MLA format

MLA STYLE

MLA Information Notes

You may use a few brief numbered notes in addition to the parenthetical citations if you need to comment on a source or to include information that is necessary but would interrupt the flow of the text. Use an Arabic numeral raised above the line after the final punctuation of a sentence, and number the notes consecutively throughout the paper. Place the notes themselves, with the centered title Notes, on a separate page before the list of works cited (or, if your instructor so specifies, as footnotes at the bottom of the pages on which the corresponding raised numbers appear in the text). Indent the first line of each note half an inch (or five spaces if you are using a typewriter) and begin it with a raised number without punctuation. If the note is longer than one line, the second and subsequent lines begin at the left margin. Double-space within and between the notes. (Footnotes are single-spaced with double spaces between notes and begin four lines—two double spaces—below the text.)

MLA List of Works Cited

Beginning on a separate page at the end of your paper, list in alphabetical order all the sources you cite and give full publishing information for them. Title the list Works Cited and center this heading an inch from the top of the paper. Double-space both within and between entries, and indent the second and subsequent lines of each entry half an inch (or five spaces on a typewriter).

Books. Book entries have three parts, and each one ends with a period. The first part is the author's name; the second is the title and subtitle (which are italicized or underlined); and the third part is the publishing information (place of publication, publisher, and year). You will find all this information on the book's title page and copyright page.

Use a short version of the publisher's name (Harcourt for Harcourt Brace & Co., and Beacon for Beacon Press, Inc., for example). If an abbreviation for the publisher's name is familiar to your audience, use it (such as GPO for Government Printing Office, and ALA for American Library Association). Use the abbreviation UP for University Press. For other abbreviations acceptable in documentation, see abbreviations.

1. Book with one author.

Boorstin, Daniel J. The Discoverers. New York : Random, 1983.

2. Book with two or three authors. List authors' names in the order they appear on the title page. Invert the first author's name (to alphabetize); enter the coauthors' names in regular order (first name, last name) and separate them with commas. (Write out and
before the name of the last author rather than using an ampersand.)

Gilbert, Sandra, and Susan Gubar. The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination. New Haven : Yale UP, 1979.

3. Book with more than three authors. Give all the authors' (or editors') names (with only the first one inverted) or include only the name of the first author followed by the abbreviation "et al." (for the Latin phrase meaning "and others").

Malson, Micheline R., et al., eds. Black Women in America : Social Science Perspectives. Chicago : U of Chicago P, 1990.

4. Two or more books by the same author. List the author's name in the first reference only. For succeeding references, instead of the author's name, enter three hyphens (—) followed by a period and one space, and then enter the title of the work. Alphabetize works by the same author by the first significant word in the title (omit the articles a, an, and the).

Brophy, Brigid. Beardsley and His World. New York : Harmony, 1976.Black & White: A Portrait of Aubrey Beardsley . New York : Stein and Day, 1969.

5. Book by a corporate author. Alphabetize the entry by the name of the corporation or institution.

CompuServe Incorporated. CompuServe Information Service: User's Guide. Columbus, OH : CompuServe, 1985.

6. Book with editor or editors. Follow the first name with a comma and the abbrevia tion "ed." (for "editor").

Van Thai, Herbert, ed. The Mammoth Book of Great Detective Stories. London : Robinson, 1985.

7. Book with author and editor. Give the author's name (in inverted order) before the title; give the editor's name (in normal order) after it, preceded by the abbreviation "Ed." (for "Edited by").

James, Henry. Selected Fiction. Ed. Leon Edel. New York : Dutton, 1953.

8. Translated work. Give the author's name (in inverted order) before the title; give the translator's name (in normal order) after it, preceded by the abbreviation "Trans." (for "Translated by").

Garcia Marquez, Gabriel. One Hundred Years of Solitude. Trans. Gregory Rabassa. New York : Harper, 1970.

9. Book without listed author. Alphabetize the book by the first significant word in the title (omit the articles a, an, and the).

Waterstone's Guide to Books . London : Waterstone, 1981.

10. Book edition, if not the first. Place the abbreviated edition number ("Rev. ed." or "2nd ed.," for example) after the period following the title.

Kiniry, Malcolm, and Mike Rose. Critical Strategies for Academic Thinking and Writing. 2nd ed. Boston : Bedford, 1993.

11. Republished Book. Place the original publication date after the title. Separate it from the publication information with a period.

Faulkner, William. The Sound and the Fury. 1929. New York : Vintage-Random, 1946.

12. Multivolume series. List the total number of volumes after the title of the work. Use Arabic numerals. If you used only one volume of the series in your research, identify that volume at the end of the entry.

Sewall, Richard B. The Life of Emily Dickinson. 2 vols. New York : Farrar, 1974. Vol. 1.

13. Selection in an anthology or edited book. Give the author and title of the selection and then the title of the collection or anthology in which it appears and the editor or editors of the volume (preceded by "Ed." for "Edited by"). Include the page numbers of the selection.

Gordimer, Nadine. "The Bridegroom." African Short Stories. Ed. Chinua Achebe and C. L. Innes. London : Heinemann, 1985. 155-63.

14. Article in a reference work. If the article is signed, begin with the author's name; if it is unsigned, begin with its title, followed by the title of the work. If the articles in the reference work are listed lphabetically, omit the volume number (if any) and page numbers.

Levison, Sanford. "Supreme Court." The Reader's Guide to American History. Ed. Eric Foner and John A. Garraty. Boston : Houghton, 1991.

15. Foreword, introduction, preface, or afterword. If you quote or use information from one of these elements, cite the name of the author of that element, followed by the name of the element (do not underline it or put it in quotation marks). The names of the author, editor, and translator (if any) follow the title. The page numbers of the element
go after the publication information.

Weir, Charles I., Jr. Introduction. Madame Bovary. By Gustave Flaubert. Trans. Eleanor Marx Aveling. New York : Holt, 1948. vii-xii.

16. Dissertation. For an unpublished dissertation, enclose the title in quotation marks. Follow with the name of the degree-granting institution and the date. For a published dissertation, underline the title and add publishing information (place of publication, publisher's name, and year) at the end of the entry.

Marks, Barry Alan. "The Idea of Propaganda in America." Diss. U of Minnesota , 1957.

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