will notice that in the previous two examples, the
author’s last name and the page number the quote was found on are included in
parenthesis at the end of the quote.
There are ways of avoiding this:
Mentioning the
author and/or the page number before the quote:
According to Edgar Alan Poe, the tragedy occurred during
“the bleak December” (302). ß In this case only the page number is necessary.
In The English
Journal, vol. 32 issue 3 page 69, John Johnson states, “blah blah blah
blah”. ßNothing necessary.
Using consecutive
quotes by the same author:
When using more than one quote by the same author,
repetition of the author’s name is unnecessary. In the first quote, use the
above format; however, subsequent quotes need only the page number. If you use a quote from a different author,
you must revert back to the original format.
When only one author from one
work is being quoted, only the page number is necessary.
Adding or
omitting words in a quote:
In order to make an embedded quote flow in a sentence, or
to reinforce the topic or position, it may be necessary to add or omit words in
the quote. To add words, put the new text in brackets.
Jan Harold Brunvand, in an essay on urban
legends, states: "some individuals [who retell urban legends] make a point
of learning every rumor or tale" (78).
To omit
words, use ellipsis marks (three periods, before and after a space).
In an essay on urban legends, Jan Harold
Brunvand notes that "some individuals make a point of learning every
recent rumor or tale ... and in a short time a lively exchange of details occurs"
(78).
The Works Cited Page
The works
cited page is where you list the sources you used in your paper. You may have heard of this being called a
bibliography. The format for this page
is similar to that of the rest of the paper with a few exceptions:
Ø
No page number or last name at top.
Ø
The title will be “Works Cited” centered at the top of the
page.
Ø
This page is not
double spaced; however, there is a blank line between each entry.
Sample works cited page:
Notice how after the
first line in each entry,
each subsequent line
is indented and the
entries are listed in
alphabetical order.
**The following information is from the Perdue website.**
Books
First or single author's name is written last name, first name. The basic form
for a book citation is:
Lastname, Firstname. Title of Book. Place of
Publication: Publisher, Year of Publication.
Book with One Author
Gleick, James. Chaos: Making a New Science.
Henley, Patricia. The Hummingbird House.
Book with More Than One Author
First author name is written last name first; subsequent author names are
written first name, last name.
Gillespie, Paula, and Neal Lerner. The Allyn and Bacon
Guide to Peer Tutoring.
If there are more than three authors, you may list only the first author
followed by the phrase et al. (the abbreviation for the Latin phrase "and
others"; no period after "et") in place of the other authors'
names, or you may list all the authors in the order in which their names appear
on the title page.
Wysocki, Anne Frances, et al. Writing New Media:
Theory and Applications for Expanding the Teaching of Composition.
or
Wysocki, Anne Frances, Johndan Johnson-Eilola, Cynthia L.
Selfe, and Geoffrey Sirc. Writing New Media: Theory and Applications for
Expanding the Teaching of Composition.
Two or More Books by the Same Author
After the first listing of the author's name, use three hyphens and a
period instead of the author's name. List books alphabetically by title.
Palmer, William J. Dickens and New Historicism.
---. The Films of the Eighties: A Social History.
Book by a Corporate Author
A corporate author may be a commission, a committee, or any group whose
individual members are not identified on the title page:
American Allergy Association. Allergies in Children.
Book with No Author
List and alphabetize by the title of the book.
Encyclopedia of
For parenthetical citations of sources with no author named, use a
shortened version of the title instead of an author's name. Use quotation marks
and underlining as appropriate. For example, parenthetical citations of the
source above would appear as follows: (Encyclopedia 235).
A Translated Book
Cite as you would any other book, and add "Trans." followed by
the translator's/translators' name(s):
Foucault, Michel. Madness and Civilization: A History
of Insanity in the Age of Reason. Trans. Richard Howard.
Republished Book
Books may be republished due to popularity without becoming a new edition, which
is usually a revision of the original. For these books, insert the original
publication date before the publication information.
Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble. 1990.
Erdrich, Louise. Love Medicine. 1984.
An Edition of a Book
There are two types of editions in book publishing: a book that has been
published more than once in different editions and a book that is prepared by
someone other than the author (typically an editor).
A Subsequent Edition
Cite the book as you normally would, but add the number of the edition
after the title.
A Work Prepared by an Editor
Cite the book as you normally would, but add the editor after the title.
Bronte,
Anthology or Collection
List by editor or editors, followed by a comma and "ed." or, for
multiple editors, "eds."
Hill, Charles A. and Marguerite Helmers, eds. Defining
Visual Rhetorics.
Peterson, Nancy J., ed. Toni Morrison: Critical and
Theoretical Approaches.
A Work in an Anthology, Reference, or Collection
Book parts include an essay in an edited collection or anthology, or a
chapter of a book. The basic form is:
Lastname, First name. "Title of Essay." Title
of Collection. Ed. Editor's Name(s). Place of Publication: Publisher, Year.
Pages.
Some actual examples:
Harris, Muriel. "Talk to Me: Engaging Reluctant
Writers." A Tutor's Guide: Helping Writers One to One. Ed. Ben
Rafoth.
Swanson, Gunnar. "Graphic Design Education as a
Liberal Art: Design and Knowledge in the University and The 'Real World.'"
The Education of a Graphic Designer. Ed. Steven Heller.
Cross-referencing: If you cite more than one essay from
the same edited collection, the MLA indicates that it is optional to
cross-reference within your works cited list in order to avoid writing out the
publishing information for each separate essay. You should should consider this
option if you have many references from one text. To do so, include a separate
entry for the entire collection listed by the editor's name. For individual
essays from that collection, simply list the author's name, the title of the
essay, the editor's last name, and the page numbers. For example:
L'Eplattenier, Barbara. "Finding Ourselves in the
Past: An Argument for Historical Work on WPAs." Rose and Weiser 131-40.
Peeples, Tim. "'Seeing' the WPA With/Through
Postmodern Mapping." Rose and Weiser 153-167.
Rose, Shirley K, and Irwin Weiser, eds. The Writing
Program Administrator as Researcher.
Poem or Short Story Examples:
Burns, Robert. "Red, Red Rose." 100
Best-Loved Poems. Ed. Philip Smith.
If the specific literary work is part of the same author's collection, then
there will be no editor to reference:
Whitman, Walt. "I Sing the Body Electric." Selected
Poems.
Carter, Angela. "The Tiger's Bride." Burning
Your Boats: The Collected Stories.
Article in Reference Book:
For entries in encyclopedias, dictionaries, and other reference works, cite
the piece as you would any other work in a collection but do not include the
publisher information. Also, if the reference book is organized alphabetically,
as most are, don't list the volume or the page number of the article or item.
"Ideology." The American Heritage Dictionary.
3rd ed. 1997.
A Multivolume Work
When citing only one volume of a multivolume work, include the volume
number after the work's title, or after the work's editor or translator.
Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria. Trans. H. E.
Butler. Vol. 2.
When citing more than one volume of a multivolume work, cite the total
number of volumes in the work.
Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria. Trans. H. E.
Butler. 4 vols.
When citing multivolume works in your text, always include the volume
number followed by a colon, then the page number(s):
...as Quintilian wrote in Institutio Oratoria
(1:14-17).
If the volume you are using has its own title, cite the book without
referring to the other volumes as if it were an independent publication.
Churchill, Winston. S. The Age of Revolution.
Or, if you want to reference the larger multivolume as part of your
citation, you may include "Vol. number of" before listing the title
of the entire work, the total number of volumes, and the date.
Churchill, Winston. S. The Age of Revolution. New
An Introduction, a Preface, a Foreword, or an Afterword
When citing an introduction, a preface, a forward, or an afterword, write
the name of the authors and then give the name of the part being cited, which
should not be italicized, underlined or enclosed in quotation marks.
Farrell, Thomas B. Introduction. Norms of Rhetorical
Culture. By Farrell.
If the writer of the piece is different from the author of the complete
work, then write the full name of the complete work's author after the word
"By." For example:
Duncan, Hugh Dalziel. Introduction. Permanence and
Change: An Anatomy of Purpose. By Kenneth Burke. 1935. 3rd ed.
Other Print/Book Sources
Certain book sources are handled in a special way by MLA style.
The Bible
Give the name of the specific edition, any editor(s) associated with it, followed
by the publication information:
The New Jerusalem Bible. Susan Jones, gen. ed.
Your parenthetical citation will include the name of the specific edition
of the Bible, followed by an abbreviation of the book and chapter:verse(s),
e.g., (The New Jerusalem Bible Gen. 1:2-6).
A Government Publication
Cite the author of the publication if the author is identified. Otherwise
start with the name of the government, followed by the agency and any
subdivision that served as the corporate author. For congressional documents,
be sure to include the number of the congress and the session when the hearing
was held or resolution passed. (GPO is the abbr. for the Government Printing
Office.)
A Pamphlet
Cite the title and publication information for the pamphlet just as you
would a book without an author.
Women's Health: Problems of the Digestive System.
Your Rights Under
Dissertations
Dissertations and master's theses may be used as sources whether published
or not. Cite the work as you would a book, but include the designation Diss.
(or MA/MS thesis) followed by the degree-granting school and the year the
degree was awarded.
If the dissertation is published, treat the title as you would any book
title and include the date it was published at the end. You may also include the
University Microfilms International (UMI) order number if you want to:
Bishop, Karen Lynn. Documenting Institutional
Identity: Strategic Writing in the IUPUI Comprehensive Campaign.
Bile, Jeffrey. Ecology, Feminism, and a Revised
Critical Rhetoric: Toward a Dialectical Partnership.
If the work is not published, put the title in quotation marks and end with
the date the degree was awarded:
Graban, Tarez Samra. "Towards a Feminine Ironic:
Understanding Irony in the Oppositional Discourse of Women from the Early
Modern and Modern Periods."
Stolley, Karl. "Toward a Conception of Religion as a
Discursive Formation: Implications for Postmodern Composition Theory." MA
thesis.
(Source: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/557/07/
)
Article in a
Magazine
Cite by listing the
article's author, putting the title of the article in quotations marks, and
underlining or italicizing the periodical title. Follow with the date with date
and remember to abbreviate the month. Basic format:
Author(s).
"Title of Article." Title of Periodical Day Month Year: pages.
Poniewozik,
James. "TV Makes a Too-Close Call." Time 20 Nov. 2000: 70-71.
Buchman,
Dana. "A Special Education." Good Housekeeping Mar. 2006:
143-8.
Article in a
Newspaper
Cite a newspaper article
as you would a magazine article, but note the different pagination in a
newspaper. If there is more than one edition available for that date (as in an
early and late edition of a newspaper), identify the edition following the date
(e.g., 17 May 1987, late ed.).
Brubaker,
Bill. "New
Krugman,
Andrew. "Fear of Eating." New York Times 21 May 2007 late ed.:
A1.
If the newspaper is
local, include the city name in brackets after the title of the newspaper.
Behre,
Robert. "Presidential hopefuls get final crack at core of S.C.
Democrats." Post and Courier [
Trembacki,
Paul. "Brees Hopes to Win Heisman for Team." Purdue Exponent [
A Review
To cite a review,
include the abbreviation "Rev. of" plus information about the
performance that is being cited before giving the periodical information, as
shown in following basic format:
Review
Author. "Title of Review (if there is one)." Rev. of Performance
Title, by Author/Director/Artist. Title of Periodical day month year:
page.
Seitz,
Matt Zoller. "Life in the Sprawling Suburbs, If You Can Really Call It
Living." Rev. of
Weiller,
K. H. Rev. of Sport, Rhetoric, and Gender: Historical Perspectives and Media
Representations, ed. Linda K. Fuller. Choice Apr. 2007: 1377.
An Editorial &
Letter to the Editor
Cite as you would any
article in a periodical, but include the designators "Editorial" or
"Letter" to identify the type of work it is.
"Of
Mines and Men." Editorial. Wall Street Journal east. ed. 24 Oct
2003: A14.
Hamer,
John. Letter. American Journalism Review Dec. 2006/Jan. 2007: 7.
Anonymous Articles
Cite the article
title first, and finish the citation as you would any other for that kind of
periodical.
"Business:
Global warming's boom town; Tourism in
"Aging;
Women Expect to Care for Aging Parents but Seldom Prepare." Women's
Health Weekly. 10 May 2007: 18.
An Article in a
Scholarly Journal
Author(s).
"Title of Article." Title of Journal Volume.Issue (Year):
pages.
Actual example:
Bagchi,
Alaknanda. "Conflicting Nationalisms: The Voice of the Subaltern in
Mahasweta Devi's Bashai Tudu."
If the journal uses
continuous pagination throughout a particular volume, only volume and year are
needed, e.g. Modern Fiction Studies 40 (1998): 251-81. If each issue of
the journal begins on page 1, however, you must also provide the issue number
following the volume, e.g. Mosaic 19.3 (1986): 33-49.
Journal with
Continuous Pagination
Allen,
Emily. "Staging Identity: Frances Burney's Allegory of Genre." Eighteenth-Century
Studies 31 (1998): 433-51.
Journal with
Non-Continuous Pagination
Duvall,
John N. "The (Super)Marketplace of Images: Television as Unmediated
Mediation in DeLillo's White Noise."
(source: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/557/08/
)
Basic Style for
Citations of Electronic Sources
Here are some common
features you should try and find before citing electronic sources in MLA style.
Always include as much information as is available/applicable:
·
Author and/or editor names
·
Name of the database, or title of project, book, article
·
Any version numbers available
·
Date of version, revision, or posting
·
Publisher information
·
Date you accessed the material
·
Electronic address, printed between carets ([<, >]).
Web Sources
Web sites (in MLA
style, the "W" in Web is capitalized, and "Web site" or
"Web sites" are written as two words) and Web pages are arguably the
most commonly cited form of electronic resource today. Below are a variety of
Web sites and pages you might need to cite.
An Entire Web Site
Basic format:
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].
It is necessary to
list your date of access because web postings are often updated, and
information available on one date may no longer be available later. Be sure to
include the complete address for the site. Here are some examples:
The Purdue OWL Family of Sites. 26 Aug. 2005. The Writing Lab and OWL at Purdue and
Felluga,
Dino. Guide to Literary and Critical Theory. 28 Nov. 2003.
For course or
department websites, include "Course home page" or "Dept. home
page" after the name of the professor or department and before the
institution's name, followed by the date of access and URL.
English.
Dept. home page.
Felluga,
Dino. Survey of the Literature of
Long URLs
URLs that won't fit
on one line of your Works Cited list should be broken at slashes, when
possible.
Some Web sites have unusually
long URLs that would be virtually impossible to retype; others use frames, so
the URL appears the same for each page. To address this problem, either refer
to a site's search URL, or provide the path to the resource from an entry page
with an easier URL. Begin the path with the word Path followed by a colon,
followed by the name of each link, separated by a semicolon. For example, the
Amazon.com URL for customer privacy and security information is
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/
tg/browse/-/551434/104-0801289-6225502>, so we'd need to simplify the
citation:
Amazon.com.
"Privacy and Security." 22 May 2006 <http://www.amazon.com/>.
Path: Help; Privacy & Security.
A Page on a Web Site
For an individual page
on a Web site, list the author or alias if known, followed by the information
covered above for entire Web sites. Make sure the URL points to the exact page
you are referring to, or the entry or home page for a collection of pages
you're referring to:
"Caret."
Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. 28 April 2006. 10 May 2006
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caret>.
"How
to Make Vegetarian Chili." eHow.com. 10 May 2006
<http://www.ehow.com/
how_10727_make-vegetarian-chili.html>.
Stolley,
Karl. "MLA Formatting and Style Guide." The OWL at Purdue. 10
May 2006. Purdue University Writing Lab. 12 May 2006
<http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/557/01/>.
An Image, Including
a Painting, Sculpture, or Photograph
For works housed
outside of an online home, include the artist's name, the year the work was
created, and the institution (e.g., a gallery or museum) that houses it (if
applicable), follwed by the city where it is located. Include the complete
information for the site where you found the image, including the date of
access. In this first example, the image was found on the Web site belonging to
the work's home museum:
Goya,
Francisco. The Family of Charles IV. 1800.
In this next example,
the owner of the online site for the image is different than the image's home
museum:
Klee,
Paul. Twittering Machine.
1922.
klee/twittering_machine.jpg.html>.
For other images,
cite as you would any other Web page, but make sure you're crediting the
original creator of the image. Here's an example from Webshots.com, an online
photo-sharing site ("brandychloe" is a username):
brandychloe.
Great Horned Owl Family. 22 May 2006 <http://image46.webshots.com/
47/7/17/41/347171741bgVWdN_fs.jpg>.
The above example
links directly to the image; but we could also provide the user's profile URL,
and give the path for reaching the image, e.g.
brandychloe.
Great Horned Owl Family. 22 May 2006
<http://community.webshots.com/user/brandychloe>. Path: Albums; birds;
great horned owl family.
Doing so helps others
verify information about the images creator, where as linking directly to an
image file, like a JPEG (.jpg) may make verification difficult or impossible.
An Article in a Web
Magazine
Author(s).
"Title of Article." Title of Online Publication. Date of
Publication. Date of Access <electronic address>.
For example:
Bernstein,
Mark. "10 Tips on Writing The Living Web." A List Apart: For
People Who Make Websites. No. 149 (16 Aug. 2002). 4 May 2006
<http://alistapart.com/articles/writeliving>.
An Article in an
Online Scholarly Journal
Online scholarly
journals are treated different from online magazines. First, you must include
volume and issue information, when available. Also, some electronic journals
and magazines provide paragraph or page numbers; again, include them if
available.
Wheelis,
Mark. "Investigating Disease Outbreaks Under a Protocol to the Biological
and Toxin Weapons Convention." Emerging Infectious Diseases 6.6
(2000): 33 pars. 8 May 2006
<http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/vol6no6/wheelis.htm>.
An Article from an
Electronic Subscription Service
When citing material
accessed via an electronic subscription service (e.g., a database or online
collection your library subscribes to), cite the relevant publication
information as you would for a periodical (author, article
title, periodical title, and volume, date, and page number information)
followed by the name of the database or subscription collection, the name of
the library through which you accessed the content, including the library's
city and state, plus date of access. If a URL is available for the home page of
the service, include it. Do not include a URL to the article
itself, because it is not openly accessible. For example:
Grabe,
Mark. "Voluntary Use of Online Lecture Notes: Correlates of Note Use and
Note Use as an Alternative to Class Attendance." Computers and
Education 44 (2005): 409-21. ScienceDirect. Purdue U Lib.,
E-mail or Other
Personal Communication
Author.
"Title of the message (if any)." E-mail to person's name. Date of the
message.
This same format may
be used for personal interviews or personal letters. These do not have titles,
and the description should be appropriate. Instead of "Email to John
Smith," you would have "Personal interview."
E-mail to You
Kunka,
Andrew. "Re: Modernist Literature." E-mail to the author. 15 Nov.
2000.
MLA style capitalizes
the E in E-mail, and separates E and mail with a hyphen.
E-mail Communication
Between Two Parties, Not Including the Author
Neyhart,
David. "Re: Online Tutoring." E-mail to Joe Barbato. 1 Dec. 2000.
A Listserv or E-mail
Discussion List Posting
Author.
"Title of Posting." Online posting. Date when material was posted
(for example: 18 Mar. 1998). Name of listserv. Date of access <electronic address
for retrieval>.
If the listserv does
not have an open archive, or an archive that is open to subscribers only (e.g.,
a password-protected list archive), give the URL for the membership or
subscription page of the listserv.
<http://www.interversity.org/lists/techrhet/subscribe.html>
Discussion
Board/Forum Posting
If an author name is
not available, use the username for the post.
cleaner416.
"Add [<b>[</b> Tags to Selected Text in a Textarea" Online
posting. 8 Dec. 2004. Javascript Development. 3 Mar. 2006
<http://forums.devshed.com/javascript-development-115/
add-b-b-tags-to-selected-text-in-a-textarea-209193.html>.
Weblog Postings
MLA does not yet have
any official rules for citing blog entries or comments. But as the technology
becomes more widely used for academic discussions, you may find yourself
referencing blogs more often. If you are drawing on a blog as a source, make
sure you consider the credibility of the weblog site and/or the author of the
posting or comment. Also, check with your instructor or editor to see what
their stance is on incorporating evidence from blog entries.
If you decide to use
blogs, we suggest the following for how you would cite blog entries and
comments depending on the author or sponsor of the weblog.
Citing Personal Weblog Entries
List the author of
the blog (even if there is only a screen name available), provide the name of
the particular entry you are referring to, identify that it is a weblog entry
and then follow the basic formatting for a website as listed above.
Last
Name, First. "Title of Entry." Weblog Entry. Title of Weblog. Date
Posted. Date Accessed (URL).
NOTE: Give the exact date of the
posted entry so your readers can look it up by date in the archive. If
possible, include the archive address for the posted entry as the URL in your
citation as you would for an online forum. If the site doesn't have a public
archive, follow the suggestion under "Listserv" citation above.
Hawhee,
Debra. "Hail, Speech!" Weblog entry. Blogos. 30 April 2007. 23 May
2007 <http://dhawhee.blogs.com/d_hawhee/2007/04/index.html>.
Citing
Entries on Organizational or Corporate Weblogs/Blogs
List as you would for
a personal blog, but include the corporation or organization that sponsors the
weblog.
Bosworth,
Adam. "Putting Health into the Patient's Hands." Weblog entry. The
Official Google Blog. 23 May 2007. Google, Inc. 27 May 2007.
<http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007_05_01_googleblog_archive.html>
Citing Comments
Posted to a Weblog
Follow the same basic
format for blog entries, but identify that the posting is a comment and not an
orginial blog entry by the organization or weblog author. Also refer to the
screen name that appears as the author of the comment, even if that author is
anonymous.
Screen
Name. "Comment Title." Weblog comment. Date Comment Posted.
"Title of Blog Entry." Author of Blog Entry. Title of Weblog. Date
Accessed (URL).
Anonymous.
"The American Jew and the Diversity Debate." Weblog comment. 21 May
2007. "Imagining Jewishness." Monica Osborne. Jewcy. 23 May 2007
<http://www.jewcy.com/daily_shvitz/imagining_jewishness#comment>
NOTE: Some weblog sites don't
require titles for comments, so you should just list the first few words of the
comment itself to provide enough identifying information for the comment.
E!.
"Perhaps ironically ..." Weblog comment. 30 April 2007. "Hail,
Speech!" Debra Hawhee. Blogos. 30 April 2007
<http://dhawhee.blogs.com/d_hawhee/2007/04/hail_speech.html#comments>
An Article or Publication in Print and Electronic Form
If you're citing an
article or a publication that was originally issued in print form but that you
retrieved from an online database that your library subscribes to, you should
provide enough information so that the reader can locate the article either in
its original print form or retrieve it from the online database (if they have
access).
Provide the following
information in your citation:
·
Author's name (if not available, use the article title as the first part of
the citation)
·
Article Title
·
Periodical Name
·
Publication Date
·
Page Number/Range
·
Database Name
·
Service Name
·
Name of the library where or through which the service was accessed
·
Name of the town/city where service was accessed
·
Date of Access
·
URL of the service (but not the whole URL for the article, since those are
usually very long and won't be easily re-used by someone trying to retrieve the
information)
The generic citation
form would look like this:
Author.
"Title of Article." Periodical Name Volume Number (if
necessary) Publication Date: page number-page number. Database name. Service
name. Library Name, City, State. Date of access <electronic address of the
database>.
Here's an example:
Smith,
Martin. "World Domination for Dummies." Journal of Despotry
Feb. 2000: 66-72. Expanded Academic ASAP. Gale Group Databases. Purdue
University Libraries,
Article in a
Database on CD-ROM
"World
War II." Encarta.
CD-ROM.
Article From a
Periodically Published CD-ROM
Reed,
William. "Whites and the Entertainment Industry."
(source: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/557/09/
)
Works Cited: Other
Non-Print Sources
Below you will find
MLA style guidance for other non-print sources.
A Personal Interview
Listed by the name of
the person you have interviewed.
Purdue,
Pete. Personal Interview. 1 Dec. 2000.
A Lecture or Speech
Include speaker name,
title of the speech (if any) in quotes, details about the meeting or event
where the speech was given, including its location and date of delivery. In
lieu of a title, label the speech according to its type, e.g., Guest Lecture,
Keynote Address, State of the Union Address.
Stein,
Bob. Keynote Address. Computers and Writing Conference. Union Club Hotel,
A Painting,
Sculpture, or Photograph
Include the artist's
name, the year the work was created, and the institution (e.g., a gallery or
museum) that houses it, followed by the city where it is located.
Goya,
Francisco. The Family of Charles IV. 1800.
If you're referring
to a photographic reproduction, include the information as above, but also
include the bibliographic information for the source in which the photograph appears,
including a page or other reference number (plate, figure, etc.). For example:
Goya,
Francisco. The Family of Charles IV. 1800.
See our page on citing electronic resources for
citing artworks found online.
Broadcast Television
or Radio Program
Put the name of the
episode in quotation marks, and the name of the series or single program
underlined or in italics. Include the network, followed by the station, city,
and date of broadcast.
"The
Recorded Television
Shows
Include information
about original broadcast, plus medium of recording. When the title of the
collection of recordings is different than the original series (e.g., the show Friends
is in DVD release under the title Friends: The Complete Sixth Season),
list the title that would be help researchers located the recording.
"The
One Where
Sound Recordings
Sound recordings list
album title, label and year of release (for re-releases, it's good to offer
either the original recording date, or original release date, when known). You
only need to indicate the medium if you are not referring to a
compact disc (CD), e.g., Audiocasette or LP (for long-playing record). See
section about online music below.
Entire Albums
List by name of group
or artist (individual artists are listed last name first). Album title
underlined or in italics, followed by label and year.
Foo
Fighters. In Your Honor. RCA, 2005.
Waits,
Tom. Blue Valentine. 1978. Elektra/Wea, 1990.
Individual Songs
Place the names of
individual songs in quotation marks.
Nirvana.
"Smells Like Teen Spirit." Nevermind. Geffen, 1991.
Spoken Word Albums
Treat spoken-word
albums the same as musical albums.
Hedberg,
Mitch. Strategic Grill Locations. Comedy Central, 2003.
Films and Movies
List films by their
title, and include the name of the director, the film studio or distributor and
its release year. If other information, like names of performers, is relevant
to how the film is referred to in your paper, include that as well.
Movies in Theaters
The Usual Suspects.
Dir. Bryan Singer. Perf. Kevin Spacey, Gabriel Byrne, Chazz Palminteri, Stephen
Baldwin, and Benecio del Toro. Polygram, 1995.
If you refer to the
film in terms of the role or contribution of a director, writer, or performer,
begin the entry with that person's name, last name first, follwed by role.
Lucas,
George, dir. Star Wars Episode IV: A
Recorded Movies
Include format names;
"Videocassette" for VHS or Betamax, DVD for Digital Video Disc. Also
list original release year after director, performers, etc.
Ed Wood. Dir. Tim
(source: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/557/10/
)
Additional Information
A list of info you will need to get for each new source.*
|
Print Sources |
Non-Print Sources |
|
Author(s) and/or editor(s) Title of work Title of article Publisher Publisher location Publication date Edition (if applicable) Republication date (if applicable) |
Author(s), editor(s), and/or
webmaster(s) (if applicable) Title of journal or media source
(if applicable) Title of article or song/clip
(if applicable) Title of web site (if
applicable) Title of web page (if
applicable) Website’s affiliation with
organization (if applicable) Date work was published or last
edited (if applicable) Date accessed |
Resources:
For assistance creating citations and formatting, these two
websites are very helpful:
http://www.citationmachine.net
For more information on MLA formatting, refer to the MLA
Handbook, or visit Perdue’s MLA section “The OWL” @ http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/557/01/