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. [...]
