MLA Documentation Workshop

Presented by the TCC Southeast Campus Writing

Center

In-text Citation

Enclose borrowed language in quotation marks.

Use signal phrases to integrate your sources.

Limit your use of quotations; integrate language from a source into your own sentence structure.

Set off long quotations. Then, quotation marks are unnecessary.

Introducing Quoted Material

According to the MLA Handbook, “You must construct a clear, grammatically Correct sentence that allows you to introduce or incorporate a quotation with complete accuracy” (93). Some examples from the MLA Handbook are listed below.

•Shelley held a bold view: “Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the World” (794).

•Shelley thought poets “the unacknowledged legislators of the World” (794).

•“Poets,” according to Shelley, “are the unacknowledged legislators of the World” (794).

•“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” wrote Charles Dickens of the eighteenth century.

•Reflecting on the “incident” in Baltimore, Cullen concludes, “Of all the things that happened there / That’s all that I remember” (11-12).

Book with One Author (p.149, MLA; p. 428-429, RW; p.624, BH)

Required Information Author. Title. City: Publisher, Date of publication. Medium.

Sample Works Cited Entry Hulme, Keri. The Bone People. New York: Penguin, 1986. Print.

Sample Parenthetical Citation After selling his house and taking his bus to a northern

wilderness by the sea, Joe literally “plunges into the

natural” by jumping over the edge of a thirty-foot

bluff, telling himself, “If I make it, it will be a sign”

(Hulme 341).

Two or More Books by the Same Author

(p.133, MLA; p.438, RW;p.626, BH)

Required Information Author. Title. City: Publisher, Year. Medium.

---. Title. City: Publisher, Year. Medium.Sample Works Cited Entry Frye, Northrop. Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays.

Princeton: Princeton UP, 1957. Print.

---. The Double Vision: Language and Meaning in Religion. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1991. Print.

Sample Parenthetical Citation Shakespeare’s King Lear has been called a “comedy of the grotesque” (Frye, Anatomy 237).

A Work in an Anthology (p.157, MLA; p.433,439-40, RW; p.628, BH)

Required Information Author. “Story/Poem.” Textbook Title. Editor. Edition. Volume. City: Publisher, Year. Medium.

Sample Works Cited Entry Anderson, Sherwood. “Adventure.” The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Nina Baym. 5th ed. Vol. 2. New York: Norton, 1998. 1149-54. Print.

Sample Parenthetical Citation Although Alice faithfully waits for her lover’s return,

“[…] all the time the creeping fear that he would never

come grew back stronger within her” (Anderson 1151).

More Than One Quotation from the Same Source

(p.218, MLA)

Sample Works Cited Entry Zender, Karl F. “Loving Shakespeare’s Lovers: Character Growth in Romeo and Juliet.” Approaches to Teaching Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Ed. Maurice Hunt. New York: MLA, 2000. 137-43. Print.

Sample Parenthetical Citation Romeo and Juliet presents an opposition between two worlds: “the world of the everyday…and the world of romance.” Although the two lovers are part of the world of romance, their language of love nevertheless becomes “fully responsive to the tang of actuality” (Zender 138, 141).

An Edited Book (p.158, MLA; p.439, RW; p.628 BH)

Required Information Editor(s). Title. Edition. Volume. City: Publisher, Year. Medium.

Sample Works Cited Entry Kirszner, Laurie G., and Stephen R. Mandell, eds. Literature: Reading, Reacting, Writing. 7th ed. Boston: Wadsworth, 2010. Print.

Sample Parenthetical Citation In Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown,” the author uses symbols, such as the walking stick, the woods,

sunset and night, and the vague shadows to develop one of its central themes (Kirszner and Mandell 346).

MLA Cross Reference (p.135, MLA; p.629, BH)

Required Information Separate entry for the collection (Book with an Editor) Author. “Title.” Editor Pages.

Sample Works Cited Entry Kingston, Maxine Hong. “No Name Woman.” Oates and

Atwan 383-94.

Oates, Joyce Carol, and Robert Atwan, eds. The Best

American Essays of the Century. Boston: Houghton,

2000. Print.

Walker, Alice. “Looking for Zora.” Oates and Atwan 395-411.

Sample Parenthetical Citation Walker describes the experience of finding Zora Hurston’s

grave as a time “when normal responses of grief, horror, and

so on do not make sense because they bear no real relation to

the depth of the emotion one feels” (411).

A Film Cited as an Entire Work

(p. 197-98, MLA; p.456-57, RW; p.648-49, BH)

Required Information Title. Director. Performer(s). Distributor, Year of

Release. Medium.

Sample Works Cited Entry Finding Neverland. Dir. Marc Forster. Perf. Meryl

Streep, Kate Winslet, Julie Christie, Radha

Mitchell, and Dustin Hoffman. Miramax, 2004.

Film.

Sample Parenthetical Citation Barrie, in the film Finding Neverland, is inspired by the

imaginative games he plays with four young boys.

Sacred Texts (p. 164, 227, MLA; p. 435,442, RW; p.630, BH)

Required Information Title. Editor (or Translator). City: Publisher, Year.

Medium. Version used.

Sample Works Cited Entry The Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha.

Ed. Herbert G. May and Bruce M. Metzger. New

York: Oxford UP, 1965. Print. Rev. Standard Vers.

Sample Parenthetical Citation Consider the words of Solomon: “If your enemy is

hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he is thirsty, give

him water to drink” (Oxford Annotated Bible, Prov.

25.21).

Indirect Sources (p. 226, MLA; p. 432, RW; p. 617, BH)

Required Information Author. Title. City: Publisher, Year. Medium.

Sample Works Cited Entry Boswell, James. The Life of Johnson. Ed. George

Birkbeck Hill and L. F. Powell. 6 vols. Oxford:

Clarendon, n.d. Print.

Sample Parenthetical Citation Samuel Johnson admitted that Edmund Burke was an

“extraordinary man” (qtd. in Boswell 2: 450).

A Work without Stated Publication Information or

Pagination

(p. 179-87, MLA; p. 447-49, RW)

Required Information Author. Title. City: Publisher, Year. Medium.

Abbreviation for information you cannot supply

____________________________

n.p. No place of publication givenn.p. No publisher givenn.d. No date of publication givenn. pag. No pagination given[ ?] Uncertain about the accuracy of the information you supply, add a question mark

Sample Works Cited Entry Bauer, Johann. Kafka und Prag. [Stuttgart]: Belser, [1971?]. Print.Michelangelo. The Sistine Chapel. New York: Wings, 1992. N. pag. Print.Photographic View Album of Cambridge. [Eng.]: n.p., n.d. N. pag. Print.

Article in a Scholarly Journal (p.137, MLA; p. 444-45, RW; p.633, BH)

Required Information Author. “Article Title.” Journal Title Volume. Issue (Year): Pages. Medium.

Sample Works Cited Entry Kromholz, Linda. “Reading and Insight in Toni Morrison’s Paradise.” African American Review 36. 1 (2002): 21-34. Print.

Sample Parenthetical Citation According to one critic, “Toni Morrison uses repetition

with a difference to create multiple versions of stories,

to revise dominant history, and to represent processes

of healing, transformation, and insight” (Krumholz 21).

Reprinted Work in a Collection, such as Contemporary Literary Criticism, Poetry Criticism, or

Short Story Criticism

(p.159, MLA; p. 445, RW)

Required Information Article Author. “Article Title.” Publication Information for Original Source. Collection Title. Collection Editor. Volume. City: Publisher, Year. Pages. Medium.

Sample Works Cited Entry Ash, Susan. “The Bone People after Te Kaihau.” World Literature Written in English 29.1 (1989): 123- 35. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Jeffrey W. Hunter. Vol. 130. Detroit: Gale, 2000. 48-55. Print.

Sample Parenthetical Citation According to Susan Ash, “Kerewin may repress her ‘essential’ self (the self who can lead), and present a mask of self-satisfied isolation to society, but at no time does she adopt conventional female roles” (49).

Document from an Internet Site (1)

(p. 181-90, MLA; p. 447-53,RW; p.636-46, BH)

Required Information(MLA does not require a Web address <URL> in citations; however, if your instructor requires the URL, then include the URL.)

Author. Title of Work. Site Sponsor. Last Date Updated

(or the date of publication). Medium. Access

Date. <URL>.

Sample Works Cited Entry without URL

Garcia Landa, Jose Angel, comp. A Bibliography of

Literary Theory, Criticism and Philology. 13th ed.

U de Zaragoza, 2008. Web.15 May 2008.

Sample Parenthetical CitationAccording to Garcia Landa, the website provides many

scholarly publications that include “linguistics, cultural

studies, discourse analysis, and other philological

subjects.”

Document from an Internet Site (2)—Professional Web site

(p. 181-90, MLA; p. 447-52,RW; p.636-46, BH)

Required Information (MLA does not require a Web address <URL> in citations; however, if your instructor requires the URL, then include the URL.)

Author. “Title of Short Work.” Title of Web site.

Sponsor of Web site. Update date (or “n.d.” ).

Medium. Access Date. <URL>.

Sample Works Cited Entry with URL

Mitchell, Jacqueline S. “Beyond Stress.” PBS Online.

Public Broadcasting Service. 3 June 2003. Web.

3 June 2003. <http://www.pbs.org/saf/1310/

features/ptsd.htm>.Sample Parenthetical Citation In the article, Mitchell points out that the name of Post-

Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) “is cold and clinical, but its symptoms can be terrifying, calamitous and visceral.”

Document from an Internet Site (3) (p. 181-90, MLA; p.447-53, RW; p.636-46, BH)

Required Information(MLA does not require a Web address <URL> in citations; however, if your instructor requires the URL, then include the URL.)

“Title of Short Work.” Site Title. Sponsor of Web

site. Update date (or “n.d.” ). Medium. Access

Date. <URL>.

Sample Works Cited Entry with URL “Girl in Peanut Butter Lawsuit Receives Kidney

Transplant.” FoxNews.com. Fox News

Channel. 19 June 2007. Web.19 June 2007.

<http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,28429

8,00.html>. Sample Parenthetical Citation

Food contamination can have serious consequences;

in one case, “an 11-year-old girl whose family says

she became ill after eating peanut butter

contaminated with salmonella received a kidney

donated by her father” (“Girl”).

Database Article from a Scholarly Journal

(p. 192-93, MLA; p. 449-52, RW; p.642, BH)

Required Information Article Author. “Article Title.” Publication Information

for Original Source. Database Title. Medium.

Access Date.

Sample Works Cited Entry Benediktsson, Thomas E. “The Reawakening of the

Gods: Realism and the Supernatural in Silko and

Hulme.” Critique 33.2 (1992):121-31. Academic

Search Complete. Web. 20 June 2007.

Sample Parenthetical CitationThe codes of realism would have us accept “two

contradictory codes … that the narrative is not literally

true [and] that the work bears a resemblance to social

and psychological reality” (Benediktsson).

More Database Sources (p.192 , MLA; p. 452, RW)

Required Information for Using an Electronic Book (faculty preference)

Author. Title of the Work. City: Publisher, Year.

Sponsor of Web site. Medium. Access Date.

Sample Works Cited Entry Kahn, Coppelia. Roman Shakespeare Warriors,

Wounds, and Women. London: Routeledge, 1997.

NetLibrary. Web. 14 June 2007.

Required Information for UsingArticle from a Newspaper

Author. “Title of the Article.” Title of the Newspaper.

Date. Edition: Session’s Page. Publisher or

Sponsor of the Site, Web. Access Date.

Sample Works Cited Entry Eisinger, Jesse. “Ahead of the Tape.” Wall Street

Journal 3 June 2003, eastern ed.: CI. Proquest.

Web. 10 June 2003.

MLA Works Cited Pages: The Basics

Your heading should be in the top right-hand corner, one-half inch from the top of the page. It includes your last name and the page number. Your Works Cited page is the last page of your paper, so if you have written a four-page paper, the number on your Works Cited page should be 5.

The entire Works Cited page should be double spaced. Before you begin typing the Works Cited, you should change the line spacing to “Double” by going to Home and Paragraph on the tool bar.

The title (Works Cited) should be centered on first line of the page. Do not italicize, underline, or bold the title. Do not put quotation marks around it. It should be in the same size font as the rest of your paper.

All of your entries should be alphabetized by the first word in the entry. Usually this word is the author or editor’s last name; entries with unknown authors or editors should be alphabetized by the first word of the title.

The first line of each entry should begin on the left margin. If the entry is longer than one line, each subsequent line should be indented one-half inch (a tab).

Italicize all titles of books, plays, newspapers, journals, magazines, films, albums, and CDs.

Put quotation marks around all titles of articles, short stories, essays, poems, and reference book entries.

For More Information:

Consult the 7th edition of the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers and the 6th edition of the Rules for Writers.

Make an appointment to meet individually with a Writing Center staff member.

Consult your professor during his/her office hours.

To Review On-line:

Visit our web site at

http://libguides.tccd.edu/se-writingcenter

and click on the “Workshops” tab.

Works CitedHacker, Diana. Rules for Writers. 6th ed.

Boston: Bedford/St. Marin’s, 2009. Print.

…The Bedford Handbook. 7th ed. Boston:

Bedford/St. Marin’s, 2006. Print.

MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. 7th ed. New York: The Modern

Language Association of America. Print.