Need to cite research sources for an assignment?
Use this style guide to learn how to cite your sources correctly.
What to do....
1. Identify the type of source you are citing. Is it a book with one author, a magazine, Internet?
2. Scroll down to the type of source your are citing.
3. Follow the format / style of that source. Examples are given for each type of citation.
4. In its final form, a Works Cited is an alphabetized list. Sort your sources alphabetically by the first word of each citation (ignore a, an, the).
5. The entire Works Cited should be double spaced both between and within entries. The second line (and following) of a citation is indented five spaces.
More Help
| ENCYCLOPEDIA (General):
Author of article Last Name, First Name. (if listed) "Title of article."
Name of Encyclopedia. Copyright date.
EXAMPLES:
No author listed:
"Dinosaur." World Book Encyclopedia. 2002.
Author listed:
Chiappini, Luciano. "Liberty, Statue of." World Book Encyclopedia. 2002.
|
BOOKS WITH ONE AUTHOR:
Author's Last Name, First Name. Title of Book. City of Publication:
Name of Publisher, Copyright date.
EXAMPLE:
Freedman, Richard. What Unions Do. Boston: Little, Brown & Co.,
2003.
|
BOOKS WITH TWO AUTHORS:
Author's Last Name, First Name, and First Name Last Name of
other Author. Title of Book. City of Publication: Name of
Publisher, Copyright date.
EXAMPLE:
Hyde, Margaret, and Elizabeth Held Forsyth. Suicide: The Hidden
Epidemic. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 2002.
|
BOOKS WITH MORE THAN TWO AUTHORS:
Author's Last Name, First name, et al. Title of Book. City of
Publication: Name of Publisher, Copyright date.
EXAMPLE:
Edens, Walter, et al. Teaching Shakespeare. Princeton, New Jersey:
Princeton Press, 2000.
|
BOOK WITH NO AUTHOR:
Title of Book. City of Publication: Name of Publisher, Copyright date.
EXAMPLE:
World Almanac & Book of Facts 2003. New York: World Almanac Books, 2003. |
MULTIVOLUME WORK:
Author of article Last Name, First Name. (if listed) "Article Title."
Title of the work. Ed. (editor) of the work. Vol. Number.
City of Publication: Name of Publisher, Publication year.
Inclusive page numbers.
*if no author is given for the article, start the citation with the Article Title.
EXAMPLE:
Hornberger, Theodore. “Benjamin Franklin.” American Writers: A
Collection Of Literary Biographies. Ed. Leonard Unger. Vol. II. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1974. 101-25.
|
MAGAZINE:
Author of article Last Name, First Name. "Title of article." Name
of the Magazine. Day Mo. Year: inclusive page numbers.
*if no author is given for the article, start the citation with the Article Title.
EXAMPLE:
Thompson, Mark. "Up From the Depths." Time 28 Feb. 2002: 43-46.
|
NEWSPAPER ARTICLE:
Author of article Last Name, First Name. "Article Title." Name of the
newspaper Day Mo. Year: Section letter and page.
*if no author is given for the article, start the citation with the Article Title.
EXAMPLE:
Manning, Sara. "Curriculum Battles from Left and Right.” USA
Today 2 Jan. 2003: D5.
|
INTERNET / ONLINE:
Author of article (if listed). "Title of the article." Name of site
(or online database). Other relevant info. (when available)
Date accessed—Day Mo. Year <Internet Address (URL)>.
*Since many Internet addresses are lengthy, include only the Internet address up to the first single slash (adding only any relevant path and file names).
EXAMPLES:
"Elephant." Worldbook Online. 30 Mar. 2002 .
Schaller, George. "On the Trail of New Species." Scientific American
1 May 2002: 44. Newsbank Infoweb. Greece Athena Lib.,
Rochester, N.Y. 18 Oct. 2002 <http://www.worldbookonline.com>.
Gahr, Evan. “Access to Guns Can Lead to School Shootings.” Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. 8 Jan. 2003 <http://infoweb.newsbank.com>.
“Raebok International Ltd.” Hoover’s Online. 2002. Hoover’s Company Information. 14 Jan. 2003 <http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet>.
Personal Website:
Lancashire, Ian. Home page. 13 Dec. 2002 <http://www.hoover.com/capsules/11266.html>.
|
INTERVIEW:
Last Name of person interviewed, First Name. Kind of Interview. Date.
EXAMPLES:
Stephani, Gwen. Telephone interview. 12 June 2002.
Woods, Tiger. Personal interview. 18 Dec. 2002.
|
VIDEO OR FILM:
Title. Director. Performers (if pertinent). Distributor, Date of release.
*Cite a video, DVD, slide program, or laser disc like a film, but include the original release date (if relevant) and the medium, neither underlined nor enclosed in quotes, before the name of the distributor.
EXAMPLE:
Titanic. Dir. James Cameron. Perf. Kate Winslet and Leonardo
DiCaprio. Paramount, 1997.
|
Music:
Last Name of Artist, First Name. Title of Recording. Recording Company, Year.
EXAMPLE:
Simon, Paul. Father and Daughter. Warner Bros., 2002.
|
PAMPHLET:
Author's Last Name, First Name. Title of Pamphlet. City of Publication: Name of Publisher, Publication year.
EXAMPLE:
Smith, John. Erie Canal. Albany: New York Historical Society, 1997.
|
PARENTHETICAL DOCUMENTATION
In MLA documentation style, sources are acknowledged by inserting brief parenthetical citations in the text which refer directly to the Works Cited Page appearing at the end of the paper. The parenthetical citation that concludes the following sentence is typical of MLA style.
Ancient writers attributed the invention of the monochord to Pythagoras, who lived in the 6th. Century BC. (Marcuse 197).
Note that the parenthetical precedes punctuation.
The citation (Marcuse 197) tells readers that the information in the sentence was taken from page 197 of a work by an author named Marcuse. The book would appear in the Works Cited as follows:
Marcuse, Sibyl. A Survey of Musical Instruments. New York:
Harper, 2000.
A citation contains only enough information to enable readers to find the source in the Works Cited.
If the author’s name is mentioned in the text, only the page number appears in the citation: (197).
If more that one work by the author is in the Works Cited, a shortened version of the title is given: (Marcuse, Survey 197).
If an entry in the Works Cited has no author and is listed by title, the title (if brief), or a shortened version is used for the parenthetical.
As the entry appears in the Works Cited must be how it is used in the parenthetical. When abbreviating the title, begin with the word by which it is alphabetized in the Works Cited.
Example: (Population 176) would be the parenthetical used when referring to the following title in the Works Cited:
Population of the Ancient World. New York: Little Publishers, 1998.
(Book has no author)
All information included here is from:
Gibaldi, Joseph. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers.
5th ed.New York: The Modern Language Association of America,
1999.
For more precise detail on specific or unusual entries, please refer to the above book.