MLA Style

1
MLA Style

• Prepared by Diane Dates Casey

2
1.11. Language Style

• Good organization development of ideas.
• Unity coherence of presentation.
• Command of sentence structure, grammar diction.
• Avoid unsubstantiated generalizations about such
  personal qualities as age, economic class,
  ethnicity, sexual orientation, political or
  religious beliefs, race, or sex.

3
Avoid Sexist Language

• Avoid using he, him, or his to express meaning
  that includes girls or women.
• Recast such sentences in the plural or eliminate
  the pronouns.
• Focus the discussion on a particular person
  rather than speaking generally.
• Avoid terms that unnecessarily integrate a
  persons sex with a job or title.

4
3.3. Italics

• Either underline or use italics for titles of
  books, journals or plays.
• Be consistent.

5
3.7.2. Prose Quotations

• If a prose quotation is less than four lines, put
  it in quotation marks integrate it into the
  text.
• Quotes can be less than full sentences.
• If a quotation runs more than four lines, set it
  off from the text by beginning a new line,
  indenting one inch or ten spaces from the left
  margin, and typing double-spaced, without adding
  quotation marks.

6
In-text Reference Following Prose Quotes

• Quotes that are integrated into the text are
  followed by a parenthetical reference and a
  period. Example For Charles Dickens the
  eighteenth century was both the best of times
  and the worst of times (35).
• A parenthetical reference at the end of an off
  set quotation is preceded by a period. Example
  the other little boys began to shake and sob
  too. (Golding 186)

7
3.7.3. Poetry Quotations

• If part or all of a single line of verse is
  quoted, put it in quotation marks within the
  text.
• Two or three lines of poetry may be incorporated
  in this way with slashes (/) between the lines.
• Verse quotations of more than three lines should
  begin on a new line. Unless the quotation
  involves unusual spacing, indent each line one
  inch from the left margin and double-space
  between lines, adding no quotation marks that do
  not appear in the original.

8
In-text References Following Poetry Quotes

• Poetry is cited by lines, not pages.
• In-text references for poetry follow the same
  pattern as for prose quotations.

9
Example Bradstreet frames the poem with a sense
of mortality All things within this fading
world hath end (1).Example Elizabeth Bishops
In the Waiting Room is rich in evocative
detail It was winter. It got dark
early. The waiting room was full
of grown-up people, arctics and
overcoats, lamps and magazines.
(6-10)
10
3.7.4. Drama Quotations

• When quoting dialogue between two or more
  characters in a play, set the quotation off from
  your text.
• Begin each part of the dialogue with the
  appropriate characters name indented one inch
  (10 spaces) from the left margin and written in
  all capital letters HAMLET. Follow the name
  with a period, and start the quotation. Indent
  all subsequent lines in that characters speech
  an additional quarter inch (3 spaces).

11

• When the dialogue shifts to another character,
  start a new line indented one inch (10 spaces)
  from the left margin. Maintain this pattern
  throughout the entire quotation.

12
In-text references for drama are cited by act,
scene and lines.
A short time later Lear loses the final symbol of
his former power, the soldiers who make up his
train GONERIL.
Hear me, my lord. What
need you five-and-twenty, ten or five,
To follow in a house where twice so
many Have a command to tend
you? REGAN
What need one? LEAR O, reason
not the need! (2.4.254-58)
13
5.3. List of Works Cited Other Source Lists

• Types of lists Works Cited, Annotated
  Bibliography, Work Consulted, Selected
  Bibliography.

Example of Annotated Bibliography Thomson,
Stith. The Folktale. New York Dryden, 1946. A
comprehensive survey of the most popular
folktales, including their histories and their
uses in literary works.
14
5.6. Books

• Books by a Single Author
  Gerber, John C. Mark Twain. Boston Twayne, 1988.
• Two or more Books by One Author Frye,
  Northrop. Anatomy of Criticism Four Essays.
  Princeton Princeton U P, 1957.
  ---, The
  Double Vision Language and Meaning in Religion.
  Toronto U of Toronto P, 1991
• Books by Two Authors
  Long, E. Hudson and J.R. LeMaster. The Mark
  Twain Handbook. New York Garland, 1985.

15
5.6.2. Anthology or Compilation

• Editor of an anthology
  Feldman, Paula R., ed. British Women Poets of the
  Romantic Era. Baltimore Johns Hopkins UP,
  1997.
• Compiler
  Sevillano, Mando, comp. The
  Hopi Way Tales from a Vanishing Culture.
  Flagstaff Northland, 1986.
• Compiler and editor
  Spafford, Peter, comp. and ed.
  Interference The Story of Czechoslovakia in the
  Words of Its Writers. Cheltenham New Clarion,
  1992.

16
5.6.7. A Work in an Anthology

• Essays in an Anthology
  
  
  Allende, Isabel. Toads Mouth. Trans. Margaret
  Sayers Peden. A Hammock beneath the Mangoes
  Stories from Latin America. Ed. Thomas Colchie.
  New York Plume, 1992. 83-88.
  A Witchcraft
  Story. The Hopi Way Tales from a Vanishing
  Culture. Comp. Mando Sevillano. Flagstaff
  Northland, 1986. 33-42.

17

• Works published before
  Franklin, Benjamin. Emigration to
  America. 1782. The Faber Book of America. Ed.
  Christopher Ricks and William L. Vance. Boston
  Faber, 1992. 24-26.
• Previously Published Scholarly Article in a
  Collection
  Frye,
  Northrop. Literary and Linguistic Scholarhip in
  a Postliterate Age. PMLA 99 (1984) 990-95.
  Rpt. in Myth and Metaphor Selected Essays,
  1974-88. Ed. Robert D. Denham. Charlottesville
  UP of Virginia, 1990. 18-27.

18
Roberts, Sheila. A Confined World A Rereading
of Pauline Smith. World Literature Written in
English 24 (1984) 232-38. Rpt. in
Twentieth- Century Literary Criticism. Ed. Dennis
Poupard. Vol. 25. Detroit Gale, 1988. 399-402.
19
5.6.8. Article in a Reference Book

• Familiar Reference Books
  Azimuthal Equidistant Projection.
  Merriam-Websters Collegiate Dictionary. 10th
  ed. 1993. Noon. The Oxford
  English Dictionary. 2nd ed. 1989.
• Citing a specific definition
  Noon. Def. 4b. The Oxford
  English Dictionary. 2nd ed. 1989.

20

• Less Familiar Reference Books
  Allen, Anita L. Privacy in Health Care.
  Encyclopedia of Bioethics. Ed. Warren T. Reich.
  Rev. ed. 5 vols. New York Macmillan-Simon,
  1995.

21
5.6.9. Introduction, Preface, Foreword or
Afterword

• Foreword
  Borges, Jorge Luis. Foreword. Selected
  Poems, 1923- 1967. By Borges. Ed. Norman Thomas
  Di Giovanni. New York Delta-Dell, 1973.
  xv-xvii.
• Introduction
  Drabble,
  Margaret. Introduction. Middlemarch. By George
  Eliot. New York Bantam, 1982. v-xi.
• Afterword
  Elliott, Emory. Afterword.
  The Jungle. By Upton Sinclair. New York Signet,
  1990. 342-50.

22
5.6.19. Book with Multiple Publishers

• Examples
  Duff. J. Wight. A Literary History of
  Rome From the Origins to the Close of the
  Golden Age. Ed. A. M. Duff. 3rd ed. 1953.
  London Benn New York Barnes, 1967.
  
  Wells, H.G. The Time Machine.
  1895 London Dent Rutland Tuttle, 1992.

23
5.6.26. Unpublished Dissertations

• Example
  Jerinic, Maria. Reading for
  Nation Constructions of National Identity in
  Novels by British Women Writers of the Late
  Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries (Anne
  Radcliffe, Fanny Burney, Jane Austen, Charlotte
  Bonte, Elizabeth Gaskill). Diss. State U of NY
  at Stony Brook, 1997.
• Moring, Meg Montgomery. Death and the Concept of
  Womans Value in the Novels of Jane Austen.
  Diss. U of North TX, 1996.

24
5.7. Citing Journal Articles Other Publications
in Periodicals

• Articles in a scholarly journal with continuous
  pagination. Example Carter, Steven
  R. Images of men in Lorraine Hansberrys
  writing. Black American Literature Forum 19
  (1979) 160-62.
• Articles in a scholarly journal that pages each
  issue separately. Example
  Barthelme, Frederick. Architecture. Kansas
  Quarterly 133-4 (1981) 77-80.

25
5.7.5. Article in a Newspaper

• Example
  Rubin, Merle. " In So Many Words, all the
  World Became His Stage, and Ours." Wall Street
  Journal 6 July 2000, Eastern ed. A24

26
5.7.6. Article in a Magazine

• Kermode, Frank. "If it's out there, it's in
  here." New York Times Book Review 1 Oct. 2000
  12. Oakes, Edward T.
  "Never at a loss for words." Commonweal 8
  Sept.2000 38-39.

27
5.7.7. Reviews

• Bemrose, John. Rev. of The Correspondence of
  Northrop Frye and Helen Kemp, 1932-1939, ed.
  Robert D. Denham. Maclean's 7 Apr. 1997 93.
  Twardy, Chuck. "Pagers,
  pageants and powwows." Rev. of As Long as the
  Waters Flow Native Americans in the South and
  East, by Edward Sheriff Curtis. Afterimage 26.6
  (1999) 17.

28
5.9.7 Articles from Online Scholarly Journals
found in a Library Subscription Database
(Full Text ASCII) Meyer, William, E.H. Jr. "
Faulkner, Hemingway, et al. the Emersonian test
of American authorship." The Mississippi
Quarterly 51 (1998). WilsonSelect Plus. OCLC
FIRSTSEARCH. GSU U Lib., University Park, IL.
20 Nov. 2001 lthttp//newfirstsearch.oclc.org/gt.

29
(Full Page Image - PDF) "Spectacular Sympathy
Visuality and Ideology in Dickens's A Christmas
Carol." PMLA 109 (1994) 254-67. Research
Library. PROQUEST. GSU U Lib., University Park,
IL. 20 Nov. 2001 lthttp//proquest.umi.com/gt.
30
5.9.4.a. Article in a Online Scholarly Journal

• (Full Text ASCII)
  LeBlanc, Jim. "The
  Closing Words of Finnegans Wake." Hypermedia
  Joyce Studies 2.1 (1999). 20 Nov. 2001
  lthttp//www.2street.com/hjs/leblanc/index.htmlgt.
  Reid, Nicholoas.
  "Coleridge, Language, and Imagination."
  Romanticism On the Net 22 (2001). 20 Nov. 2001
  lthttp//users.ox.ac.uk/scat0385/22reid.htmlgt.

31
5.9.2.c. Professional or Personal Web Site

• Baxter, Gisele. Notes on Ernest Hemingway's The
  Sun Also Rises. 4 May 1999. 14 June 2000.
  lthttp//www.interchange.ubc.ca/
  gmb/sun.htmlgt. Dawe, James. Jane Austen
  Page. 15 Sept. 1998 lthttp//nyquist.ee.ualberta.c
  a/dawe/austen.htmlgt. Lancashire, Ian. Home
  page. 1 May 1998 lthttp//www.chass.utoronto.ca80
  80/ian/gt. Romance Languages and Literatures
  Home Page. 1 Jan. 1997. Dept. of Romance Langs.
  And Lits., U of Chicago. 8 July 1998
  lthttp//humanities.uchicago.edu/romance/gt.

32
6.3. In-text References

• Authors Name in Text
  Tannen has argued this point (178-85).
• Authors Name in Reference
  This point has already been argued (Tannen
  178-85).

33
6.4.1. Citing an Entire Nonprint Work

• Electronic Sources
  William J. Mitchells City of Bits
  discusses architecture and urban life in the
  context of the digital telecommunications
  revolution.
  
  
  Works Cited
  Mitchell,
  William J. City of Bits Space, Place, and the
  Informationbahn. Cambridge MIT P, 1995. MIT P
  Electronic Books. 9 July 1998 lthttp//mitpress.m
  et.edu/e-books/City_of_Bitsgt.

34
6.4.2. Citing Part of a Work

• Electronic Sources
  The study of comparative
  literature, Bill Readings wrote, takes off from
  the idea of humanity (6). Works Cited
  
  Readings, Bill.
  Translatio and Comparative Literature The
  Terror of European Humanism. Surfaces 1.11
  (1991) 19 pp. 8 July 1998 lthttp//tornade.ere.u
  montreal.ca/guedpm/Surfaces/vo l1/readin-a/htmlgt.
  

35
6.4.6. Citing Two or More Works by the Same Author

• Shakespeares King Lear has been called a comedy
  of the grotesque (Frye, Anatomy 237).
  For Northrop
  Frye, ones death is not a unique experience, for
  every moment we have lived through we have also
  died out of into another order (Double Vision
  85). Works Cited
  
  Frye,Northrop. Anatomy of
  Criticism Four Essays. Princeton Princeton UP,
  1957.
  ---, The Double Vision Language
  and Meaning in Religion. Toronto U of Toronto
  P, 1991.

36
6.4.7. Citing Indirect Sources

• Whenever possible, take material from an original
  source, not a secondhand one.
• If what is quoted or paraphrased is a quotation,
  the source is indirect.
  Samuel Johnson admitted that Edmund Burke was an
  extraordinary man (qtd. In Boswell 2 450).
  
  Works Cited
  Boswell,
  James. The Life of Johnson. Ed. George Birkbeck
  Hill and L. F. Powell. 6 vols. Oxford
  Clarendon, 1934-50.

37
6.4.8. Citing Literary Religious Works

• Include the name of the author in either your
  text or the in-text reference.
• In the reference for classic prose works, include
  book, section, part, or chapter numbers as
  applicable.
  Raskolnikov first appears in Crime and Punishment
  as a man contemplating a terrible act but
  frightened of meeting his talkative landlady on
  the stairs (Dostoevsky 1 pt. 1, ch. 1).

38
6.4.8. Use Arabic Numerals

• Use arabic numerals rather than Roman numerals
  for division and page numbers.
  Our Shakespearean protagonist seems resolute
  at first when he asserts, Haste me to knowt,
  that I, with wings as swift / As meditation /
  May sweep to my revenge (Ham. 1.5.35-37), but he
  soon has second thoughts another tragic figure,
  initially described as too full o th milk of
  human kindness (Mac. 1.5.17), quickly descends
  into horrific slaughter.

39
7. Abbreviations

• 7.2. Time Designations
• 7.3. Geographic Names
• 7.4 Common Scholarly Abbreviations
• 7.5 Publishers Names
• 7.7 Titles of Literary and Religious Works Bible,
  Shakespeare, Chaucer, Other Literary Works