First-Year English FAQs
BASIC CONTENT OF ANY WORK
CITED ENTRY IN MLA
by Kathy McLain, M.A.
Sample Citations for Books | Sample
Citations for Periodicals |
Electronic
Source--Online
At the end of each paper you write, include a complete list of all sources that you quoted from in your paper. Each borrowed source needs to have specific documentation information included in the citation in a specific order. Except for the common work cited entries illustrated in the following samples, it is best to refer to the MLA Handbook, chapter five. The handbook has sample citations for many additional types of sources.
Most citations consists of three parts:
1. The author information followed by a period.
For the first author in the author entry, use the last name of the author first to allow the citation to be placed in alphabetical order in the list of works cited. All subsequent authors' names should be presented in normal order.
2. The title information followed by a period.
Underline titles of books. Set off article titles with quotation marks.
3. The publication information followed by a period.
A fourth sentence will be included in the citation if your source came originally from a print source but you accessed the information from an electronic source.
4. The electronic information if needed followed by a period.
Start the citation at the left margin. All subsequent lines are indented one-half inch from the left margin.
1. The Author Information.
2. The
Title Information.
3. The
Publication Information.
4. Electronic
Publication Information.
Listed below are several sample citations. If
you do not find one that corresponds with your source, you should refer
to the MLA Handbook.
Book--One Author
Townsend, Robert M. The Medieval Village Economy.
Princetown: Princeton UP, 1993.
Book--Two Authors
Kerrigan, William, and Gordon Braden. The Idea
of the
Renaissance. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1989.
In this sample work cited entry, the first author's name in the author entry is last name first, but the second author's name is presented in normal word order.
Book--Three Authors
Marquart, James W., Sheldon Ekland Olson, and Jonathan
R.
Sorensen. The Rope, the Chair, and
the Needle: Capital
Punishment in Texas, 1923-1990. Austin:
U of Texas UP, 1994.
Book--More Than Three Authors
For more than three authors, name the first one and add et
al.--the Latin abbreviations for "and others"--or give the names
of all of the authors in the order they are listed on the title page.
Quirk, Randolph, et al. A Comprehensive Grammar
of the English
Language. London: Longman, 1985.
Sample Citations for Periodicals
For periodicals with multiple authors, use the corresponding author information entry of the sample book citation.
Newspaper--Daily
The daily newspaper citation is almost identical to the
weekly magazine citation. In the publication information entry
after the name of the newspaper, supply the day of the week, the month,
the year, the edition, the section, and the page number.
The part of this work cited entry that differs from other citations is the listing of the day of the week, the month, the year, the edition, the section number, and the page number.
Kelly, Charles. "Black Eye Over 'Win' Vexes Tribe." The
Arizona
Republic 27 Feb. 1998, final ed.:
B1+.
Magazine--Weekly
In the publication information entry after the name of
the periodical, supply the day of the week, the month, the year, and
the inclusive page number.
The part of this work cited entry that differs from other citations is the listing of the day of the week, the month, and the year.
Gibbs, Nancy. "Drip, Drip, Drip: Leaks Swamp the
White House."
Time 16 Feb. 1998: 37-44.
Magazine--Monthly
In the publication information entry after the name of
the periodical, supply the month, the year, and the inclusive page
numbers.
The part of this work cited entry that differs from other citations is the listing of the month and year.
Blakely, Stephen. "Are Variable Annuities for You?" Nation's
Business Dec. 1997: 20-24.
Journal--Continuous Paging Each Volume During a Year
Journal documentation requires that instead of supplying
a day of the week, a month, and a year as applicable for magazines,
you must supply the volume, the issue, the year in parentheses, and
the inclusive page numbers.
For help in distinguishing the difference between magazines and journals for documentation purposes, click on the main heading "Guidelines for Research Projects." Find the menu under this main heading and click on "What Sources Are Acceptable for a Research Paper."
Because MLA format requires that citations be as concise as possible, the citations for any periodical only include the information necessary to locate the source. For journals that are continuously paged from volume to volume during a particular year, the only information needed to locate that type of journal is the volume number, the year in parentheses, and the page because the continuous paging of those journals during a specific year means that during any year there is only one of a particular page number, so the issue number does not need to be supplied.
The part of this work cited entry that differs from other citations is the listing of the volume number, the year in parentheses, a colon, and the inclusive page numbers.
White, Sabina, and Andrew Winzelberg. "Laughter
and Stress."
Humor 5 (1992): 343-55.
Journal--Separate Paging of Each Volume During a Year
Unlike the continuously paged journal that only uses
the same page number once during the year, the separately paged journal
will repeat a particular page number as many times as the journal is
issued during any given year. Because of duplicate page numbers
during a single year, in addition to the volume number, you must add
a period and supply the issue number followed by the year in parentheses,
a colon, and the inclusive page numbers.
The part of this work cited entry that differs from other citations is the listing of the volume and a period followed by the issue number, the year in parentheses, a colon, and the inclusive page numbers.
Baum, Rosalie Murphy. "Alcoholism and Family Abuse
in Maggie
and The Bluest Eye." Mosaic 19.3
(l986): 91-105.
To document a source that you took from an online source that originally came from a printed medium such as a magazine or a journal, you need to determine what type of a source the research material was in in its original printed form.
Then use the sample work cited entry that corresponds to the original print version of the online source--book, weekly magazine, monthly magazine, journal continuous paging, journal separate paging, and so forth--for the first three sections of the entry--the author entry, the title entry, and the publication entry.
Add to the work cited entry that corresponds
with the original print source, the electronic publication information.
Luger, Jeffrey. “Dr. Sigmund Doolittle.” Discover Feb.
1996: 84-87. Expanded Academic ASAP.
Thomas Gale. Paradise Valley Community Coll.
Lib., Phoenix. 1 Aug. 1999 <http://infotrac.galegroup.com>.
When you are doing research online, it is crucial that you pay attention to what type of database you may be using to access your research sources. If the database is not available to everyone on the world wide web and is only available through a particular library, this database is a subscription service database. Use the guidelines above for documenting in a work cited entry any subscription service database.