Here are some basic citation format rules for printed and electronic works according to the MLA. Below you will find links to additional MLA online sources.
Single Author in a Bibliography:
There are three parts in a bibliography entry for a book: author, title (underlined or italicized), and publication information includes place of publication followed by a colon, publisher and date of publication. Each section is punctuated with a period.
Jones,
Robert Edmond. The Dramatic Imagination. New York: Theatre Arts Books, 1941.
Multiple Authors:
Deutsch,
Helen and Hanau, Stella. The Provincetown:
A Story of the Theatre. New York: Farrar & Rinehart, Inc., 1931.
Journals, Magazines and Periodicals:
You must list the author (last name first followed by a comma and the first name), the title of the article in quotes, series, volume, date (in parentheses) followed by a colon and and page numbers.
Aronson, Arnold. “Postmodern Design.” Theatre Journal v43 n1 (March 1991): 1-13.
Newspaper:
Belasco, David. “David Belasco sees a menace to true art of the stage in toy
playhouses and little repertory theatres.” New York Herald. 7 January 1917.
Performance:
Underline the title of the play followed by author,
director, theatre, city and date.
Phantom of the Opera. By Andrew Lloyd Webber. Dir. Tom
None. Winter Garden, New York. 12 Aug. 1993.
Film or Television:
Underline the title of the film followed by the director and featured actors or other relevant information. List the distributor and year of release. For television, list the network, affiliate, city and broadcast date.
Memento
. Dir. Christopher Nolan. With Guy Pearce, Carrie-Ann Moss and Joe Pantoliano. Columbia Tri-Star, 2001.Basic format for in-text citation:
(Author's name <space> page number) as in (Jones 53)
Please note that the parenthetical in-text citation comes before the punctuation at the end of the sentence, unless your quote runs to four or more lines in which case you should indent the entire quote ten spaces and place the citation two spaces after the period at the end of the quote.
Quoting within another source:
Always use the abbreviation "qtd. in."
(Bourdieu, qtd. in de Certeau 18)
World Wide Web:
Start with the author's name (if known) and the title in quotation marks; the title of the site, the date of the document or last revision (if known), the date of retrieval, and the full URL. The format for online reference database (encyclopedia), journal or magazine is very similar.
Kennedy,
Jeff. "Research Project." The Provincetown Playhouse. Retrieved 23 June
2001 <http://pages.nyu.edu/~jqk2598/provincetown.html>.
Lohr, Steve. “I.B.M. and Vatican team up for a this-worldly project. (Vatican Library archives to be available in digital form via IBM Digital Library).” The New York Times v144, pC20(N) pD3(L), col 1 (March 28 1995). Retrieved 22 May 2001 <http://is.gseis.ucla.edu/impact/w95/RN/mar31news/Merc-news-holyibm.html>.
"Theatre: Stage Design." Britannica Online. Encyclopaedia Britannica. Retrieved 22 June 2001. <http://www.eb.com:180/bol/topic?eu=118825&sctn=5#s_top>.
Paraphrasing:
The accuracy of quotations in research writing is extremely important. You must
construct a clear, grammatically correct sentence that allows you to incorporate a
quotation with complete accuracy. Alternatively, you can paraphrase the
original and quote only fragments, which may be easier to integrate into the text.
Methods vary, but you must cite the source and put
quotations, and fragments, in quotation marks.
Quotes over 4 lines:
If you have more than 4 lines of a quote, you indent ten spaces, and you don't indent the first line more than the rest. MLA style calls for double space and quotemarks, but I prefer single spacing, smaller font and no quotation marks for lenghy quotes in term papers. Otherwise, many papers might consist of five pages of quotes, double spaced.
Paraphrasing:
Please be very careful about taking notes from your sources. If you use another author's words or ideas, you must cite. Paraphrasing an idea in your own words is possible, but you should preface the section as follows:
According to …
Then you may use an in-text citation format. If you use the author's exact words, you must enclose the words in quotation marks. I am very critical of research papers that have a citation with page number at the end of multiple paragraphs without any quotations (Finelli 101).
Additional resources:
Columbia Guide to Online Style
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