Citing Sources in MLA Style
You may already be familiar with one or more of the commonly used methods of citing sources -- Modern Language Association style (MLA), American Psychological Association style (APA), Chicago style, and Turabian style. Each style is used in academic writing and follows slightly different rules. TRIO ThinkQuest entries use the MLA citation style.
In the MLA documentation style, a short citation in parentheses in the body of your text is used to give credit to a source. For each piece of information you use, you will need a citation in parentheses to show where it came from. This usually includes the author's last name and the page number where you found the information. Without these citations, you could be accused of plagiarism. See Avoiding Plagiarism from UC Davis or Plagiarism: What It is and How to Avoid It from Indiana University for methods of citing and paraphrasing information.
A "Works Cited" page will have complete information about each source listed alphabetically. If your users want more information about a source, they can refer to your list of citations. You will need to make your works cited page before using parenthetic citations.
Information to provide for each source:
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Names of author(s), editor, translator, and/or compiler. Invert the author's name (last name, first name). If there is more than one author, invert only the first author's name. If there are more than 3 authors, use the first author's name (inverted) followed by the abbreviation "et al." (meaning "and others"). For a source prepared by an editor or compiler, include both the author and the editor. Abbreviate editor ed. compiler comp. and translator trans.
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Title of article, short story, book chapter, poem, or song. Put these types of titles in quotation marks. Use a period for punctuation before the last quotation mark.
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Title of book, newspaper, magazine, journal, Web site, or database. For the Web use italics for these titles. Don't underline these titles on the Web since visitors would likely mistake them for a link. Publication information. Include all publishers listed on the source's title page. Include the publication date and location (city). Version/edition number. Use this for special editions of films, Web pages, books, etc. Page numbers (for articles).
Additional information for online resources:
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Access date (the last day you accessed the information). Use the day, month, and year.
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Electronic address in angle brackets. Use the Web site's full electronic address or URL (Uniform Resource Locator). For example, use <http://www.triothinkquest.org/» rather than <www.triothinkquest.org».
If you are using an electronic version of an article, book, etc., you must use the same information as you would for printed materials as well as the Web site's electronic address and the date you accessed the site.
Below is a chart showing works cited entry formats for ten common types of sources in MLA style. This is not a comprehensive list of source types, and there may be different rules depending on the publication information available or in other special cases. Refer to the fifth edition of Joseph Gibaldi's MLA Handbook for Writers or the links at the end of this page if you cannot find an example similar to the type of source you wish to cite.
| 1. Books:
Author(s). Title of Book. City Where Published: Publisher, Year of Publication. |
| 2. Newspaper and Magazine Articles: Author(s). "Title of Article." Title of Source. Day Month Year: pages. |
| 3. Scholarly Journal Articles:
Author(s). "Title of Article." Title of Journal. Volume (Year): pages. |
| 4. Web Sites:
Author(s). Name of Web Page. Date of posting/revision. Name of institution/corporation affiliated with the site. Access Day Month Year. |
| 5. Online Articles: Author(s). "Article Title." Title of Resource. Date of publication/update/posting. Access Day Month Year. |
| 6. Films:
Title of Film. Dir. Name of director. Perf. Names of performers. Distributor, Year of release. |
| 7. Videocassettes, Laserdiscs, or DVDs: Title of Film. Dir. Name of Director. Perf. Names of performers. Original year of release. Type of media. Distributor, Year of video release. |
| 8. Television or Radio Programs:
"Episode Title." Title of Program. Title of series. Name of network. Station call letters, City. Broadcast Day Month Year. |
| 9. Sound Recordings:
Artist(s). "Song Title." Title of Recording. Distributor, Year of release. |
| 10. Interviews that you conducted: Name of person interviewed. Type of interview. Day Month Year. |
Basic Rules of MLA style works cited list:
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Alphabetize your list of sources by the first word in each entry (usually the author's last name). If no author is given, use the title, ignoring the words A, An, or The. If you have cited more than one work by the same author (and he/she is the sole author of the source), use three hyphens instead of the author's name after the first entry and order those sources alphabetically by title.
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Double space between each line in an entry and between entries.
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Left-align the first line of each entry and indent by five spaces each subsequent line.
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Provide the required information. This will vary depending on the type of source. Refer to the title page of the source for the information in your works cited list.
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Use correct punctuation. Follow the format of the examples provided below.
The example works cited page below uses one example from each of the ten types of sources described above. Use the examples below as a reference to list some common types of sources. Pay attention to punctuation, capitalization, and underlining/italicizing.
The Beatles. Apple Corps Ltd. 2000. 5 March 2001
The Beatles. The White Album. Emd/Capitol, 1968. Bernard, Jami. "' Hard Day's Night' Director Recalls Film's Bozza, Anthony. "Beatles Top RIAA List." Rolling Stone, "Brush with Greatness." The Simpsons. Fox. KCPQ, Seattle. 7 Jan. 2001. Everett, Walter. The Beatles as Musicians: Revolver A Hard Day's Night. Dir. Richard Lester. Perf. John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr. Proscenium Films, 1964. Smith, Lennon. Personal Interview. 2 Oct. 2000. Wallgreen, Mark. "Yellow Submarine Sails Again!" Yellow Submarine. Dir. George Dunning. Perf. Paul Angelis, Peter Batten, John Clive, and Dick Emery. 1968. Videocassette. MGM/UA Home Video, 1987. |
Links on MLA style citations:
In MLA style citations, there are specific guidelines for how to cite each type of resource. Follow the links below for more examples and further clarification.
MLA Style
http://www.mla.org/publications/style
The style section of the Modern Language Association of America Web site. Find the MLA frequently asked questions here.
Using MLA Format
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/research/r_mla.html
An online handout from the Purdue University Online Writing Lab that provides MLA format examples for different types of potential sources.
Citing Sources
http://www.lib.duke.edu/libguide/citing.htm
This page from Duke University Library shows the differences between four different methods of citation: APA, Chicago, MLA, and Turabian.