Citing Sources in MLA

IN-TEXT CITATIONS

MLA citation requires that all quotations, paraphrases and summaries of other people’s work include a citation showing where the idea came from originally. This citation follows this format: the author’s last name followed by the page number, if there is one. The citation is enclosed in round brackets: (Thompson 51 ).

You need to provide a citation every time you use an idea or a quotation from another person’s text, website, art, exhibition, etc. If you mention the author’s name in your sentence, you do not need to repeat it in the citation. Quotations longer than four lines should be indented with no quotation marks. For more information, see the handout “Using Quotations”: http://blogs.eciad.ca/wc/?p=1253.

Example

He stressed that “most people know Jack Shadbolt as a painter, but the experience of his prints is no less intense” (Wallace 24). In his catalogue essay, “Imprinted Landscapes,” Rory Wallace suggests that “Shadbolt’s method of working emulates the organic energy of the subject” (26). One critic has stated that

Shadbolt has been able to make prints where a more intricate process is involved, because he has been protected from many of the intimidating technical complexities of printmaking. He made his first lithograph, for example, when Fred Arness, friend and former head of the Vancouver School of Art, gave him some lithographic transfer paper.... He could draw on this paper, much as he would on any other and the black and white images could later be transferred to a lithographic stone for printing. (Wallace 27)

Though he enjoys printmaking, Shadbolt “admits that he is not a printmaker, that it is not his medium. For him, ‘The excitement is in the creating, making, doing – all in one rhapsodic thing’” (qtd. in Wallace 26).

WORKS CITED LIST

At the end of every assignment, you will need to provide a list of sources that you used in your document. This is sometimes called a bibliography, but in MLA Style, this is called the Works Cited.Technically, in the Works Cited you list only those sources you have actually cited within your text. If you would like to include sources that you looked at but did not cite, you may use the title Works Consulted (but check with your instructor before doing so!)

This document provides some examples of different kinds of sources that you might include in your Works Cited list. If you can’t find the type of source you’re looking for below, consult Emily Carr University’s extensive MLA Handbook which provides more examples (http://blogs.eciad.ca/wc/?p=606).

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MLA specifies that the Works Cited list should be double-spaced, but in the interest of saving paper, the following examples are single-spaced.

Books

Books by one author:Adams, Laurie Schneider. A History of Western Art. 3rd ed. New York: McGraw Hill, 2001. Print.

Books with multiple authors:Hogg, Lucy, Reid Shier, and Nancy Tousley. Liz Magor. Toronto, Ont.: Art Gallery of York University, 2000. Print.

Leitch, Vincent et al, eds. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. New York: Norton, 2001. Print.

Two or more books by the same author:Burnett, Ron. Cultures of Vision: Images, Media, and the Imaginary. Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana UP, 1995. Print.

---. ed. Explorations in Film Theory: Selected Essays from Cine-tracts. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1991. Print.

Note: The second and subsequent listings appear alphabetically according to the first significant word in the title. They are preceded by three dashes, a period and a space.

Book edited by someone other than the original author:Foucault, Michel. The Foucault Reader. Ed. Paul Rabinow. New York: Pantheon Books,1984. Print.

Introduction, Preface, Foreword, or Afterword:D’Alleva, Anne. “Introducing Art History: A Guide to Special Terms and Methods.” The Visual Arts: A History. 7th

ed. Honour, Hugh and John Fleming. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2005. Print.

Articles

Article in a newspaper: Milroy, Sarah. “An Artful Anger, Driven to Extreme.” The Globe and Mail. 18 Oct. 2003: R7. Print.

Note: the pagination in newspapers often involves both a letter and number.

Article in a journal with separate volume and issue numbers:Kelly, Patricia. “Painting on the Edge: Jo Baer and Modern Painting in Crisis.” Art Journal. 68, 3 (Fall 2009):

52-67. Print.

Article or essay in an exhibition catalogue with an editorCutler, Randy Lee. “Warning: Sheborgs/Cyberfems Rupture Image-Stream!” The Uncanny: Experiments in

Cyborg Culture. Ed. Bruce Grenville. Vancouver: Vancouver Art Gallery and Arsenal Press, 2002. 187-200. Print.

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Review (titled)Enright, Robert. “Home is Where the Art Is.” Rev. of “Habitat: Canadian Design Now.” The Globe and Mail.

18 Sept. 2002: R1. Print.

Note: If the review has a title but no author, begin (and alphabetize) your citation with the title. If the review is not signed or titled, begin your citation with Rev. of, followed by the name of the piece being reviewed.

Other

Lecture, Speech, Reading, or AddressAndersson, Patrik. “Art and Democracy at the End of the Millenium.” Lecture. Art History 304: Art Now. Emily

Carr Institute of Art + Design. Vancouver. 28 Jan. 2003.

Radio or TV programme“Gracie’s South Wall o’ Art.” Dead Dog Café Comedy Hour. Writ/Prod. Tom King, Edna Rain, and Floyd Favel. CBC

Radio, Vancouver. 3 Mar. 2003.

“The Blessing Way.” The X- Files. Fox. WXIA, Atlanta. 19 Jul. 1998. Television.

Film or VideoStreet Kids. Writ. / Dir. Peg Campbell. National Film Board of Canada, 1985.

Frankenstein. Dir. James Whale. Perf. Boris Karloff, Colin Clive, Mae Clark. 1931. Universal Pictures, 2006. DVD.

Video GameFiraxis Games. Sid Meier’s Civilization Revolution. Take-Two Interactive, 2008. Xbox 360.

Citing Images and Art Sources

Work of Art from a Gallery or Museum (Permanent Collection)Hogg, Lucy. Wounded Warriors #1 and #2. 1992. Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver.

Note: You are not required to include the date the artwork was created. If you choose to do so, place the date immediately after the title of the work.

A Photographic Reproduction of a Work of Art from a Gallery or Museum (Permanent Collection)Léger, Fernand. The City. 1919. Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia. A History of Western Art. 4th ed. By

Laurie Schneider Adams. New York: McGraw Hill. 486. Print.

A Photographic Reproduction of a Work of Art or Object from an Electronic SourceWaddell, Stephen. Wrestlers. 2011. Monte Clark Gallery, Vancouver. Monteclarkgallery.com. Monte Clark Gallery,

n. d. Web. 14 Nov. 2011.

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Homstvedt, Hallgeir. ”Pall stool.” Photograph. Hasta la Design. 8 Nov. 2012. Web. 14 Mar. 2013.

A didactic panel for an exhibition written by an unknown author

An exhibition in general“Offsite: Kota Ezawa.” Vancouver Art Gallery. 2 Feb. 2012. Panel.

A specific panel within an exhibition“Ken Lum.” Vancouver Art Gallery. Feb. 12 – Sept. 25, 2011. Panel.

A panel for a specific work within an exhibition“Bookwus.” U’Mista Cultural Society. 18 Aug. 2011. Panel.

Exhibition CatalogueAckley, Clifford. Printmaking in the Age of Rembrandt. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1981. Print.

Emily Carr Institute. Undergraduate Exhibition Catalogue. Vancouver: Emily Carr Institute, 2007. Print.

Online catalogue essayWallace, Rory. “Lots of Grass: Suburban Living and the Modernist Experience.” The Grass Project – Garden City.

Richmond: Richmond Art Gallery, 2003. Web. 3 Oct. 2003.

Citing Online + Digital Sources

When citing online or digital sources, you may not be able to give all of the information that you would with a stan-dard print document, and you may not be able to find specific instructions in the MLA guide for the type of digital platform you are trying to cite. To help your reader find and confirm the reliability of your source, you need to give as much information as possible in the following order:

• author or editor names if available; • the article, webpage or posting title; • the full title of the website or database; • the name of the publisher or sponsor of the site (use n.p. if this information is not available); • the date (and time if applicable) of publication (use n.d. if this information is not available), • page numbers (use n.pag. if this information is not available); • the medium of publication; • the date you visited the source online (this is called the date of access).

Note: MLA no longer requires the use of URLs because they often change, but some instructors will still request them. If you need to include it, add the URL in angle brackets < > at the end of each Works Cited entry.

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Website or BlogEntire websiteVancouver Art Gallery Website.Vancouver Art Gallery, 2013. Web. 14 Nov. 2013.

< http://www.vanartgallery.bc.ca/>

Page within a website“Current Exhibitions: Charles Edenshaw.” Vancouver Art Gallery Website.Vancouver Art Gallery, 2013. Web. 14 Nov. 2013.

Post within a blogBurnett, Ron. “Wim Wenders, Nicholas Ray and Lightning Over Water.” Critical Approaches to Culture,

Communications, Hypermedia. Personal Weblog, Ron Burnett, 9 Feb. 2012. Web. 10 Dec. 2012.

Online Dictionary“Allegory.” Oxford English Dictionary. OxfordUniversity Press, Dec. 2011. Web. 4 Apr. 2012.

Online Encyclopedia“Praxis.” Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2012. Web. 28 Sep. 2012.

Article published in an online journalBogen, David and Eric Gordan. “Designing Choreographies for the ‘New Economy of Attention.’”

Digital Humanities Quarterly. 2:3 (2009): n. pag. Web. 2 Dec. 2013.

Note: when an online journal has no page numbers, use the abbreviation “n. pag.”.

Review published onlinePeck, Aaron. “Critics’ Pick.” Rev. of Geoffrey Farmer’s Every Letter of the Alphabet. Artforum.com. Artforum, 16

Sept. 2010. Web. 10 Dec. 2012.

Article published in an online journal (pdf format with page numbers)Fouquet, Monique. “Art School and Interdisciplinarity: A Case for Anxiety.” C+C: an interdisciplinary journal of

critical and cultural studies. 1.1 (2003): 33-38. Web. 13 Dec. 2011.

Article from an online databaseGenton, Monique and Joan Trukenbrod. “Creating an Ecology of Cyberspace.”Leonardo Electronic Almanac. N.p.

Apr. 1996. Web. 10 Apr. 2003.

Electronic journal or newsletter accessed through an online databaseNaves, Mario. “A Daughter of Dada: Hannah Hoch at the Moma.” New Criterion 15 (1997): 51. Canadian MAS

FullTEXT Elite. Web. 3 Oct. 2000.

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A TweetZabolotney, Bonne (BonneZ). “Stories as data: rich and diverse way to approach health design research

#maggiebreslin.” 7 Mar. 2012, 7:58 p.m. Tweet. 13 Mar. 2012.

Online Video + FilmMacGregor, Neil. “26,000 Years of History in One Object.” Video. Ted.com. TED, Feb. 2012. Web. 20 Feb. 2012.

Mau, Bruce. “Selected Interviews & TV Appearances.” Video. Youtube.com. Youtube, 8 August 2008. Web. 20 Feb 2012.

Penelope. Dir. Mark Palansky. Perf. Christina Ricci, Catherine O’Hara. Summit Entertainment, 2006. Youtube.com. 27 Aug. 2013. Web. 31 Oct. 2013. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhM6saBCEsw>

A PodcastPrice, Caroline and Timothy Chappell. “Can Love Be Rational?” The Philosophy of Love – Audio. iTunes U. The

Open University, 2011. Podcast. 2 Mar. 2012.

Created by Heather Fitzgerald, with support from Aaron Peck, Kate Noble and tutors from the Emily Carr Writing Centre. Nov. 2013.

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