MLA Citation Style

General guidelines for writing

research papers
Citation Styles for
Research Papers
 APA: psychology, education, and other social
sciences.
 MLA: literature, arts, and humanities.
 AMA: medicine, health, and biological sciences.
 Turabian: designed for college students to use with
all subjects.
 Chicago: used with all subjects in the "real world"
by books, magazines, newspapers, and other non-
scholarly publications.
Modern Language
Association Citation Style
 General format of research papers

 Works Cited

 In-text citations

 Endnotes / Footnotes
General Format

 Double space

 Font: Times New Roman

 Font size: 11 or 12

 In-text citation as a free-standing block of

text: single space / font size: 10 / indented
Works Cited. General
Guidelines
- Location of works cited: at the end of the paper, starting
on a separate piece of paper
- Double space + centering Works Cited as title
 Listing entries: in alphabetical order by authors' last
names (surnames), or by title for sources without
authors.
 Titles of shorter works (articles, poems or short stories) –
between quotation marks / titles of longer works (books,
magazines, reviews, journals) – in italics or underlined
 Capitalize the first word and all other principle words of
the titles and subtitles of cited works listed. (Do not
capitalize articles, prepositions, coordinating
conjunctions, or the "to" in infinitives.)
Works Cited. General
Guidelines (cont.)
 When multiple publishers are listed, include all of
them, placing a semicolon between each.
 Use the conjunction "and," not an ampersand [&],
when listing multiple authors of a single work.
 When more than one city is listed for the same
publisher, use only the first city.
 Pagination: Do not use the abbreviations p. or pp. to
designate page numbers.
 Indentation: Align the first line of the entry flush with
the left margin, and indent all subsequent lines (5 to 7
spaces) to form a "hanging indent."
Books
No author or editor
One author / Another work, same author
One author as both solo author and co-author
Two or three authors
More than three authors
Corporate author
Anthology or collection / cross-referencing
Multivolume work
Article in a book
Reprinted article
Translated article
Introduction / Preface / Foreword / Afterword
Periodicals
Articles in Journals, Magazines, Newspapers

Journal article, one author or two authors

Journal article, continuous or non-
continuous pagination
Magazine article
Newspaper article, no author
Newspaper article, one author,
discontinuous pages
Electronic sources
MLA style requires electronic addresses to be listed between carets (<, >).
Always include as much information as is available/applicable:
 Author and/or editor names
 Name of the database, or title of project, book, article
 Any version numbers available
 Date of version, revision, or posting
 Publisher information
 Date you accessed the material
 Electronic address, printed between carets (<, >).

Basic format:
Name of Site / project/ book. Date of Posting/Revision. Name of
institution/organization affiliated with the site (sometimes found in
copyright statements). Date you accessed the site <electronic
address>.

An Article in a Web Magazine

Author(s). "Title of Article." Title of Online Publication. Date of
Publication. Date of Access <electronic address>.
In-text Citation
Parenthetical citation. E.g.: (author’s last name page number). The
citation, both (263) and (Wordsworth 263), tells readers that the information in the
sentence can be located on page 263 of a work by an author named Wordsworth. If
readers want more information about this source, they can turn to the Works Cited
page, where, under the name of Wordsworth.
Citing authors with the same last name: provide initials or full name in
case initials are identical. E.g.: (R Miller 32) ; (A. Miller 176)
Citing multiple works by the same author – 2 possibilities consistent
with the ending Works Cited list:
- (Last name, shortened title page number) : (Elkins, "Visual Studies" 63).
- (Last name a page number); (Last name b page number) – (Sollors
a 12), (Sollors b 478)
Citing anonymous work / unknown author: If the work you are citing to
has no author, use an abbreviated version of the work's title.
("Wordsworth’s Universe" 100).
In-text Citation (Cont.)
Citing indirect sources: An indirect source is a source cited in
another source. For such indirect quotations, use "qtd. in" to
indicate the source you actually consulted: "social service centers,
and they don't do that well" (qtd. in Weisman 259).

Added word in quotation: in square parentheses: some individuals [who

retell urban legends] make a point of learning every rumor or tale" (78).

Formatting quotation – on the criterion of length

Short quotations (fewer than four typed lines of prose or three lines of verse) – in text,
inclosed in quotation marks followed by parenthetical citation and punctuation
marks.
Long quotations (of 4+ lines) are used in a free-standing block of text, starting after a
free line from the rest of the text, followed by another free line, no quotation marks,
usually using single spacing / paragraph indentation / font size: 10.
Footnotes / Endnotes
MLA discourages extensive use of explanatory or digressive notes.
MLA style does, however, allow you to use endnotes or footnotes
for evaluative bibliographic comments, for example:
1 See Blackmur, especially chapters three and four, for an insightful
analysis of this trend.

Numbering: Footnotes in MLA format are indicated by consecutively-

numbered superscript arabic numbers in the main text after the
punctuation of the phrase or clause the note refers to

Endnotes are preferably present on a separate piece of paper, before

the Works Cited, single space inside the note and double space
between notes
Further details

Books:
MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers (6th ed.)

Sites:
<http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/557/02/>
<http://www.library.cornell.edu/newhelp/res_strategy/citing/mla.html>
<http://www.english.uiuc.edu/cws/wworkshop/mlamenu.htm>
<http://www.liu.edu/CWIS/CWP/library/workshop/citmla.htm>
<http://library.uww.edu/GUIDES/MLACITE.htm#net>

In case of having any further queries:

Contact Dana Mihailescu dmihailes@yahoo.com