MLA Format:

The Important Things to Know

When you write a paper for a college course, the professor will usually tell you to use a

specific format. MLA is one of those formats.

MLA stands for:

ModernLanguage Association

MLA format is usually used for English papers. All your papers in

English 1A must be in MLA format.

Another common format is APA, which stands for:

AmericanPsychological Association

When you write papers for psychology, sociology or

anthropology courses, you will probably be required to use APA

format.

MLA and APA are two different ways to do the same

thing:

When you report on research, you must explain where you got your information, so that

your reader can check to see if you are right.

On the last page of your paper, you list all your sources of information. In APA format, this page is titled “References.”

In MLA format, this is called your “Works Cited” page.

Click on “Sample Paper in MLA Format.” Scroll down to the last page to look at the example of a “Works Cited” page.

Then, in the body of your paper, you provide in-text

citations.

Scroll up to look at the paper about cell

phones.

The in-text citations show the reader where to look for the source on your “Works

Cited” list.

The important thing is to make it easy for your reader to find the source on the “Works Cited” list.

For this reason, your in-text citation must begin with the same words that begin your entry on the “Works Cited” list.

Now we will look at some basic models for the entries on your “Works Cited” list.

Here is the model for a book:

Last Name, First Name. Title of Book. Publisher, Publication Date.

You will find this information inside the title page.

Turn over the title page and find the copyright information on the other side.

The copyright information for a book is always on the back side of the title page.

Now let’s use the MLA model to prepare the entry for a “Works Cited” page:

Levitin, Daniel J. A Field Guide to Lies: Critical Thinking in the Information Age. Viking, 2017.

Here is the model for an article or essay from a collection. You would use this model to cite a reading from our text, Sourcework:

Carr, Nicholas. "Does the Internet Make You Dumber?" Sourcework: Academic Writing from Sources, edited by Nancy E. Dollahite and Jule Haun, Heinle/Cengage Learning, 2012, pp. 196-198.

If the author of an article is not given, begin with the title instead:

Sourcework: Academic Writing from Sources, edited by Nancy E. Dollahite and Jule Haun,

Heinle/Cengage Learning, 2012, pp..

Tips to remember:

*Copy the punctuation exactly.*If information is missing, leave it out and go on to the next thing.

Notice that:

*All dates are in MLA format.*If you don’t know the author, you

omit it and go to the title.

In-text citations

Look at the body of the paper about cell phones.

When the writer quotes or paraphrases another writer, you see words or numbers in parentheses.

These are the in-text citations.

You must provide the last name of the author and the

page number.

If you have already mentioned the author’s

name, you only need the page number in

parentheses.

The purpose of the in-text citation is to let your reader find the source quickly on the “Works Cited” page.

Therefore, your in-text citation must give the

same words that begin the entry in the “Works Cited.”

If the author’s name is not given, cite the title instead.

When do you need to cite?

*any direct quotation

*Any idea that you got from another author, even if you paraphrase it in your own words.

*Any figures or statistics.

If you paraphrase another author,

provide a citation!

If you use another author’s

exact words,

use quotation marks and

provide a citation!