MMC NOTEBOOK - NOTE #15: Everything you ever wanted to know about MLA
BIBLIOGRAPHIC FORMAT
Scholarly writing, as writing for other purposes, has a set of conventions and guidelines. These are set down in style manuals published by various persons and organizations. Scholarly, research and professional journals have guidelines for authors who wish to publish in them. Newspapers and popular periodicals often do also.
College and university instructors often require that term papers and other work conform to a specific style manual. The MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers (MLA). (Call number LB 2369 .G53 1988) is commonly used by students and scholars in English, History, Religion and other arts and humanities.
While it is necessary to consult the Handbook for the fine points of writing a paper, the basic formats for several of the common items included in bibliographies, reference lists or endnotes are illustrated here. A bibliography or literature cited is an author alphabetical list of the items cited in the body of the paper. Reference lists may be items read in preparation but not cited specifically, or, a list of suggested items for further study.
Endnotes are sometimes used. They are numbered lists of cited references with the complete citation appearing only the first time reference is made to the work. Endnotes may be used to include parenthetical information. The MLA suggests the use of endnotes in preference to footnotes if the note style is used.
Paper Organization
Most college papers are reviews
of literature or position papers based on the literature. The paper, in
effect is meant to summarize and to teach about a specific topic or
viewpoint.
Typically a paper:
- states a problem
- summarizes past and current research
- discusses relationships, compares and contrasts or applies information
to a problem.
When references are cited within the narrative, there are three styles to choose among.The most common is the author-date system. When quoting, use author-date, page(s).
Examples:
Heraldry has modern usages (Allcock 1962).
"Good heraldry can flourish in America..." (Allcock 1962, 11)
Citations may be numbered
in the text and bibliography.
Heraldry has modern usages.1
1 Allcock, Hubert. Heraldic Design. New York: Tudor, 1962.
The full citation may be incorporated in the text. This is rarely done in college papers.
Conventions
Writing should conform to
accepted grammar and punctuation standards. See the MLA Handbook for these
and lists of abbreviations, etc.
Cited Literature
Indent second and subsequent lines
of each citation in a paper. This is called a hanging indent. See the
Books, Two or More Authors example below.
Print BOOKS
ONE AUTHOR
Sargent, Walter. The Enjoyment and Use of Color. New York: C.
Scribner’s Sons, 1923.
TWO OR MORE AUTHORS
Gibaldi, Joseph, and Walter S. Achtert. MLA Handbook for Writers of
Research Papers.
New York: Modern Language
Association of America, 1988.
CORPORATE AUTHOR
San Diego Museum of Art. Sculpture in California, 1975-1980: An
Exhibition. San Diego: The
Museum, 1980.
EDITOR OR COMPILER
Satin, Joseph, ed. Shakespeare and His Sources. Boston: Houghton
Mifflin, 1966.
EDITION OTHER THAN 1ST
Saxton, Dolores F., ed. Mosby’s Comprehensive Review of Nursing.
13th ed. St. Louis:
C.V. Mosby, 1990.
CHAPTER IN BOOK
Buchanan, George. "The History of Scotland, 1582." Shakespeare
and His Sources.
Ed. Joseph Satin. Boston:
Houghton Mifflin, 1966. 560-569.
UNSIGNED ARTICLE IN AN
ENCYCLOPEDIA
"Early man." The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Archeology.
Ed. Andrew Sherratt.
New York: Crown Publishers,
1980. 62-70.
Print ARTICLES
ANONYMOUS
"The President and Black Americans." America 179.
12 (1998): 3.
ONE AUTHOR
Inchausti, Pablo. "Reductionist Approaches to Community
Ecology." The American Naturalist
143.2 (1994): 201-221.
TWO OR MORE AUTHORS
Bernard, Mitchell, and John Ravenhill. "Beyond Product Cycles and
Flying Geese."
World Politics 47
(1995): 171-202.
MAGAZINE
Moore, Thomas. "Soul Mates." Psychology Today March/April
1994: 26-31.
NEWSPAPER
Fields, Suzanne. "Motivation, Not Money, is Message for Young." The
Des Moines Register
7 Mar. 1994: 5A.
—NO AUTHOR
"Centerpiece of Reforms in Doubt." The Des Moines Register
7 Mar. 1994: 3A.
INTERVIEWS
Interview citations should include the
name of the person interviewed, the kind of interview (personal,
telephone), and the date.
Jones, John. Telephone interview. 1 January, 1996.
WORLD WIDE WEB
The World Wide Web (WWW) is a
way to find multimedia information on computers called servers, on the
Internet. Files found on the WWW should be acknowledged and cited like any
other information. Sometimes information is available in paper (eg.
magazine article) and also on the WWW. Always cite the version you used as
there is no guarantee that they are exactly the same.
Included here are MLA citation exemplars for the files found on the WWW. As electronic publishing is quickly growing and changing, the recommendations on citation format are also developing. These examples are based on the MLA Handbook 5th edition. The basic forms mirror the analogous print resources (articles, books) but should include the publication medium (WWW address), the date you found it.
One important difference in citing WWW sources is that page numbers are not used in the body of a paper. Electronic articles are one file and therefore one page. Links to additional files are also each just one page. If the article is also in print form and a starting page number or inclusive page numbersis are used in a periodical index or on a webpage, that page number(s) is part of the citation on your literature cited page but not used in the body of your paper.
Electronically stored information is mutable. It is also ephemeral and may be here today and gone tomorrow, or it may move to another server at a new location. Take care to get the complete information needed for your citation. It may be several different files such as the journal title page and the article itself which may have several files.
Individual Electronic Work without author
Latin Phrases and Words Used
in English. 10 December 1999.
<http://depthome.brooklyn.cuny.edu/classics/englatin.htm>
Individual Electronic Work with
author
Beard, Robert. A Web on On-line
Dictionaries. 10 December 1999.
<http://www.facstaff.bucknell.edu/rbeard/diction.html>
Part of a Work
(eg. online encyclopedia)
"Mutable". Hypertext
WebsterInterface. 16 January 1996.
<http://c.gp.cs.cmu.edu:5103/prog/webster?mut able.>.
Journal Article from a full-text database
service
Steele, Kenneth M., Karen E.
Bass and Melissa D. Crook. "The Mystery of the
Mozart Effect: Failure to
Replicate." Psychological Science, 10. 4 (1999).
Expanded Academic Index ASAP. InfoTrac
Web. Busse Library, Cedar Rapids.
20 Sept. 1999 <
http://web7.infotrac.galegroup.com/itw/infomark/>.
Journal Article from the
publishers website
Hart, William B. "The Intercultural
Sojourn as the Hero's Journey," The Edge: The E-Journal
of Intercultural Relations.
2.1(1998). 10 December 1999
<http://kumo.swcp.com/biz/theedge/hero.htm/>
Magazine Article from a fulltext database
service
Grochow, Jerrold M.
"Productivity and the IT personnel shortage." PC Week. 23 August
1999.
Expanded Academic Universe
ASAP. InfoTrac Web. Busse Library, Cedar Rapids.
8 September 1999. <http://web6.infotrac.galegroup.com/itw/infomark/>
Magazine Article from a
publisher's website
Reaves, Jessica. "Anti-Frankenfood
Forces Try a New Tactic." Time. 15 December 1999.
15 December 1999. <http://www.pathfinder.com/time/daily/0,2960,36044-101991215,00.html>
Newspaper Article from a
fulltext database service
Kearney, Syd. "Birders to Migrate
South to Harlingen for Festival." The Houston Chronicle.
24 October 1999. General News. Lexis-Nexis
Academic Universe. 15 December 1999.
<http://www.pathfinder.com/time/daily/0,2960,36044-101991215,00.html>
Newspaper Article from a
publisher's website
Boshart, Rod. "GOP Resumes Tax-cut
Push." TheGazette. 19 May 1999 . 10 September 1999.
< http://www.gazetteonline.com/ialegis/1999/tax/99tx039.htm>.
Image
(art reproduction, photograph or other graphic)
Kaufman, Steve. "Japanese Crane in Snow." ca 1993. 10 November
1999.
<http://search.corbis.com/default.asp?i=10898330&vID=1&rID=101>
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