MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers by The discipline of English, as well as many other disciplines in the humanties, use MLA citation format. Below are some examples for formatting the Works Cited page. Look in the drop-down menu for examples of in-text citations.
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Book, |
Garcia Marquez, Gabriel. Love in the Time of Cholera. New York: Vintage, 1988. Print.
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Book, |
Casell, Kay Ann and Uma Hiremath. Reference and Information Services in the 21st Century: An Introduction. New York: Neal-Schuman, 2004. Print. (NOTE: Authors should be listed in the order they are listed on the title page.) |
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Book, |
Robbins, Chandler S., et al. Birds of North America: A Guide to Field Identification. New York: Golden, 1966. Print. (or you may list all the authors in the order they appear on the title page, like so: Robbins, Chandler S., Bertel Bruun, and Herbert S. Zim.) |
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Book, |
Homer. The Odyssey. Trans. Robert Fagles. New York: Viking, 1996. Print. |
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A work (e.g., essay, short story) in an anthology or compilation. |
Kimball, Jean. "Growing Up Together: Joyce and Psychoanalysis, 1900-1922." Ed. Michael Patrick Gillespie. Joyce through the Ages: A Nonlinear View. Gainesville: UP of Florida, 1999. 25-45. Print. |
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An Introduction, a Preface,a Forward, or An Afterword in a Book |
Hughes, Ted. Introduction. Collected Poems. By Sylvia Plath. Ed. Hughes. New York: HarperPerennial, 1992. 13-17. Print. (where Hughes is the author of the Introduction, Plath is the author of the poems, and Hughes is also the editor. Page numbers are for the introduction) |
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Book, |
Blamires, Harry. The New Bloomsday Book: A Guide through Ulysses. 3rd ed. New York: Routledge, 1996. Print. |
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Book, 5.5.10 |
Eliot, George. Middlemarch. Ed. Bert G. Hornback. New York: Norton, 1977. Print. |
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Article in an Online Database |
Hannah, Daniel K. "The Private Life, the Public Stage: Henry James in Recent Fiction." Journal of Modern Literature 30.3 (2007): 70-94. JSTOR. Web. 21 July 2011. |
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Article in Print Scholarly Journal |
Hannah, Daniel K. "The Private Life, the Public Stage: Henry James in Recent Fiction." Journal of Modern Literature 30.3 (2007): 70-94. Print. |
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A Review |
Bulson, Eric. "Dead Slowly." Rev. of The Modernist Papers, by Fredric Jameson. The Times Literary Supplement 25 July 2008: 426. Print. (where Bulson is the reviewer) |
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Web document (non-periodical) |
Farkas, Meredith. "Tips for Being a Great Blogger (and a Good Person)." Information Wants to Be Free. N.p., 19 July 2011. Web. 26 July 2011. Citation for web documents should include the following elements, in this order, if they can be found on the website (5.6.2):
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In-text citations should show precisely where you used others' ideas and words. These in-text citations should refer the reader to the source on the Works Cited page and, in most cases, provide the reader the exact location of the idea or quote within the source itself.
For example, parenthetical citations will list the first part of the Works Cited entry (e.g., an author's last name) and then the location (e.g., a page number).
Below, specific examples are provided.
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Author's Name in Text (Paraphrase): |
Posnock is quick to point out that Pater believes in the autonomy of the self (181). |
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Author's Name In Reference (Paraphrase): |
Pater believes in the autonomy of the self (Posnock 181). |
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Author's Name In Text (with Quote): |
Posnock is quick to point out that Pater believes in the autonomy of the self, the “individual in isolation” (181). |
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Author's Name In Reference (with Quote): |
Pater believes in the autonomy of the self, the "individual in isolation" (Posnock 181). |
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Author's Name In Text, with only part of the sentence referencing the author's ideas. |
Just as Pater summons the reader to live by stating, “For our chance lies in expanding that interval [between life and death], in getting as many pulsations as possible into a given time” (153), so, too, does Henry James charge Milly. Note: Try to place page numbers at natural pauses. This usually happens at the end of the sentence. However, if you are making your own, unique point in part of the sentence (as here), it may not. |
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Author's Name In Reference, with only part of the sentence referencing the author's ideas. |
Milly must squeeze in ". . . as many pulsations as possible into a given time" (Pater 153). |
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A Quote longer than 4 lines. (This example with author's name in text) |
In his letter to Gosse, Henry James addresses and imagines Pater’s continuing potency throughout time:
He reminds me, in the disturbed night of our actual literature, of one of those
lucent matchboxes which you place . . . near the candle, to show you, in the
darkness, where you can strike a light: he shines in the uneasy gloom
—vaguely, and has a phosphorescence . . . . he is not of the little day—but
of the longer time (293).
Thus James continues to play with notions of temporality.
NOTES: Double-space and indent quotes that are longer than 4 lines within the text. There is no need to place them in quotation marks. Include the page number and author (if not in text) in parentheses at the end. |
| When 2 or more works by the same author are included in the Works Cited page |
Mead puts forth a more permeable social self unlike James's more or less rigid "concrete particular I's and you's" (Principles 226). Mead puts forth a more permeable social self unlike the more or less rigid "concrete particular I's and you's" (James, Principles 226). NOTE: Include a partial title so that the reader knows which one is referred to on the Works Cited page. |
| When a work is listed by title on the Works Cited page |
They aimed to prove the "essential goodness of humanity" ("Transcendentalism" 46). |