Contributors


Writing Program
English Dept

MLA Documentation:

MLA is a documentation style used by a large number of writers, particularly in the humanities. It is the documentation style that we will use in this class. There are several reasons to document your text. First, it gives credit to others whose ideas you have incorporated into your paper. Second, by using a standardized system, anyone reading your paper will be able to understand and locate your sources. Learning all of the intricacies of MLA is time-consuming and not necessary for all writers, so we will focus on what I have termed the essentials, the basic style information that you must incorporate into your work. Some of the examples below are taken from the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers.

Basic Paper Setup Guidelines:

Your paper should have 1” margins all around
The paper should be double spaced
Your name and other information should appear in the top left of the first page and should be set up
like so:

Suzie Smiles
Dr. Jones
English 471
12 February 2001

On the top right of each page, ½ an inch from the top, should be your name and the page number:

Smiles4

Citing Sources in the Text:

Whether you are directly quoting or paraphrasing information or ideas that you got from another source, you must include a parenthetical notation in the text. When directly quoting, type a space after ending quotation mark and insert the parenthetical reference. When you are not directly quoting, place the reference where a pause would normally occur, as near as possible to the material documented.

If the text is directly quoted, then you must put quotation marks around the text as well.

Medieval Europe was a place both of “raids, pillages, slavery, and extortion” and of “traveling merchants, monetary exchange, towns if not cities, and active markets in grain” (Townsend 10).

If, however, you have already mentioned the author in your text, you do not need to repeat his or her
name in the citation:

In his Autobiography, Benjamin Franklin states that he prepared a list of thirteen virtues (135-37).

If you have paraphrased, or taken someone else's idea and put it into your own words, you still must give them credit for their idea:

If there truly was life on other planets, then they would have found us by now (Smiles 64).

Works Cited Page:

Your parenthetical references are in the text in order to refer the reader to a more in-depth reference to the work that you cited. These references comprise your works cited page. Every parenthetical reference must have an entry on your works cited page. Your works cited page is also double spaced. The first line of every entry is flush against the margin, and each other line is indented ½ inch. The list is alphabetized by the author’s last names. I have included some examples of the the most common types of citations, if you need to find another type of reference, look it up in the Course Guide or the MLA Handbook. The formatting of this list is not exactly correct because of the difficulty working with html files and my lack of patience, but will give you the idea. To see exactly how this should look refer to this file in my instructor folder or the examples in the course
guide.

Books (Kaky):
Author’s name. Title of Book. City Published in: Publisher,
Publication Date.

Scholarly article (Scotto):
Author’s name. “Title of the article.” Journal Name volume and
issue number (Date): Pages.

Magazine article (Bazell):
Author’s name. “Title of the article.” Magazine Name Date:
pages.

Newspaper article (Feder):
Author’s name. “Title of the article.” Newspaper Name Date,
edition: pages.

Internet source (Time):
Author’s name (if given). “Title of the material.” Title of the
database (if given). Publication medium. Date accessed.
Available: Web address

Sample Works Cited:

Bazell, Robert. “Science and Society: Growth Inductry.” New
Republic 15 Mar. 1993: 13-14.

Feder, Barnaby J. “For Job Seekers, a Toll-Free Gift of Expert
Advice.” New York Times 30 Dec. 1993, late ed., D1+.

Kaky, Michio. Hyperspace: A Scientific Odyssey through Parallel
Universes, Time Warps, and the Tenth Dimension. New York:
Oxford UP, 1994.

Scotto, Peter. “Censorship, Reading, and Interpretation: A Case
Study from the Soviet Union.” PMLA 109 (1994): 61-70.

“Time Warner, Inc.: Sales Summary, 1988-1992.”
Disclosure/Worldscope. Online. 4 Jan. 1994. Available:
www.timewarner.com/salessum88_92.html

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