Mla Guidelines for Writers of Research Papers

7/27/2019 Mla Guidelines for Writers of Research Papers

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MLA GUIDELINES FOR WRITERS OF RESEARCH PAPERS

I. TITLES OF WORKS

1. In a title or subtitle, capitalize the first word, the last word and all principal words, includingthe following parts of speech: nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, subordinatingconjunctions ( after, although, as if, as soon as, because, before, if, that, unless, until,where, when, while) ., e.g., Tender is the Night, The Art of Fiction, Stream of Consciousness inthe Modernist Novel, Go Down, Moses, Anywhere That Chance Leads.The following parts of speech should not be capitalized when they occur in the middle of a title:

° Articles (a, an, the) – A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.° Prepositions (against, between, in, of, to) – The Merchant of Venice, The Reaction

against Experiment.° Coordination conjunctions (and, but, for, nor, or, so, yet) – Love and Death in the

American Novel.° The to infinitives – How to Play Chess

2. Underlined / Italicized TitlesTitles of works published independently should be underlined or italicized. These include: thenames of plays, long poems published as books, pamphlets, periodicals (newspapers,magazines and journals), films, radio and television programs, compact discs), ballets, operas,paintings, works of sculpture, ships, aircraft and spacecraft, e.g.,

The House of the Seven Gables A Streetcar Named Desire (play)The Waste Land (poem)Wall Street Journal

The Nutcracker The Titanic Challenger (spacecraft)

3. Titles in Quotation MarksQuotation marks are used for works published within larger works, such as: names of articles,essays, short stories, short poems, chapters of books, individual episodes of television andradio programs; unpublished works, such as lectures and speeches, e.g.,

“The End of Something” in the volume In Our Time“In Our time and Hemingway’s Later Work” (chapter in a book)“Kubla Khan” (poem)

4. Titles and Quotations within TitlesUnderline / italicize a title when it appears within a title enclosed in quotation marks ( “ In Our Time as Modernist Achievement” – chapter in a book)Enclose in single quotation marks a title normally indicated by quotation marks, when it appearswithin another title given in quotation marks ( “Lines after Reading ‘Sailing to Byzantium’” –poem about a poem).Use quotation marks around a title normally indicated by quotation marks when it appears in anunderlined / italicized title ( “The Lottery” and Other Stories – a book of short stories).Exceptions:

Underlining and quotation marks should not be used with names of sacred writings, of laws,acts, political documents; of series, societies, buildings, monuments; of conferences, seminars,workshops and courses, e.g.,



Bible, Old Testament, Gospels, Genesis, Koran, Talmud;Magna Charta, Declaration of Independence, Treaty of Trianon;Bollingen Series, Masterpiece Theatre;Modern Language Association

Arch of Triumph, Tate GalleryWords designating the divisions of a work are not underlined / italicized or put within quotationmarks, nor are they capitalized when used in the text (preface, introduction, bibliography,appendix, index, stanza 20, canto 32…), e.g.,

The author says in the preface…This idea will be expanded in chapter 2.

II. QUOTATIONSSelect carefully the quotations and avoid overquotation. The quotations must reproduce thesource exactly – unless indicated in brackets or parentheses, changes must not be made in thespelling, capitalization, or interior punctuation of the source. Alternatively, you may paraphrasethe original and quote only fragments, which may be easier to integrate into the text. If youchange a quotation, make the alteration clear to the reader.The following guidelines should be kept in mind:

- Introduce and / or comment on the quotation;- If a quotation runs no more than four lines and requires no special emphasis, put it

in quotation marks and incorporate it into the text.- If a quotation runs to more than four lines in your paper, set it off from your text by

beginning a new line, indenting one inch from the left margin, and typing it without addingquotation marks.

- If the quotation represents a single paragraph or part of one, do not indent the firstline more than the rest.

- If your quotation includes two or more paragraphs, indent the first line of eachparagraph an additional quarter inch.

- Single quotation marks should be used for quotation in quotation.

III. DOCUMENTATION: CITING SOURCES IN THE TEXT

1. Parenthetical Documentation- The simplest way to identify the source of the quotations is to mention the name of the author and the page number in parentheses. The references must clearly point to the specific sourcedetailed in the list of works cited. This applies to items belonging to secondary bibliography.When the quotation is taken from the primary bibliography, you must write at first a footnote withall necessary information and the specification of the title shortening you are going to use

throughout the paper, e.g.,Hemingway, The First Forty-Nine Stories . London: Arrow Books, 1993 (hereafter citedas Stories in parentheses).

When you refer only to one story in the text, you specify it as, g.,Ernest Hemingway. “Indian Camp.” The First Forty-Nine Stories . London: ArrowBooks, 1993, 85-93 (hereafter cited as “Camp” in parentheses).

- Keep parenthetical references as brief – and as few – as clarity and accuracy permit. If youinclude the writer’s name in your comment, you need not repeat it in the parenthetical pagecitation that follows, g.,

Tanner has already argued this point (210-215).This point has already been discussed (Tanner 211-212).

Others hold an altogether different view point (Jackobson and Waugh 210-212).- When the list of works cited contains more titles by the same author, you must mention theyear of publication, after the writer’s name, in parentheses, e.g.,

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This is a book explicitly about the making of modern styles in life and emotion…”(Bradbury 1992, 97)

- The parenthetical reference precedes the quotation mark that concludes the sentence, clauseor phrase containing the borrowed material.- A reference directly after a quotation follows the closing quotation mark.- If the quotation is set off from the text, type a space after the concluding punctuation mark of

the quotation and insert the parenthetical reference (i.e. parentheses after the full stop).

2. Using NotesTwo kinds of notes can be used:- Content notes, offering comments, explanations or information that the text cannotaccommodate.- Bibliographic notes containing either several sources or comments on sources.You may include these notes either as endnotes (at the end of the paper/chapter of your work)or as footnotes.

A documentation note has four main divisions: the author’s name in normal order ( first namefollowed by last name ), comma, the title, the publication data in parentheses and a page of reference, e.g.,

Deborah Tannen, You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation (NewYork: Morrow, 1990) 52.

IV. WORKS CITEDThe entries in the list of works cited should be alphabetized by the author’s last name. If two or more entries citing coauthors begin with the same name, alphabetize by the last names of thesecond authors listed, e.g.,.

Scholles, Robert and Robert KellogScholles, Robert, Carl H. Klaus and Michael Silverman

Arrangement of Entries:- Author’s name (as it appears on the title page), period, full title of the book, includingsubtitle, period (unless it ends with another punctuation mark).Underline / italicize the whole title, but do not underline the period that follows the title.- Publication Information: city of publication, publisher’s name, year of publication.Use a colon between the place of publication and the publisher, a comma between thepublisher and the date, a period after the date.

EXAMPLES:MORE BOOKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR:

Frye, Northrop. Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays . Princeton: Princeton UP, 1957.-----, ed. Sound and Poetry. New York: Columbia UP, 1957.-----, The Double Vision. Language and Meaning in Religion. Toronto: University of Toronto

Press, 1962.

A BOOK BY MORE AUTHORS:Eggins; Suzanne, and Diana Slade. Analysing Casual Conversation. London: Cassell, 1997.

A TEXT IN AN ANTHOLOGY: Allende, Isabel. “Toad’s Mouth.” Trans. Margaret Sayers Peden. A Hammock

Beneath the Mangoes: Stories from Latin America. Ed. Thomas Colchie. New York: Plume,1992, 83-88.

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Franklin, Benjamin. “Emigration in America.” 1782. The Faber Book to America . Ed. Christopher Ricks and William L. Vance. Boston: Faber, 1992, 24-26.

FAMILIAR REFERENCE BOOKS:“Ginsburg; Ruth, Bader, ” Who’s Who in America , 56 th ed. 2002.“Noon” def. 4b. The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. 1989

When citing less familiar reference books, especially at the first edition, give full publicationinformation:

Allen, Anita L. “Privacy in Health Care.” Encyclopedia of Bioethics. Ed. Warren T. Reich. Rev. 5vols. New York: Macmillan – Simon, 1995.

AN INTRODUCTION, PREFACE, FOREWORD, AFTERWORD:Drable, Margaret. Introduction. Middlemarch. By George Eliot. New York: Bantam, 1985. vii-

xviii.Sears, Barry. Afterword. Beyond Category: The Life and Genius of Duke Ellington. By John

Edward Hasse. New York: Simon, 1993. 13-14.

AN ANONYMOUS BOOK:If there is no author’s or editor’s name on the title page, begin with the title.Encyclopedia of Virginia. New York: Somerset, 1993.

TRANSLATION:Hildegard of Bingen. Selected Writings. Trans. Mark Atherton. New York: Penguin, 2001.

AN INTERNET SITE:Bartleby.com: Great Books Online . Ed. Steven van Leeuwen.2002. 5 May 2002 <http://

www.bartleby.com/ >

Encyclopaedia Britannica Online. 2002, Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15 May 2002http://www.britannica.com/

AN ARTICLE IN A MAGAZINE:Brooks; David. “The Culture of Martyrdom.” Atlantic Online. June 2002. 24 Sept. 2002

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2002/06/brooks.htm

AN ARTICLE IN A SCHOLARLY JOURNAL:Dane, Gabrielle. “Reading Ophelia’s Madness.” Exemplaria 10.2 (1998). 22 June 2002

http://www.web.english.ufl.edu/english/exemplaria/danefram.htm

AN UNPUBLISHED DISSERTATIONWrite the title of an unpublished dissertation in quotation marks, followed by the descriptive

label Diss. , the name of the degree-granting university, comma and the year, e.g.,Boyle, Anthony T. “The Epistemological Evolution of Renaissance Utopian Literature, 1516-

1657.” Diss. New York U, 1983.To cite a master’s thesis, substitute the appropriate label (e.g., MA thesis, MS thesis) for Diss.

A LECTURE, A SPEECH, AN ADDRESS, OR A READINGIn a citation of an oral presentation, give the speaker’s name; the title of the presentation (if known), in quotation marks; the meeting; the location; and the date. If there is no title, use anappropriate descriptive label ( Address; Lecture; Keynote Speech, Reading) , neither underlinednor enclosed in quotation marks, e.g.,Terkel, Studs. Address. Conf. on Coll. Composition and Communication Convention. Palmer

House, Chicago. 22 Mar. 1990.

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Mla Guidelines for Writers of Research Papers