The Purdue OWL. Purdue U
Writing Lab, 2010. Web. September 4, 2013.
General Guidelines
- Type
your paper on a computer and print it out on standard, white 8.5 x 11-inch
paper.
- Double-space
the text of your paper, and use a legible font (e.g. Times New Roman).
Whatever font you choose, MLA recommends that the regular and italics type
styles contrast enough that they are recognizable one from another. The
font size should be 12 pt.
- Leave
only one space after periods or other punctuation marks (unless otherwise
instructed by your instructor).
- Set
the margins of your document to 1 inch on all sides.
- Indent
the first line of paragraphs one half-inch from the left margin. MLA
recommends that you use the Tab key as opposed to pushing the Space Bar
five times.
- Create
a header that numbers all pages consecutively in the upper right-hand
corner, one-half inch from the top and flush with the right margin. (Note:
Your instructor may ask that you omit the number on your first page.
Always follow your instructor's guidelines.)
- Use
italics throughout your essay for the titles of longer works and, only
when absolutely necessary, providing emphasis.
- If
you have any endnotes, include them on a separate page before your Works
Cited page. Entitle the section Notes (centered, unformatted).
Formatting the First Page of Your
Paper
- Do
not make a title page for your paper unless specifically requested.
- In
the upper left-hand corner of the first page, list your name, your
instructor's name, the course, and the date. Again, be sure to use
double-spaced text.
- Double
space again and center the title. Do not underline, italicize, or place
your title in quotation marks; write the title in Title Case (standard
capitalization), not in all capital letters.
- Use
quotation marks and/or italics when referring to other works in your
title, just as you would in your text: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas as Morality Play; Human Weariness
in "After Apple Picking"
- Double
space between the title and the first line of the text.
- Create
a header in the upper right-hand corner that includes your last name,
followed by a space with a page number; number all pages consecutively
with Arabic numerals (1, 2, 3, 4, etc.), one-half inch from the top and
flush with the right margin. (Note: Your instructor or other readers may
ask that you omit last name/page number header on your first page. Always
follow instructor guidelines.)
CITATION
GUIDELINES
Basic in-text citation rules
In MLA style, referring to the works of others in your text is
done by using what is known as parenthetical citation.
This method involves placing relevant source information in parentheses after a
quote or a paraphrase.
General Guidelines
- The
source information required in a parenthetical citation depends (1.) upon the
source medium (e.g. Print, Web, DVD) and (2.) upon the source’s entry on
the Works Cited (bibliography) page.
- Any
source information that you provide in-text must correspond to the source
information on the Works Cited page. More specifically, whatever signal
word or phrase you provide to your readers in the text, must be the first
thing that appears on the left-hand margin of the corresponding entry in
the Works Cited List.
In-text citations: Author-page
style
MLA format follows the author-page method of in-text citation.
This means that the author's last name and the page number(s) from which the
quotation or paraphrase is taken must appear in the text, and a complete
reference should appear on your Works Cited page. The author's name may appear
either in the sentence itself or in parentheses following the quotation or
paraphrase, but the page number(s) should always appear in the parentheses, not
in the text of your sentence. For example:
Wordsworth
stated that Romantic poetry was marked by a "spontaneous overflow of
powerful feelings" (263).
Romantic poetry is characterized by the "spontaneous overflow of powerful
feelings" (Wordsworth 263).
Wordsworth
extensively explored the role of emotion in the creative process (263).
Both citations in the examples above, (263) and (Wordsworth 263),
tell readers that the information in the sentence can be located on page 263 of
a work by an author named Wordsworth. If readers want more information about
this source, they can turn to the Works Cited page, where, under the name of
Wordsworth, they would find the following information:
Wordsworth, William. Lyrical
Ballads. London: Oxford U.P., 1967. Print.
In-text citations for print
sources with known author
For Print sources like books, magazines, scholarly journal
articles, and newspapers, provide a signal word or phrase (usually the author’s
last name) and a page number. If you provide the signal word/phrase in the
sentence, you do not need to include it in the parenthetical citation.
Human
beings have been described by Kenneth Burke as "symbol-using animals"
(3).
Human
beings have been described as "symbol-using animals" (Burke 3).
These examples must correspond to an entry that begins with Burke,
which will be the first thing that appears on the left-hand margin of an entry
in the Works Cited:
Burke, Kenneth. Language
as Symbolic Action: Essays on Life, Literature, and Method.
Berkeley: U of California P, 1966. Print.
In-text citations for print
sources with no known author
When a source has no known author, use a shortened title of the
work instead of an author name. Place the title in quotation marks if it's a
short work (such as an article) or italicize it if it's a longer work (e.g.
plays, books, television shows, entire Web sites) and provide a page number.
We
see so many global warming hotspots in North America likely because this region
has "more readily accessible climatic data and more comprehensive programs
to monitor and study environmental change . . ." ("Impact of Global
Warming" 6).
In this example, since the reader does not know the author of the
article, an abbreviated title of the article appears in the parenthetical
citation which corresponds to the full name of the article which appears first
at the left-hand margin of its respective entry in the Works Cited. Thus, the
writer includes the title in quotation marks as the signal phrase in the
parenthetical citation in order to lead the reader directly to the source on
the Works Cited page. The Works Cited entry appears as follows:
"The Impact of Global Warming
in North America." Global Warming: Early Signs.
1999. Web. 23 Mar. 2009.
We'll learn how to make a Works Cited page in a bit, but right now
it's important to know that parenthetical citations and Works Cited pages allow
readers to know which sources you consulted in writing your essay, so that they
can either verify your interpretation of the sources or use them in their own
scholarly work.
Author-page citation for classic
and literary works with multiple editions
Page numbers are always required, but additional citation
information can help literary scholars, who may have a different edition of a
classic work like Marx and Engels's The Communist Manifesto.
In such cases, give the page number of your edition (making sure the edition is
listed in your Works Cited page, of course) followed by a semicolon, and then
the appropriate abbreviations for volume (vol.), book (bk.), part (pt.),
chapter (ch.), section (sec.), or paragraph (par.). For example:
Marx
and Engels described human history as marked by class struggles (79; ch. 1).
Citing authors with same last
names
Sometimes more information is necessary to identify the source
from which a quotation is taken. For instance, if two or more authors have the
same last name, provide both authors' first initials (or even the authors' full
name if different authors share initials) in your citation. For example:
Although
some medical ethicists claim that cloning will lead to designer children (R.
Miller 12), others note that the advantages for medical research outweigh this
consideration (A. Miller 46).
Citing a work by multiple authors
For a source with three or fewer authors, list the authors' last
names in the text or in the parenthetical citation:
Smith,
Yang, and Moore argue that tougher gun control is not needed in the United
States (76).
The
authors state "Tighter gun control in the United States erodes Second
Amendment rights" (Smith, Yang, and Moore 76).
For a source with more than three authors, use the work's
bibliographic information as a guide for your citation. Provide the first
author's last name followed by et al. or list all the last names.
Jones
et al. counter Smith, Yang, and Moore's argument by noting that the current
spike in gun violence in America compels law makers to adjust gun laws (4).
Or
Legal
experts counter Smith, Yang, and Moore's argument by noting that the current
spike in gun violence in America compels law makers to adjust gun laws (Jones
et al. 4).
Or
Jones,
Driscoll, Ackerson, and Bell counter Smith, Yang, and Moore's argument by
noting that the current spike in gun violence in America compels law makers to
adjust gun laws (4).
Citing multiple works by the same
author
If you cite more than one work by a particular author, include a
shortened title for the particular work from which you are quoting to
distinguish it from the others. Put short titles of books in italics and short
titles of articles in quotation marks.
Citing two articles by the
same author:
Lightenor
has argued that computers are not useful tools for small children ("Too
Soon" 38), though he has acknowledged elsewhere that early exposure to
computer games does lead to better small motor skill development in a child's
second and third year ("Hand-Eye Development" 17).
Citing two books by the same author:
Murray
states that writing is "a process" that "varies with our
thinking style" (Write to
Learn 6).
Additionally, Murray argues that the purpose of writing is to "carry ideas
and information from the mind of one person into the mind of another" (A Writer Teaches Writing 3).
Additionally, if the author's name is not mentioned in the
sentence, you would format your citation with the author's name followed by a
comma, followed by a shortened title of the work, followed, when appropriate,
by page numbers:
Visual
studies, because it is such a new discipline, may be "too easy"
(Elkins, "Visual Studies" 63).
Citing multivolume works
If you cite from different volumes of a multivolume work, always
include the volume number followed by a colon. Put a space after the colon,
then provide the page number(s). (If you only cite from one volume, provide
only the page number in parentheses.)
.
. . as Quintilian wrote in Institutio Oratoria (1: 14-17).
Citing the Bible
In your first parenthetical citation, you want to make clear which
Bible you're using (and underline or italicize the title), as each version
varies in its translation, followed by book (do not italicize or underline),
chapter and verse. For example:
Ezekiel
saw "what seemed to be four living creatures," each with faces of a
man, a lion, an ox, and an eagle (New
Jerusalem Bible, Ezek. 1.5-10).
If future references employ the same edition of the Bible you’re
using, list only the book, chapter, and verse in the parenthetical citation.
Citing indirect sources
Sometimes you may have to use an indirect source. An indirect
source is a source cited in another source. For such indirect quotations, use
"qtd. in" to indicate the source you actually consulted. For example:
Ravitch
argues that high schools are pressured to act as "social service centers,
and they don't do that well" (qtd. in Weisman 259).
Note that, in most cases, a responsible researcher will attempt to
find the original source, rather than citing an indirect source.
Citing non-print or sources from
the Internet
With more and more scholarly work being posted on the Internet,
you may have to cite research you have completed in virtual environments. While
many sources on the Internet should not be used for scholarly work (reference
the OWL's Evaluating
Sources of Information resource),
some Web sources are perfectly acceptable for research. When creating in-text
citations for electronic, film, or Internet sources, remember that your
citation must reference the source in your Works Cited.
Sometimes writers are confused with how to craft parenthetical
citations for electronic sources because of the absence of page numbers, but
often, these sorts of entries do not require any sort of parenthetical citation
at all. For electronic and Internet sources, follow the following guidelines:
- Include
in the text the first item that appears in the Work Cited entry that
corresponds to the citation (e.g. author name, article name, website name,
film name).
- You
do not need to give paragraph numbers or page numbers based on your Web
browser’s print preview function.
- Unless
you must list the Web site name in the signal phrase in order to get the
reader to the appropriate entry, do not include URLs in-text. Only provide
partial URLs such as when the name of the site includes, for example, a
domain name, likeCNN.com or Forbes.com as
opposed to writing out http://www.cnn.com or http://www.forbes.com.
Miscellaneous non-print sources
Werner
Herzog's Fitzcarraldo stars Herzog's long-time film partner,
Klaus Kinski. During the shooting of Fitzcarraldo, Herzog and Kinski
were often at odds, but their explosive relationship fostered a memorable and
influential film.
During
the presentation, Jane Yates stated that invention and pre-writing are areas of
rhetoric that need more attention.
In the two examples above “Herzog” from the first entry and
“Yates” from the second lead the reader to the first item each citation’s
respective entry on the Works Cited page:
Herzog, Werner, dir. Fitzcarraldo.
Perf. Klaus Kinski. Filmverlag der Autoren, 1982. Film.
Yates, Jane. "Invention in
Rhetoric and Composition." Gaps Addressed: Future Work in Rhetoric and
Composition, CCCC, Palmer House Hilton, 2002. Presentation.
Electronic sources
One
online film critic stated that Fitzcarraldo is "...a beautiful and terrifying
critique of obsession and colonialism" (Garcia, “Herzog: a Life”).
The Purdue
OWL is accessed by
millions of users every year. Its "MLA Formatting and Style Guide" is
one of the most popular resources (Stolley et al.).
In the first example, the writer has chosen not to include the
author name in-text; however, two entries from the same author appear in the
Works Cited. Thus, the writer includes both the author’s last name and the
article title in the parenthetical citation in order to lead the reader to the
appropriate entry on the Works Cited page (see below). In the second example,
“Stolley et al.” in the parenthetical citation gives the reader an author name
followed by the abbreviation “et al.,” meaning, “and others,” for the article
“MLA Formatting and Style Guide.” Both corresponding Works Cited entries are as
follows:
Garcia, Elizabeth. "Herzog: a
Life." Online Film Critics Corner. The
Film School of New Hampshire, 2 May 2002. Web. 8 Jan. 2009.
Stolley, Karl, et al. "MLA
Formatting and Style Guide." The OWL at Purdue. 10 May 2006. Purdue
University Writing Lab. 12 May 2006.
Multiple citations
To cite multiple sources in the same parenthetical reference,
separate the citations by a semi-colon:
.
. . as has been discussed elsewhere (Burke 3; Dewey 21).
When a citation is not needed
Common sense and ethics should determine your need for documenting
sources. You do not need to give sources for familiar proverbs, well-known quotations
or common knowledge. Remember, this is a rhetorical choice, based on audience.
If you're writing for an expert audience of a scholarly journal, for example,
they'll have different expectations of what constitutes common knowledge.
MLA Formatting
Quotations
When you directly quote the works of others in your paper, you
will format quotations differently depending on their length. Below are some
basic guidelines for incorporating quotations into your paper. Please note that
all pages in MLA should be double-spaced.
Short quotations
To indicate short quotations (fewer than four typed lines of prose
or three lines of verse) in your text, enclose the quotation within double
quotation marks. Provide the author and specific page citation (in the case of
verse, provide line numbers) in the text, and include a complete reference on
the Works Cited page. Punctuation marks such as periods, commas, and semicolons
should appear after the parenthetical citation. Question marks and exclamation
points should appear within the quotation marks if they are a part of the
quoted passage but after the parenthetical citation if they are a part of your
text.
For example, when quoting short passages of prose, use the
following examples:
According
to some, dreams express "profound aspects of personality" (Foulkes
184), though others disagree.
According
to Foulkes's study, dreams may express "profound aspects of
personality" (184).
Is
it possible that dreams may express "profound aspects of personality"
(Foulkes 184)?
When short (fewer than three lines of verse) quotations from
poetry, mark breaks in short quotations of verse with a slash, ( / ), at the
end of each line of verse (a space should precede and follow the slash).
Cullen
concludes, "Of all the things that happened there / That's all I
remember" (11-12).
Long quotations
For quotations that are more than four lines of prose or three
lines of verse, place quotations in a free-standing block of text and omit
quotation marks. Start the quotation on a new line, with the entire quote
indented one inch from the left margin; maintain
double-spacing. Only indent the first line of the quotation by an additional
quarter inch if you are citing multiple paragraphs. Your parenthetical citation
should come after the closing punctuation mark. When
quoting verse, maintain original line breaks. (You should maintain
double-spacing throughout your essay.)
For example, when citing more than four lines of prose, use the
following examples:
Nelly
Dean treats Heathcliff poorly and dehumanizes him throughout her narration:
They
entirely refused to have it in bed with them, or even in their room, and I had
no more sense, so, I put it on the landing of the stairs, hoping it would be
gone on the morrow. By chance, or else attracted by hearing his voice, it crept
to Mr. Earnshaw's door, and there he found it on quitting his chamber.
Inquiries were made as to how it got there; I was obliged to confess, and in
recompense for my cowardice and inhumanity was sent out of the house. (Bronte
78)
When citing long sections (more than three lines) of poetry, keep
formatting as close to the original as possible.
In
his poem "My Papa's Waltz," Theodore Roethke explores his childhood
with his father:
The
whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.
We Romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother's countenance
Could not unfrown itself. (quoted in Shrodes, Finestone, Shugrue 202)
When citing two or more paragraphs, use block quotation format,
even if the passage from the paragraphs is less than four lines. Indent the
first line of each quoted paragraph an extra quarter inch.
In
"American Origins of the Writing-across-the-Curriculum Movement,"
David Russell argues:
Writing has been an issue in American secondary and higher education since
papers and examinations came into wide use in the 1870s, eventually driving out
formal recitation and oral examination. . . .
From its birth in the late nineteenth century, progressive
education has wrestled with the conflict within industrial society between
pressure to increase specialization of knowledge and of professional work
(upholding disciplinary standards) and pressure to integrate more fully an
ever-widerning number of citizes into intellectually meaningful activity within
mass society (promoting social equity). . . . (3)
Adding or omitting words in
quotations
If you add a word or words in a quotation, you should put brackets
around the words to indicate that they are not part of the original text.
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).
If you omit a word or words from a quotation, you should indicate
the deleted word or words by using ellipsis marks, which are three periods ( .
. . ) preceded and followed by a space. For example:
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).
Please note that brackets are not needed around ellipses unless
adding brackets would clarify your use of ellipses.
When omitting words from poetry quotations, use a standard
three-period ellipses; however, when omitting one or more full lines of poetry,
space several periods to about the length of a complete line in the poem:
These beauteous forms,
Through a long absence, have not been to me
As is a landscape to a blind man's eye:
.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Felt
in the blood, and felt along the heart;
And passing even into my purer mind,
With tranquil restoration . . . (22-24, 28-30)
MLA Works Cited
Page: Basic Format
According to MLA style, you must have a Works Cited page at the
end of your research paper. All entries in the Works Cited page must correspond
to the works cited in your main text.
Basic rules
- Begin
your Works Cited page on a separate page at the end of your research
paper. It should have the same one-inch margins and last name, page number
header as the rest of your paper.
- Label
the page Works Cited (do not italicize the words Works Cited or put them
in quotation marks) and center the words Works Cited at the top of the
page.
- Double
space all citations, but do not skip spaces between entries.
- Indent
the second and subsequent lines of citations by 0.5 inches to create a
hanging indent.
- List
page numbers of sources efficiently, when needed. If you refer to a
journal article that appeared on pages 225 through 250, list the page
numbers on your Works Cited page as 225-50. Note that MLA style uses a
hyphen in a span of pages.
Additional basic rules new to MLA
2009
New to MLA 2009:
- For
every entry, you must determine the Medium of Publication. Most entries
will likely be listed as Print or Web sources, but other possibilities may
include Film, CD-ROM, or DVD.
- Writers
are no longer required to provide URLs for Web entries.
However, if your instructor or publisher insists on them, include them in
angle brackets after the entry and end with a period. For long URLs, break
lines only at slashes.
- If
you're citing an article or a publication that was originally issued in
print form but that you retrieved from an online database, you should type
the online database name in italics. You do not need to provide
subscription information in addition to the database name.
Capitalization and punctuation
- Capitalize
each word in the titles of articles, books, etc, but do not capitalize
articles (the, an), prepositions, or conjunctions unless one is the first
word of the title or subtitle: Gone with the Wind, The Art of War, There
Is Nothing Left to Lose.
- New
to MLA 2009:
Use italics (instead of underlining) for titles of larger works (books,
magazines) and quotation marks for titles of shorter works (poems,
articles)
Listing author names
Entries are listed alphabetically by the author's last name (or,
for entire edited collections, editor names). Author names are written last
name first; middle names or middle initials follow the first name:
Burke,
Kenneth
Levy,
David M.
Wallace,
David Foster
Do not list
titles (Dr., Sir, Saint, etc.) or degrees (PhD, MA, DDS, etc.) with names. A
book listing an author named "John Bigbrain, PhD" appears simply as
"Bigbrain, John"; do, however, include suffixes like "Jr."
or "II." Putting it all together, a work by Dr. Martin Luther King,
Jr. would be cited as "King, Martin Luther, Jr.," with the suffix
following the first or middle name and a comma.
More than one work by an author
If you have cited more than one work by a particular author, order
the entries alphabetically by title, and use three hyphens in place of the
author's name for every entry after the first:
Burke, Kenneth. A
Grammar of Motives. [...]
---. A
Rhetoric of Motives. [...]
When an author or collection editor appears both as the sole
author of a text and as the first author of a group, list solo-author entries
first:
Heller, Steven, ed. The
Education of an E-Designer.
Heller, Steven and Karen Pomeroy. Design
Literacy: Understanding Graphic Design.
Work with no known author
Alphabetize works with no known author by their title; use a
shortened version of the title in the parenthetical citations in your paper. In
this case, Boring Postcards USA has no known author:
Baudrillard, Jean. Simulacra
and Simulations. [...]
Boring Postcards USA.
[...]
Burke, Kenneth. A
Rhetoric of Motives. [...]
