Dwight Morrow High School Media Center

Student Resources - The MLA Style Citation Guide

1. MLA Citation Guidelines
2. Learning How to Cite
   1. General MLA Rules
   2. MLA Style Examples

Learning How to Cite

There are several style guides for citations using APA, Chicago Format and Associated Press citation styles. DMAE expects you to use the MLA Style.

In the MLA documentation style, you acknowledge your sources by keying brief parenthetical citations in your text to an alphabetical list of works that appears at the end of the paper. It does not use footnotes. The parenthetical citation that concludes the following sentence is typical MLA style:

In-Text Citation
Ancient writers attributed the invention of the monochord to Pythagoras, who lived in the sixth century B.C. (Marcuse 197).

The citation "(Marcuse 197)" tells readers that the information in the sentence was derived from page 197 of a work by an author named Marcuse. If readers want more information about this source, they can turn to the works-cited list, where, under the name Marcuse, they would find the following information:

Works Cited Citation
Marcuse, Sibyl. A Survey of Musical Instruments. New York: Harper, 1975.

This entry states that the work's author is Sibyl Marcuse and its title is A Survey of Musical Instruments. The remaining information relates, in shortened form, that the work was published in New York City by Harper and Row in 1975.
A citation in the MLA style contains only enough information to enable readers to find the source in the works-cited list.

You can find many examples of how to cite something on the following web sites:

• MLA Formatting and Style Guide - The OWL at Purdue
• Works Cited MLA Style - Lone Star College - Kingwood Library

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General MLA Rules

• Follow punctuation, capitalization, and italics provided in examples.
• Underline or italicize titles of books, magazines, and scholarly journals (consult your professor for preference.) Enclose title of articles, essays, poems, and short stories in quotation marks.
• Indent 5 spaces or 1/2" on all but the first line of each entry.
• Double-space throughout.
• Use a shortened form of the publisher's name: "New York: Morrow, 2004" rather than "William Morrow & Company, 2004."
• For pages that are not consecutive, such as newspapers, use a plus sign: "192+." If you have only the starting page number of an article's original print publication, give the number followed by a hyphen, a space and a period: "192- ."
• Make sure there is only one space after punctuation.>
• When listing an online source originally printed in a book, journal, or other printed format, use the general guidelines you would use to cite the printed form, followed by the online citation.
• Web Sites [MLA 5.9.1, 5.9.2] should have author (if given), title underlined or italicized, date of publication or update (if available), originator (if available), date of access, and the URL (electronic address).
• Articles from library subscription services (databases) [MLA 5.9.7] are cited just like the print version with the addition of the name of the database underlined or italicized, the name of the service, the library, the date of access, and the URL if known.
• Alphabetize entries by author. If no author is given, begin with the title.
• All sources cited in the text should be listed in the Works Cited.
• Use the first part of your citation for parenthetical documentation. Usually, that will be the author's last name followed by the page number.
  • (Brown and Proper 17).
• The author's name may be included in the text and only the page numbers in parenthesis.
  • Blackmore asserts (97), the..."
  • Many instructors prefer this method. Be sure to check.
• Use as little informaiton as possible while making a unique identification. If there are two books by the same author, you must include part of the title.
  • (Blackmore, Consciousness 97).
• If you have no page numbers, it usually flows better to include the reference in the text.
  • "According to Blackmore, the..."

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MLA Style Examples

• The following examples were used with permission from the following source:
  Goodwin, Sue and Sheilda Welling. "Works Cited: MLA Style." Lone Star Coll.-Kingwood Lib., Kingwood, TX. March 2008. 11 March 2008 <http://kclibrary.nhmccd.edu/mlastyle.htm>.
• BOOK, ONE AUTHOR MLA 5.6.1
  Alison, Peter. Whatever You Do, Don't Run. Guilford, CT: Lyons, 2008.
• BOOK, TWO OR THREE AUTHORS MLA 5.6.4
  Brown, Nathan, and Sheryle A. Proper. The Everything Paying for College Book. Avon, MA: Adams, 2005.
• BOOK, AN EDITOR IN ADDITION TO AN AUTHOR MLA 5.6.12
  Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer. Ed. F. W. Robinson. Boston: Houghton, 1957.
• ARTICLE IN A REFERENCE BOOK MLA 5.6.8
  Coulter, Ellis Merton. "John Adair." Dictionary of American Biography. Ed. Allen Johnson. Vol. 1. New York: Scribner's Sons, 1964.
• ARTICLE FROM A MONTHLY MAGAZINE MLA 5.7.6
  Hitchens, Christopher. "A Breath of Dust." Atlantic Monthly Jul-Aug. 2005: 142-46.
• NEWSPAPER ARTICLE MLA 5.7.5
  Feder, Barnaby J. "For Job Seekers, a Toll-Free Gift of Expert Advice." New York Times 22 Mar. 1994, late ed.: A1+.
• WEB SITES
  [MLA 5.9.1 to 5.9.4]. Use any of the information from the basic entry that you have.
  • BASIC ENTRY MLA 5.9.1
    Sutton, Bettye, et al. "1800-1810." 19th Century Cultural History. Ed. Peggy Whitley. 2003. Lone Star Coll.-Kingwood Lib., Kingwood, TX. 28 July 2007
    <http://kclibrary.nhmccd.edu/19thcentury1800.htm>
  • NO AUTHOR MLA 5.9.2
    Dutch Recipes. 9 Jun. 1998. 16 Sept. 2003.
    <http://www.fortunecity.com/victorian/verona/190/eten.htm>.
  • AUTHOR, NO DATE MLA 5.9.1
    Mazer, Cary M. Bernard Shaw: A Brief Biography. 16 Sept. 2007
    <http://english.upenn.edu/~cmazer/mis1.html>.
  • ONLINE PERIODICAL MLA 5.9.4. a-b
    Sarnoff, Nancy. "Web's Role in House Hunt Grows." S. K. Houston Chronicle 1 Dec. 2008. 18 Feb. 2008
    <http://chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/sarnoff/5343966.html>.

Developed by: Constance Clark, Brian Hall, Peter Mecca, Barbara Schneider and Susan Suriani.

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