USING MLA STYLE

This brief handout was complied using the MLA Handbook, sixth edition. For further information, please refer to the handbook.
one inch

Writers Full Name Professors Name Course Name and Number Day/month/year (this is the standard option in MLA) Title of Paper Choose a standard font and size (for example, Times New Roman, 12 point). Use the same font style and size throughout the paper. Use underline and italics as only as specified in citation rules; only use bold face if a source text had it. Use italics to add emphasis. Tab indent inch or leave ten spaces to begin first line of every paragraph. Left align paragraphs; do not justify them on both sides. Turn off automatic hyphenation feature of your word processor so it does not automatically justify lines on both sides. Double space throughout, including text, titles, quotations and works cited entries. Do not use extra space before Writers Last Name or after paragraphs. Leave a single space between one sentence and another unless your instructor prefers two. Page Number
one inch one inch

A separate title page is not necessary in MLA style; on the first page of your paper (flush left), write your name, professors name, name of the course, date, and center the title of your paper, as shown above. Do not boldface, underline or enlarge font of title. Capitalize major words. Insert your last name and page number on all pages, half an inch from top edge of paper and on the right. Some instructors prefer using header and page number from the second page on. Place tables and other figures as close to the related text as possible. Number figures continuously or by chapter and give a descriptive caption/title followed by a reference entry (because figures are cited within the text). Use white, 8.5 by 11 inch paper. Leave one inch margins on all sides. Print on one side of paper. Bind, paper clip, or staple, as your instructor specifies. Format Works Cited entries as hanging-indented paragraphs, which means that the first line of each entry must stick out on the left. In MS Word, you can do by pressing control+T. For details on how to create MLA bibliographic entries, see the MLA Works Cited handout.
one inch

IN-TEXT CITATION
In-text citation is a brief reference to the source of other writers words or ideas you use in your text. This reference is meant to help the reader locate the corresponding Works Cited entry. When you borrow other writers words or ideas, indicate author and page number of the source in parentheses. One of the paradoxes of democracy is that individual freedom is possible when there is discipline regulated by the society (Doe 23). o Do not insert a comma between the authors last name and page number; place the punctuation sign after the parenthetical reference. If you have already mentioned the authors name before the quotation, you only need to write the page number in the parentheses. John Doe discusses this paradox of democracy when individual freedom is possible when there is discipline regulated by the society (23). Give the name of the author of an article or chapter and not that of the editor, compiler, or translator when you use works from an anthology or compiled volume. If two or more last names are similar, add the first initial; if the initials also coincide, write full names. (J. Doe 23)
(John Doe 23) (Jimmy Doe 141)

If you quote more than once from the same page of the same work within the same paragraph in your essay and if no quotation from another source intervenes, you may give a single parenthetical citation after the last quotation. If you cite two or more works by the same author, add the title of the work between author name and page reference. Shorten title using key word(s) if it is long. Note the comma here. (Doe, Policy 87) For two or three authors of the same work, cite all last names. There should be a comma before and. (Doe, Smith, and Williams 183-84) For more than three authors, there are options: either write the first authors last name followed by et al. or list all names. Do not use a period after et or a comma after al. Doe et al. argued that technology is not value-free (122). Technology is not value free (Doe et al. 122). For electronic and other nonprint sources that do not have page numbers, try to give the section or paragraph number and indicate that the number does not refer to a page. You need not give page number of a one-page source. Note the use of punctuation when a word or phrase comes between author name and page number. (Doe, par. 3)
(Myth of Poverty, pt. 3)

Try to avoid interrupting the flow of your writing by placing the parenthetical citation where a pause or punctuation occurs in the sentence; also try to place the parenthetical citation where it will best distinguish the idea taken from another source and your own idea. It is true that in a democracy individual freedom is possible when discipline is regulated by the society (Doe 23), but the question is. . . . 2

Works Cited
Works Cited is an alphabetical list of bibliographic entries for each work you cited.
As you do the groundwork for your paper, record citation information for each source that you use. Doing so will save much time and energy for building accurate Works Cited entries as well as help you avoid unintentional plagiarism.

CITATION INFORMATION YOU MIGHT NEED FOR WORKS CITED SECTION authors name(s)

translators and/or editors name(s); indication of translation or edition title of the cited text if the text is part of a larger volume, title of the entire work page numbers from and through which the shorter text appears in a larger work name and/or number of part, chapter or section of the text cited (if there is no page number or if the
work has been published in multiple editions)

place of publication (name of state if city is unfamiliar or ambiguous; name of country other than the US) name of the publisher (and name of imprint if it appears on title page of the work you cited) year of publication (and year of original publication if the work you cited was republished) number of volume and issue
edition used

name and number of series (if the work you used is part of a series) date of retrieval of text from web site indication if any of the required information is missing
indication of any special information about the source (for example, a dissertation paper)
Note: List only the works you actually cited in your paper. Check that you have every author you cited on the Works Cited page.

FORMAT (MLA Handbook 145) Begin the Works Cited section on a new page; number it continuously with the body of the paper. Center the title Works Cited (no quotation marks; see below). Keep the one-inch page margins, double-spaced format and flush left margin of regular text. Format entries as hanging indented (which means that the first line of each entry should be at the left margin and the rest of the lines should be indented half an inch). o In MS-Word, you can do this by pressing control + T. AUTHOR NAME(S) (MLA Handbook 146-160)

Alphabetize Works Cited entries by the last name of the author you cited. When there is no author, alphabetize by the title of work. Put Brown before Browns because nothing comes before something. 3

When last names are similar, consider the full first names as well for alphabetical order.

 Abraham, Adam.
Abraham, Robert. Note: Most word processors have sort function that can save a lot of your time. In MS Word, highlight all entries of your Works Cited, go to Table menu, click on Sort, and click Ok to Sort by paragraph. Make sure to check with MLA rules after you alphabetize entries electronically.

When there are multiple works by the same author, replace the authors name with three hyphens (---) and list the entries of that authors works by their titles in alphabetical order.

Frye, Northrop. Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1957. ---. The Double Vision: Language and Meaning in Religion. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1991. If a work was written by two or three authors, list the authors names by the first authors last name. Invert only the first authors name. Follow the same order of author names that the book uses. Marquart, James W., Sheldon Ekland Olson, and Jonathan R. Sorensen. The Rope, the Chair and the Needle: Capital Punishment in Texas, 1923-1990. Austin: U of Texas P, 1994.
o For more than three authors, give only the first authors name followed by et al. (and others); you also have the option of giving all authors names, maintaining the order used on the title page.

Gilman, Sander, et al. Hysteria Beyond Freud. Berkeley: U of California P, 1993.

If the persons listed on the title page are editors, translators, or compilers, place a comma (not a

period) after the final name and add the appropriate abbreviation (eds., trans., or comps., for editors, translators, and compilers).

Lopate, Phillip, ed. The Art of Personal Essay: An Anthology from the Classical Era to the Present. New York: Anchor-Doubleday, 1994. BOOKS (MLA Handbook 147-178)
[underline or italicize]Title of Book[period] (Capitalize first letter of key words.) Special information about edition, translation, volume, etc, about the book, if any. regular header, margins, and line spacing

Authors Last Name[comma] Authors Other Names[period]

Doe 42 Works Cited Doyle, Arthur Conan. The Oxford Sherlock Holmes. Ed. Owen Dudley Edwards. 9 vols. New York: Oxford UP, 1993.

Place of Publication [colon] Name of Publisher[comma]

Year of Publication[period]

Underline or italicize the title of a book. Capitalize the first letters of key words (see above). 4

 If you used two or more volumes of a multivolume work, cite the total number of work (5 vols.) after the title of the work and editorial information, if any.

Doyle, Arthur Conan. The Oxford Sherlock Holmes. Ed. Owen Dudley Edwards. 9 vols. New York: Oxford UP, 1993.
If you used any edition other than the first edition of a work, you should identify the edition by number (2nd ed., 5th ed.), by year (2007 ed.), or by name (Rev. ed. for revised edition)whichever the title page of the work indicates.

Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer. Ed. F. N. Robinson. 2nd ed. Boston: Houghton, 1957. PARTS OF A BOOK (MLA Handbook 158-161)
Author of the Text you Cited[period] [double quote]Title of the Work you Cited[period] [underline or italicize]Full Text in which the Text Cited is Published

Works Cited

Doe 42

Harris, Muriel. "Talk to Me: Engaging Reluctant Writers." A Tutor's Guide: Helping Writers One to One. Ed. Ben Rafoth. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2000. 24-34.

Editor/Compiler of the Full Text[period]

Place of Publication [colon] Name of Publisher[comma] (City and State if unfamiliar or ambiguous; country if outside the US)

Year of Publication[period]

Use double quotation marks for articles, chapters, and any shorter works that were published as a
part of a larger volume. Capitalize the first letters of key words (see above).

Franco, Veronica. To the Painter, Jacopo Tintoretto. Poems and Selected Letters. Ed. and trans.
Ann Rosalind Jones and Margaret F. Rosenthal. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1998. 35-37. If the text you cite is an introduction, foreword, preface, or afterword, give that information.

Doody, Margaret Anne. In Search of the Ancient Novel. Introduction. The True Story of the Novel. New Brunswick: Ruggers UP, 1996, 1-11. JOURNAL ARTICLES (MLA Handbook 207-235)
Author of Article[period] [double quote]Title of the Article[period] [underline or italicize]Name of Journal

Doe 42 Barthelme, Frederick. Architecture. Kansas Quarterly 13.3-4 (1981): 77-80. 5

Volume[period]Issue Numbers

Year of Publication in parentheses[colon]

Page Numbers of Article[period]

If issues were combined, show them with a hyphen, like 3-4 above. For journal articles retrieved from online databases, see the entry under electronic sources below.

ELECTRONIC SOURCES (MLA Handbook 207-235)

[double quote]Title of the Article[period] [underline or italicize]Name of Printed Version of the Work (if any)

Author of Article[period]

Publisher[period]

Doe 42 Ross, Don. Game Theory. 11 Sept. 2001. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Ed. Edward N. Zalta. Fall 2002 ed. Center for the Study of Lang. and Information, Stanford U. 1 Oct. 2002 <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/game-theory/>

Editorial information

Volume, edition, issue, etc

Year of Publication

Date the text was posted on the web[period]

URL (web address)

If the site does not mention the author of the text you cited, begin with the title (double quote it); and if the text does not have a title either, start with the name of the entire site.

Hoovers Online. 2002. Hoovers, Inc. 19 June 2002 <http://www.hoovers.com/> City Profile: San Francisco. CNN.com. 2002. Cable News Network. 14 May 2002 <http://www.cnn.com/TRAVEL/atevo/city/San Francisco/intro.html>.
For a journal article downloaded from a database, look at the format below followed by an example.

Author. Title of Article. Name of Journal Volume.Issue (year): Pages. Name of Database. Date retrieved <url>. Tolson, Nancy. Making Books Available: The Role of Early Libraries, Librarians, and
Booksellers in the Promotion of African American Childrens Literature. African American Review 32 (1998): 9-16. JSTOR. 1 Oct. 2002 <http://www.jstor.org/search> PERSONAL COMMUNICATION

You should only cite personal communication within your text (as in-text citation); you need not create separate bibliographic entry for it.
In an email John Brown sent me, he asserted that global warming is not just a fact, it is the most severe threat to mankind (July 13, 2007).