MLA
STYLE PACKET:
EVERYTHING YOU EVER NEED TO KNOWMLA GUIDE: TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Title Page
What is MLA Style…………………………………………….………..… 2
What is an Annotated Bibliography……………………………….……… 2
Why Should I Write an Annotated Bibliography…………………………. 2
Format of an Annotated Bibliography……………………….…………… 3
Sample Annotated Bibliography………………………………………..... 4
SAMPLE FIRST PAGE for an Essay……………………………………… 5
Basic In Text Citation Rules……………………………………………… 6
In Text Citations: Author-Page Style Samples…………………………… 6
In Text Citations for Print Sources with Known Author …………………. 7
In Text Citations for Print Sources with No Known Author ……………... 7
Author-Page Citations for Classical and Literary Works w/Mult. Eds. …… 8
Citing Authors with Same Last Names ……………………………………. 8
Citing Work by Multiple Author Samples ………………………………… 8-9
Citing Multiple Works by the Same Author……………………………….. 9
Citing the Bible……………………………………………………………. 10
Citing Indirect Sources……………………………………………………. 10
Citing Non-Print Sources from the Internet………………………………. 10
Miscellaneous Non-Print Sources………………………………………… 11
Electronic Sources…………………………………………………………. 11
Multiple Citations………………………………………………………… 12
When a Citation Is Not Needed……………………………………………. 12
Direct Quotations DEFINED………………………………………………. 13
Short Quotations and Examples……………………………………………. 13
Long Quotations and Examples ……………………………………………. 14
Adding or Omitting Words in Quotations…………………………………. 15
MLA Works Cited Page: Basic Format, Basic Rules, Additional Rules…. 16
More than One Work By an Author……………………………………….. 17
Work with No Known Author…………………………………………….. 17
MLA Works Cited Page: Books, Basic Format, Books with One Author,
Books with More than One Author…………………………………… 18
Two or More Books by the Same Author………………………………… 19
Books by Corporate Author or Organization……………………………... 19
Book with No Author…………………………………………………….. 19
A Translated Book……………………………………………………….. 19
Edition of a Book, Anthology or Collection……………………………… 20
Reference or Collection ………………………………………………….. 20-21
Poem or Short Story Examples in Text…………………………………… 21
Article in a Reference Book, A Multivolume Work……………………….. 22
Introduction, Preface, Forward, Afterward………………………………… 22
Other Print/Book Sources: Bible, Government Publications………………. 23
Other Print/Book Sources: Pamphlet, Dissertations, Masters Theses…….. 2424
WORKS CITED: Periodicals, Article in magazines, Article in Newspaper.. 25
WORKS CITED: Review in Periodical, Editorial, Letter to Editor,
Anonymous Article………………………………………………. 26
WORKS CITED: Article in a Scholarly Journal…………………………... 27
WORKS CITED: Electronic sources: Important Note about the use of URLs,
Abbreviations used with Electronic Sources, Basic Styles for
Electronic Resources………………………………………………. 28
WORKS CITED: Citing an Entire Website, Course or Department Websites,
A Page on a Website …………………………………………….... 29
WORKS CITED: An Image (painting, sculpture, photograph),
Article in a Web Magazine, Article in an Online Scholarly Journal..30
WORKS CITED: Article in Online Scholarly Journal that also
Appears in Print, An Article from an Online Database, Email…. 31
WORKS CITED: Listserv, Discussion Group, Blog Posting…………….. 32
WORKS CITED: Other Common Sources: Interview…………………… 33
WORKS CITED: Speeches, Lectures, Other Oral Presentations,
Published Conference Proceedings, Painting, Sculpture,
Photograph……………………………………………………….. 34
WORKS CITED: Films or Movies, Broadcast Television/Radio Program.. 35
WORKS CITED: Recorded TV Episode (DVD, VHS), Sound Recordings,
Spoken-Word Albums……………………………………………. 36
WORKS CITED: Digital Files (PDFs, MP3s, JPEGs)…………………….. 37
MLA Sample Works Cited Page in MLA 2009 Format……………………. 38
SAMPLE PAPER using MLA Format link………………………………… 39
What Is MLA Style?
All fields of research agree on the need to document scholarly borrowings, but documentation conventions vary because of the different needs of scholarly disciplines.
MLA style for documentation is widely used in the humanities, especially in writing on language and literature. Generally simpler and more concise than other styles, MLA style features brief parenthetical citations in the text keyed to an alphabetical list of works cited that appears at the end of the work.
The MLA publishes two authoritative explanations of MLA style: the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers and the MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing.
From: http://www.mla.org/style
An annotation is a summary and/or evaluation.
Therefore, an annotated bibliography includes a summary and/or evaluation of each of the sources. Depending on your project or the assignment, your annotations may do one or more of the following:
· Summarize: Some annotations merely summarize the source. What are the main arguments? What is the point of this book or article? What topics are covered? If someone asked what this article/book is about, what would you say? The length of your annotations will determine how detailed your summary is.
· Assess: After summarizing a source, it may be helpful to evaluate it. Is it a useful source? How does it compare with other sources in your bibliography? Is the information reliable? Is this source biased or objective? What is the goal of this source?
· Reflect: Once you've summarized and assessed a source, you need to ask how it fits into your research. Was this source helpful to you? How does it help you shape your argument? How can you use this source in your research project? Has it changed how you think about your topic?
Why should I write an annotated bibliography?
To learn about your topic: Writing an annotated bibliography is excellent preparation for a research project. Just collecting sources for a bibliography is useful, but when you have to write annotations for each source, you're forced to read each source more carefully. You begin to read more critically instead of just collecting information. At the professional level, annotated bibliographies allow you to see what has been done in the literature and where your own research or scholarship can fit. To help you formulate a thesis: Every good research paper is an argument. The purpose of research is to state and support a thesis. So a very important part of research is developing a thesis that is debatable, interesting, and current. Writing an annotated bibliography can help you gain a good perspective on what is being said about your topic. By reading and responding to a variety of sources on a topic, you'll start to see what the issues are, what people are arguing about, and you'll then be able to develop your own point of view.
To help other researchers: Extensive and scholarly annotated bibliographies are sometimes published. They provide a comprehensive overview of everything important that has been and is being said about that topic. You may not ever get your annotated bibliography published, but as a researcher, you might want to look for one that has been published about your topic.
Format
The format of an annotated bibliography can vary, so if you're doing one for a class, it's important to ask for specific guidelines.
The bibliographic information: Generally, though, the bibliographic information of the source (the title, author, publisher, date, etc.) is written in either MLA or APA format.
The annotations: The annotations for each source are written in paragraph form. The lengths of the annotations can vary significantly from a couple of sentences to a couple of pages. The length will depend on the purpose. If you're just writing summaries of your sources, the annotations may not be very long. However, if you are writing an extensive analysis of each source, you'll need more space.
A few sentences of general summary followed by several sentences of how you can fit the work into your larger paper or project can serve you well when you go to draft.
From: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/614/01/
Annotated Bibliography Example Using MLA Format
from: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/614/3/
Elizabeth Thompson
Professor Stacks
English 102
20 August 2001
Annotated Bibliography
Lamott, Anne. Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. New York: Anchor Books, 1995. Print.
Lamott's book offers honest advice on the nature of a writing life, complete with its insecurities and failures. Taking a humorous approach to the realities of being a writer, the chapters in Lamott's book are wry and anecdotal and offer advice on everything from plot development to jealousy, from perfectionism to struggling with one's own internal critic. In the process, Lamott includes writing exercises designed to be both productive and fun.
Lamott offers sane advice for those struggling with the anxieties of writing, but her main project seems to be offering the reader a reality check regarding writing, publishing, and struggling with one's own imperfect humanity in the process. Rather than a practical handbook to producing and/or publishing, this text is indispensable because of its honest perspective, its down-to-earth humor, and its encouraging approach.
Chapters in this text could easily be included in the curriculum for a writing class. Several of the chapters in Part 1 address the writing process and would serve to generate discussion on students' own drafting and revising processes. Some of the writing exercises would also be appropriate for generating classroom writing exercises. Students should find Lamott's style both engaging and enjoyable.
In the sample annotation above, the writer includes three paragraphs:
a summary,
an evaluation of the text,
and a reflection on its applicability to his/her own research, respectively.
For information on formatting MLA citations, see our MLA 2009 Formatting and Style Guide.
SAMPLE FIRST PAGE USING MLA FORMATTING for an Essay:
Basic In-Text Citation Rules
General Guidelines
· The source information required in a parenthetical citation depends
(1.) upon the source medium (e.g. Print, Web, DVD) and
(2.) upon the source’s entry on the Works Cited (bibliography) page.
· Any source information that you provide in-text must correspond to the source information on the Works Cited page.
o More specifically, whatever signal word or phrase you provide to your readers in the text, must be the first thing that appears on the left-hand margin of the corresponding entry in the Works Cited List.
In-Text Citations: Author-Page Style
This means that the author's last name and the page number(s) from which the quotation or paraphrase is taken must appear in the text, and a complete reference should appear on your Works Cited page.
The author's name may appear either in the sentence itself or in parentheses following the quotation or paraphrase, but the page number(s) should always appear in the parentheses, not in the text of your sentence.
INCORRECT:
On page 263, Wordsworth stated that Romantic poetry was marked by a "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings". Romantic poetry is characterized by Wordsworth on page 263 by the "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings". On page 263, Wordsworth extensively explored the role of emotion in the creative process.
CORRECT:
Wordsworth stated that Romantic poetry was marked by a "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" (263). Romantic poetry is characterized by the "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" (Wordsworth 263). Wordsworth extensively explored the role of emotion in the creative process (263).
If readers want more information about this source, they can turn to the Works Cited page, where, under the name of Wordsworth, they would find the following information:
Wordsworth, William. Lyrical Ballads. London: Oxford U.P., 1967. Print.
In-text Citations for Print Sources with Known Author
For Print sources like books, magazines, scholarly journal articles, and newspapers, provide a signal word or phrase (usually the author’s last name) and a page number. If you provide the signal word/phrase in the sentence, you do not need to include it in the parenthetical citation.
Human beings have been described by Kenneth Burke as "symbol-using animals" (3). Human beings have been described as "symbol-using animals" (Burke 3).
These examples must correspond to an entry that begins with Burke, which will be the first thing that appears on the left-hand margin of an entry in the Works Cited:
Burke, Kenneth. Language as Symbolic Action: Essays on Life, Literature, and Method. Berkeley: U of California P, 1966. Print.
In-text Citations for Print Sources with No Known Author
When a source has no known author, use a shortened title of the work instead of an author name. Place the title in quotation marks if it's a short work (e.g. articles) or italicize it if it's a longer work (e.g. plays, books, television shows, entire websites) and provide a page number.
We see so many global warming hotspots in North America likely because this region has “more readily accessible climatic data and more comprehensive programs to monitor and study environmental change . . . ” (“Impact of Global Warming” 6).
In this example, since the reader does not know the author of the article, an abbreviated title of the article appears in the parenthetical citation which corresponds to the full name of the article which appears first at the left-hand margin of its respective entry in the Works Cited. Thus, the writer includes the title in quotation marks as the signal phrase in the parenthetical citation in order to lead the reader directly to the source on the Works Cited page. The Works Cited entry appears as follows:
“The Impact of Global Warming in North America.” GLOBAL WARMING: Early Signs. 1999. Web. 23 Mar. 2009.
Author-Page Citation for Classic and Literary Works with Multiple Editions
Page numbers are always required, but additional citation information can help literary scholars, who may have a different edition of a classic work like Marx and Engels's The Communist Manifesto. In such cases, give the page number of your edition (making sure the edition is listed in your Works Cited page, of course) followed by a semicolon, and then the appropriate abbreviations for volume (vol.), book (bk.), part (pt.), chapter (ch.), section (sec.), or paragraph (par.). For example:
Marx and Engels described human history as marked by class struggles (79; ch. 1).
Citing Authors with Same Last Names
Sometimes more information is necessary to identify the source from which a quotation is taken. For instance, if two or more authors have the same last name, provide both authors' first initials (or even the authors' full name if different authors share initials) in your citation. For example: