MLA (Modern Language Association) Documentation Style

WARNING!!!!! Citing sources using MLA style of documentation can be a very confusing, difficult process to learn; it requires that you be extremely meticulous, paying attention to minute details at all stages. You must realize that even people with PhDs in English (I include myself here) have to use a handbook to ensure that they are using MLA properly, so don’t expect to learn every aspect of MLA right away or to be able to memorize all of the parts of the process; you will only be disappointed and frustrated. Rather, you should learn how to look up the proper procedures and try to follow them as accurately as possible. This handout, in addition to library materials, the Writing Center, reputable websites(such as Purdue University’s OWL), and a good handbook (such as Rules for Writers), should help you to cite and document your sources correctly. Ultimately, however, you may need to utilize The MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 8th Editionto find specific information (available in the library and at

MLA Style. For all of your English and other language courses in college, you will be required to use MLA style for documenting sources you use in your essays. A source is any information (from the Internet, print sources, the radio or television, a film, a lecture, a conversation, and so forth) you use to support the points you are making in your paper. When you, as the writer, are the source for your own information (for example, if personal experience is being used), you will make that apparent by using the first-person (“I”) and explaining that the information is derived from your experience. However, most information to support your points in an essay must come from outside sources: people you have interviewed, books, magazines, the Internet, and so forth. There are literally hundreds of possible sources for information you can use in an essay, and you must always cite and document these sources, that is, let the readers of your essay know where you found the information you are utilizing.

Plagiarism. If you use information that does not come from your personal experience or knowledge (or from what is widely acknowledged as being “common knowledge”), and you do not cite and document your sources properly and accurately, then you are PLAGIARIZING, that is, STEALING, the information; in essence, you are presenting it as information you yourself found, versus, say the actual newspaper reporter, researcher, scientist, etc. who found the information or came up with the theory or idea. You must NEVER use someone else’s information, ideas, or facts without acknowledging whose they are; similarly, you must NEVER use someone else’s words to present information without acknowledging whose words they are.

When deciding whether or not you need to cite a source, ask yourself this question: Did I know this information before I conducted my research? If not, you learned it from a source, which must be cited. Penalties for plagiarism range from receiving a failing grade on an essay, to failing the course, to (depending on the particular college or university) being expelled and having your academic career ruined. You certainly don’t want to destroy your chances of succeeding in a particular course, or perhaps even of achieving a higher education altogether, because you inadvertently plagiarize. Therefore, it is extremely important that you NEVER cheat by having someone else write an essay or parts of an essay for you or by not documenting your sources properly. I require that for this course (and I highly recommend you do so for other courses as well) you print out or photocopy pages from which you quote and paraphrase (always include the “title” page or first page), highlighting or underlining what you utilize; that way, you can double check your sources for accuracy. You’ll also have proof that you did not plagiarize, but instead, kept careful track of your source materials.

In-text Citations. Basically, MLA documentation has two parts: in-text citations and a Works Cited page. An in-text citationdirects readers to the entry in the works-cited list; it typically includes what comes first in the works-cited list, usually the name(s) of the source, as well as the page number(s) (if available). The page number goes in parentheses placed at a natural pause immediately after the cited information or after the quotation’s closing quotation mark. The author’s name can appear in the text itself or be abbreviated by the last name before the page number in the parentheses. If you cite two authors with the same last name, then you should add the initial of the author’s first name. Some sources (especially from the Internet) do not have an individual person as an author; in such cases the works-cited list entry will begin with the association, institution, or organization that created it, and you will include this in the citation; however, if the organization is both the author and the publisher of the work, the works cited entry begins with the title and the author/publisher comes afterwards. In this case, the title is used in the citation (either in the text or abbreviated in the parentheses).

If two or more works by the same author are cited you need to include a short version of the title after the last name in the parenthesis so your readers know which work by that author you are citing from the multiple works. Use either quotation marks around the title or italics. If a work is part of a longer work (such as a poem in an anthology or an article in a journal), the title goes in quotation marks; if the work is self-contained and independent the title is italicized(such as a book or webpage). If no page numbers are available, as with lectures, interviews or Internet sources in html (pdf files often have page numbers), then you cannot include them in the parentheses. Also, if you use an identifying tagor signal phrasebefore the quotation or paraphrase (often important for building ethos), that is, you mention the author’s name (first and last name, if first reference; last name only if second or subsequent reference) right before you cite the information, you do NOT need to repeat it in the parentheses; the page number(s) will suffice, or, if none are available, you won’t use the parentheses at all. Here is an example:

In his recent article, “Violence in Inner-city Schools,” school psychologist Joshua Grobin explains that numerous complex factors are involved in why some inner-city youth engage in violence (35-36).

In the above example, you would NOT need to include the last name Grobin in the parentheses, as you have just stated the name in your identifying tag.If the article were from the internet and in html, there would be no page numbers to include, and thus you would not use parentheses.

Paraphrase. One important distinction you need to make when using outside sources as information in your essays is the difference between a paraphrase and a quotation. When you paraphrase someone else’s ideas or facts you are using them but putting them into your own words. Say, for example, you are writing an essay on teen pregnancy, and you read the following information in a recent newspaper article:

In the United States, teen pregnancy rates have dropped significantly over the last five years. Researchers believe the drop is due to better education programs, a more stable economy, and more widespread use of birth control.

If you were to paraphrase this information, you would use some, most, or all of it, but put it into your own words:

Since 2012, the United States has seen a decline in teen pregnancy rates, and several factors have effected this recent change: economic stability, use of contraceptives, and sex education.

Notice that the information and ideas are the same, but most of the wording is very different, as is the sentence structure. To cite the above source correctly, you would need to add the author’s last name and page number in parentheses as follows:

Since 2012, the United States has seen a decline in teen pregnancy rates, and several factors have effected this recent change: economic stability, use of contraceptives, and sex education (Jones A15).

Notice that I have removed the period from the end of the sentence and placed it after the parentheses. Also notice that the page number is “A15"; that is because usually newspapers have several sections, and you must also cite the section with the number. To make this paraphrase even more impressive, you might set it up by letting the reader know in your essay that it comes from a recent newspaper article:

According to a recent L.A. Times article, since 2012, the United States has seen a decline in teen pregnancy rates, and several factors have effected this recent change: economic stability, use of contraceptives, and sex education (Jones A15).

Adding this information makes your use of it even more credible, as most people agree that the L.A. Times is a reputable source for facts. There’s really no need to include the author’s first and last name because newspaper reporters’ names aren’t that important. (My brother, who writes for the Washington Post, might disagree; however, reporters only report information—other people have done the studies and the research to come up with the data, and in academia, those people are much more significant.) Thus, if you’re citing information from an article or book and the author is important from an academic standpoint for adding ethos (credibility) to your essay, it’s best to set up the paraphrase with the author’s name, some information about the author, and the title of the work. For example, let’s say the above information came, not from the L.A. Times, but from Sue Smith, a sociology professor from Harvard who is the nation’s leading expert on teen pregnancy. It would help your essay’s credibility to explain this to your readers:

In her recent book, Teen Pregnancy in the U.S., Sue Smith, a sociology professor at Harvard University and our nation’s leading expert on teen pregnancy, points out that since 2012, the United States has seen a decline in teen pregnancy rates. She concludes that several factors have effected this recent change: economic stability, use of contraceptives, and sex education (27).

Notice that I used the words points out and concludes versus “states” or “says.” When setting up paraphrases and quotations you should use more accurate words, such as “explains,” “argues,” “contends,” “examines,” “insists,” and so forth, than the generic and boring “says” or “states.” Also note that only the page number appears in parentheses; it would be redundant to place her last name here, as the reader clearly knows it. However, if you continue on with information from Smith, but don’t make that clear in the body of your essay (for example, by stating, “Smith also explains that . . .), then you will need to put her last name in the parentheses in addition to the page number. DO NOT JUST CITE ONCE AT THE END OF A PARAGRAPH OR AFTER A FEW SENTENCES!!!! Also notice that when you make a second reference to an author you should use his or her last name, not first name. (Don’t write, “Sue goes on to explain . . .”--she’s not your buddy; she’s a respected researcher! And even if she were you’re buddy, in an academic essay you would still use her last name.) Similarly, with authors of literature, you should use last names for subsequent references. Refer to William Shakespeare the second time as “Shakespeare,” not “William” or “Bill”!

Quotations. You are quoting anytime you use another person’s words, and to avoid the charge of plagiarism you MUST put that person’s words in quotation marks, even a few words. Quotations should correspond exactly in spelling, capitalization, and interior punctuation to their source, and must fit grammatically and smoothly into the sentences in which you place them. Therefore, you will sometimes need to add to, delete, or change words of the quotation so that it makes better sense to your reader. To add to a quotation, use brackets; to remove words, use ellipses (three dots with spaces in between). Remember the original passage?

Here’s how you might change it slightly to accommodate your setting up of the quotation and to make it flow smoothly and grammatically:

In her recent book, Teen Pregnancy in the U.S., Sue Smith, a sociology professor at Harvard University and our nation’s leading expert on teen pregnancy, points out that “[i]n the United States, teen pregnancy rates have dropped significantly over the last five years. . . . [T]he drop is due to better education programs, a more stable economy, and more widespread use of birth control” (27).

Note that I’ve added a lowercase iin brackets at the beginning of the quotation because I had to change the uppercase I; you use an uppercase letter to begin a sentence, but here the sentence begins with “In her recent book,” not with “In the United States,” so the change is necessary to make the sentence grammatically correct. I also decided to delete the words “Researchers believe,” and thus I had to use ellipses to indicate that something was cut from the quotation. Also, because I now have a new sentence, I must bracket in a capital T in “[T]he drop” to make it grammatically correct. Let’s say, however, that earlier in her book Smith made it clear that the “researchers” she’s referring to are from all over the nation; you might want to add that in to make the quotation more effective, for after all, it’s important that the researchers aren’t just some small group whose opinions differ from those in other parts of the country:

In her recent book, Teen Pregnancy in the U.S., Sue Smith, a sociology professor at Harvard University and our nation’s leading expert on teen pregnancy, points out that “[i]n the United States, teen pregnancy rates have dropped significantly over the last five years. Researchers [from across the nation agree that] . . . the drop is due to better education programs, a more stable economy, and more widespread use of birth control” (27).

Here, I’ve deleted the word believe and added six words that will make the quotation even more credible and impressive to my readers. It’s also a more accurate representation of Smith’s information as she clarified earlier in her book that the “researchers” are in agreement. You can also use a combination of quotation and paraphrase in one sentence if necessary.

There are many ways you can use brackets and ellipses to make quotations more interesting, easy to understand, and credible. When you use them, however, you must always stay true to the meaning and essence of what the person you’re citing has said. Don’t misuse your freedom to make slight changes. For example, if Dr. Leiby says, “Some people might think that students at El Camino College aren’t as bright as students at prestigious universities, but I disagree. In fact, having taught at both the University of Florida and at ECC, I find the ECC students to be just as, if not more, intelligent,” don’t twist what she says by quoting only a portion: According to Dr. Leiby, “. . . students at El Camino College aren’t as bright as students at prestigious universities”; doing so is actually very unethical, and if you were to print this in the college newspaper, Dr. Leiby could sue you for libel (printing false information that defames her character)!

Block Quotations. On occasion, you will find it necessary to quote more than four lines of prose or more than three lines of verse in another author’s words. When you absolutely must quote at length (except in the case of analyzing literature, usually it is NOT appropriate because in your essays you should be paraphrasing and using your own ideas as well), then you should use a block quotation, which means that insteadof quotation marks you will indent the entire quotation one-half inch(or one tab) from the left margin; keep the right margin the same. Also, you will now end the quotation with a period, a space, then include the parenthetical reference information. Here’s an example (in 2009 MLA); for 2016 MLA, use a 1.5” (not a 2”) margin: