MLA Style In Brief

The information in this guide is based on the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers and is provided to help students prepare a Works Cited list. MLA style is used primarily by writers in the Humanities.

The Works Cited list appears at the end of a paper and must include all the works cited in your paper. The list should be alphabetized by the last name of the author (as listed on the title page) or by the first significant word in the title if there is no author. The list should be double-spaced and entries should have a hanging indent.

Below are examples of the most common kinds of entries needed for a Works Cited list. For more examples, consult the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers (REF LB2369.G53) in Begley Library.


Books
General Form:

Author's name. Title of the book. Publication information.

Examples:

A book by a single author

Wilson, Frank R. The Hand: How Its Use Shapes the Brain, Language, and Human Culture.
         New York: Pantheon, 1998.

A book by two-three authors

Eggins, Suzanne, and Diane Slade. Analysing Casual Conversation. London: Cassell,
        1997.

A book by more than three authors

Quirk, Randolph, et al. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London:
        Longman, 1985.

Note: as an alternative, you may list all the authors in the order in which they appear on the title page.

A book by a corporate author

American Medical Association. The American Medical Association Encyclopedia of
        Medicine. New York: Random, 1989.

An article in a reference book

"Ginsburg, Ruth Bader." Who's Who in America. 52nd ed. 1998.

A book published in a second or subsequent edition

Hyde, Margaret O., and Elizabeth Held Forsyth. Suicide: The Hidden Epidemic. Rev. ed.
        New York: Watts, 1986.

A government publication

New York State. Commission on the Adirondacks in the Twenty-First Century. The
         Adirondack Park in the Twenty-First Century. Albany: State of New York, 1990.

Note: for more than one work by the same government, use three hyphens in place of the government's name in the second and all subsequent entries.

Articles

General Form:

Author's name. "Title of article." Publication information.

Examples:

An article in a scholarly journal with continuous pagination

Most, Andrea. " 'We Know We Belong to the Land': The Theatricality of Assimilation in
        Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma!" PMLA 113 (1998): 77-89.

An article in a scholarly journal that pages each issue separately

Hallin, Daniel C. "Sound Bite News: Television Coverage of Elections, 1968-1988." Journal
        of Communication 42.2 (1992): 5-24.

An article in a newspaper

Lohr, Steve. "Now Playing: Babes in Cyberspace." New York Times 3 Apr. 1998, late
        ed.: C1+.

An article in a magazine

Armstrong, Larry, Dori Jones Yang, and Alice Cuneo. "The Learning Revolution:
        Technology Is Reshaping Education - at Home and at School." Business Week
         28 Feb. 1994: 80-88.


Electronic Sources

Citations to electronic resources require more information than for print sources because of the unstable nature of electronic texts. Citations for electronic resources should include the date of publication as well as the date of access. URL's should be included. The complete URL should be enclosed in angle brackets (< >). If the URL is split between two lines, hyphens should not be used and the split should be placed only after a slash. In some cases, all the information suggested for citing an electronic resource fully may not be available to the researcher. In these cases, cite what is available. The examples below are the ones most likely to be needed by students. Consult the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers (REF LB2369.G53) in Begley Library for more examples.

An article from an online database available through the library

Follow the general form for a print periodical article with the addition of the name of the database used, the name of the service, the library and the date of access.

James-Cavan, Kathleen. "Closure and Disclosure: The Significance of Conversation in Jane
        Austen's The Watsons." Studies in the Novel 29(4) (1997): 437+. MasterFILE Select.
        EBSCOHost. Begley Library, Schenectady. 22 Mar. 2002
        < http://search.epnet.com/userlogin.asp >.

An online newspaper article

Markoff, John. "The Voice on the Phone Is Not Human, but It's Helpful." New York Times
        on the Web 21 June 1998. 25 June 1998
        < http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/98/06/biztech/articles/21voice.html >.

Personal or professional site

List the name of the site creator, the title of the site, name of any institution or organization associated with the site, date of access and URL. If the site does not have a title, use Home page.

Dawe, James. Jane Austen Page. 15 Sept. 1998
        < http://nyquist.ee.ualberta.ca/~dawe/austen.html >.

A document within a scholarly project or information database

List the title of the document and the author's name, the title and editor (if given) of the project or database, version number and publication date or date of latest update, name of sponsoring organization or institution and date of access and URL.

"This Day in History: August 20." The History Channel Online. 1998. History Channel. 19
        June 1998 < http://historychannel.com/thisday/today/980820.html >.

An online government publication

United States. Dept. of Justice. Natl. Inst. of Justice. Prosecuting Gangs: A National
        Assessment. By Claire Johnson, Barbara Webster, and Edward Connors. Feb. 1995.
        29 June 1998 < http://www.ncjrs.org/txtfiles/pgang.txt >.

Parenthetical Documentation

A parenthetical reference to a source listed on the Works Cited list is required in the body of the text whenever you quote someone directly or paraphrase someone's words, facts or ideas. In parentheses, list the author's last name and the page number(s). If you reference the author's name in your text, it is not necessary to repeat it parenthetically. If your Works Cited list has more than one work by the same author, include the title of the work in the parenthetical reference. If there is no author, list the title of the work and page number(s). If the article being cited only has one page, no page number is necessary in the parenthetical reference. Electronic sources may not have page numbers. In this case, no page number is required for the parenthetical reference. Any other numbering available, such as paragraphs, may be used if page numbers are not provided.


Examples:

A book by a single author

This has an important influence on the brain (Wilson 42).

A book by two-three authors

Eggins and Slade believe this method to be effective (43-45).

A book by more than three authors

"…the use of the passive form" (Quirk et al. 61).

Journal article

(Hallin 12)

Newspaper article

(Lohr C1)

A document within a scholarly project or information database

(This Day in History: August 20 pars. 15-20)

For further assistance, please ask at the Reference Desk.

Jane Kessler
March 2002