MLA Style Guide

The documentation style of the Modern Language Association

The MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 4th ed., offers complete guidelines for
manuscript style and citation in MLA, the documentation style of the humanities. This
handout illustrates the most commonly used types of sources with examples drawn from
the MLA Handbook. If you have a source not illustrated here, consult the MLA Handbook.
A copy of the handbook is available for use in the Writing Lab.
The OSU-N Writing Lab
Founders 106B 366-9411

WORKS CITED ENTRIES

BOOKS
• Book by one author:
Welty, Eudora. One Writer's Beginnings. Cambridge: Harvard UP,
1984.
• Book by two or three authors:
Leghorn, Lisa, and Katherine Parker. Woman's Worth. Boston:
Routledge, 1981.
Kelly, Alfred H., Winfred A. Harbison, and Herman Belz. The American
Constitution: Its Origins and Development. New York: Norton, 1983.
• Book by more than three authors:
Moore, Mark H., et al. Dangerous Offenders: The Elusive Target of
Justice. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1984.
• Two or more books by the same author:
Morris, Desmond. Manwatching: A Field Guide to Human Behavior.
New York: Abrams, 1977.
---. Primate Ethology. London: Widdenfield, 1967.
• Book by a group or a corporate author:
The Boston Women's Health Collective. Our Bodies, Ourselves.
New York: Simon, 1985.
• Book with no author named:
Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 4th ed.
Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 1994.
• Book with an author and editor or translator:
Brontë, Emily. Wuthering Heights. 1847. Ed. David Daiches.
London: Penguin, 1985.
Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Trans. Myra Bergman
Ramos. New York: Seabury, 1970.
• Anthology:
Bartholomae, David, and Anthony Petrosky, eds. Ways of Reading: An
Anthology for Writers, 3rd ed. Boston: Bedford, 1993.
• Selection from an anthology or edited book:
Fiske, John. "Madonna." Ways of Reading: An Anthology for
Writers, 3rd ed. Ed. David Bartholomae and Anthony Petrosky.
Boston: Bedford, 1993. 158-177.
• Two or more selections from an anthology:
Gilbert, Sandra M., and Susan Gubar, eds. The Norton Anthology of
 Literature by Women. New York: Norton, 1985.
Kingston, Maxine Hong. "No Name Woman." Gilbert and Gubar
237-47.
• A multivolume work:
If you are using two or more volumes of a work, cite the total number of volumes in the work:
Doyle, Arthur Conan. The Oxford Sherlock Holmes. Ed. Owen Dudley
Edwards. 9 vols. New York: Oxford UP, 1993.
If you are using only one volume of a multivolume work, state the number of the volume in
the bibliographic entry and give publication information for that volume only:
Dante. The Inferno. Trans. Mark Musa. Vol. 1. New York: Penguin,
1984. 3 vols.
• A book in a series:
Stewart, Joan Hinde. Colette. Twayne's World Authors Ser. 679.
Boston: Twayne, 1983.
• A government publication:
Washburne, E.B. Memphis Riots and Massacres. US 39th Cong., 2nd sess.
H. Rept. 101. Washnington: GPO, 1866. New York: Arno, 1969.
If the author of the document is not known, cite the agency:
United States. Cong. House. Memphis Riots and Massacres. 39th Cong., 2nd
sess. H. Rept. 101. Washington: GPO, 1866. New York: Arno, 1969.
• Conference proceedings:
Freed, Barbara F., ed. Foreign Language Acquisition Research and the
Classroom. Proc. of Consortium for Language Teaching and Learning
Conference, Oct. 1989, U of Pennsylvania. Lexington: Heath, 1991.
• Article in a reference book:
Signed:
Johnson, Peder J. "Concept Learning." Encyclopedia of
Education. 1971.
Unsigned:
"Ireland." Encyclopedia Britannica. 1974 ed.
Note that special reference books require full publication information:
Holt, Robert R. "Freud, Sigmund." International Encyclopedia of the
Social Sciences. Ed. David L. Sills. 18 vols. New York: Macmillan,
1968.

Periodicals
• Article in monthly or bimonthly periodical:
Roosevelt, Anna. "Lost Civilizations of the Lower Amazon."
Natural History Feb. 1989: 74-83.
• Article in a journal with continuous pagination:
Cochran, D.D., W. Daniel Hale, and Christine P. Hissam. "Personal
Space Requirements of Indoor versus Outdoor Locations." Journal
of Psychology 117 (1984): 132-133.
• Article in a journal that pages each issue separately:
Give both volume (7) and issue (2):
Hashimoto, Irvin. "Pain and Suffering: Apostrophes and Academic
Life." Journal of Basic Writing 7.2 (1988): 91-98.
• Article in a newspaper:
Manegold, Cathrine S. "Becoming a Land of the Smoke-Free, Ban by
Ban." New York Times 22 Mar. 1994, late ed.: A1+.
• Review:
Kauffmann, Stanley. "A New Spielberg." Rev. of Schindler's
List, dir. Steven Spielberg. New Republic 13 Dec. 1993: 30.

CD-ROMS and ONLINE DATABASES

• CD-ROM:
Angier, Natalie. "Chemists Learn Why Vegetables Are Good for You."
New York Times 13 Apr. 1993, late ed.: C1. New York Times Ondisc.
CD-ROM. UMI-Proquest. Oct. 1993.
If all the information for your entry is not given, use what is available.
• Internet:
Readings, Bill. "The Terror of European Humanism." Surfaces
1.11 (Dec. 1991): 19 pp. Online. Internet. 2 Feb. 1992.
Available FTP: harfang.cc.umontreal.ca.

OTHER SOURCES
• Recording:
Bartoli, Cecilia. If You Love Me: Eighteenth-Century Italian Songs.
London, 1992.
Ellington, Duke, cond. Duke Ellington Orchestra. First Carnegie Hall
Concert. Rec. 23 Jan. 1943. LP. Prestige, 1977.
• Musical Composition:
Berlioz, Hector. Symphonie Fantastique, op. 14.
• Radio or Television Program:
The Little Sister. Writ. and dir. Jan Eglson. With Tracy Pollan and John
Savage.
Prod. Rebecca Eaton. American Playhouse. PBS. WGBH, Boston. 7 April 1986.
• Film or Videorecording:
Like Water for Chocolate [Como agua para chocolate]. Screenplay by
Laura Esquivel. Dir. Alfonso Arau. Perf. Lumi Cavazos, Marco
Lombardi, and Regina Torne. Miramax, 1993.
• Performance:
Medea. By Euripides. Trans. Alistair Elliot. Dir. Jonathan Kent.
Perf. Diana Rigg. Longacre Theatre, New York. 7 Apr. 1994.
• Lecture, Speech, or Address:
Kennedy, John Fitzgerald. Address. Greater Houston Ministerial
Association. Houston. 12 Sept. 1960.
• Interview:
Friedman, Randi. Telephone interview. 30 June 1989.
• Work of Art:
Bernini, Gianlorenzo. Ecstasy of St. Teresa. Santa Maria della
Vittoria, Rome.
• Letter:
Woolf, Virginia. "To T.S. Eliot." 28 July 1920. Letter 1138 of
The Letters of Virginia Woolf. Ed. Nigel Nicholson and Joanne
Trautmann. Vol. 2. New York: Harcourt, 1976. 437-38.
• Legal Source:
Stevens v. National Broadcasting Co. 148 USPQ 755. CA Super. Ct.
1966.
• Dissertation:
Unpublished:
Sakala, Carol. "Maternity Care Policy in the United States: Toward
 a More Rational and Effective System." Diss. Boston U. 1993.
Published:
Valentine, Mary-Blair Truesdell. An Investigation of Gender-Based
Leadership Styles of Male and Female Officers in the United
States Army. Diss. George Mason U. 1993. Ann Arbor: UMI, 1933.
9316566.

IN-TEXT CITATION
The list of works cited at the end of your paper indicates to your readers what works you used
in writing the paper. Parenthetical documentation, or in-text citation, clearly points to specific
sources, and specific parts of those sources, in the list of works cited:
Medieval Europe was a place both of "raids, pillages, slavery, and extortion" and of
"traveling merchants, monetary exchange, towns if not cities, and active markets in grain"
(Townsend 10).
If you include an author's name in the sentence, do not repeat the name in the parenthetical
page citation:
Tannen has argued this point (178-85).
OR
This point has already been argued (Tannen 178-85).
If the quotation is lengthy (more than four lines of text), use the form of block quotation
(double-spaced, no quotation marks):
Mahon adds insight to our understanding of the War of 1812:
Financing the war was very difficult at the time. Baring Brothers, a banking firm of the
enemy country, handled routine accounts for the United States overseas, but the firm
would take on no loans. The loans were in the end absorbed by wealthy Americans at
great hazard--also, . . . at great profit to them. (385)
If you are quoting an author who has been quoted by another author, indicate both names:
(Cather qtd. in McClave)

ENDNOTES AND FOOTNOTES

Some instructors prefer endnotes or footnotes to document sources. If you use notes for
documentation, you may not need a list of works cited. Check with your instructor.
• Book:
1
Deborah Tannen, You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation
(New York: Morrow, 1990) 52.
• Periodical:
2
"The Decade of the Spy," Newsweek 7 Mar. 1994: 26-27.
Subsequent notes use only author and page:
3
Tannen 62.