MAN154 22W : Small Business Management : Girard: MLA

Developed by the Modern Language Association, this style is most widely used for research papers in the humanities.

Each citation consists of two parts: the parenthetical reference, also known as in-text citation, which provides brief identifying information within the text, and the Works Cited, which provides full bibliographic information on a separate page at the end of the paper.

For help with this or any other writing questions, please visit your local campus Writing Center.

In MLA, in text citations are called parenthetical references. They use the author's last name followed by the page number referenced in the work. The reference is placed in parentheses, usually at the end of the sentence before the period:

(Kurasawa 323).

Each parenthetical reference in the text corresponds to a source or article in the Works Cited list at the end of the paper. If the author's name is mentioned in the narrative, only the page number need appear in the parentheses:

Kurasawa (323) found that ….

For group or corporate authors, use full name of group or a shortened form:

(Modern Language Association 115)  or (MLA 115)

Unknown Author: Use a few words of the title. ("Recent innovations" 231)

Two or three authors: Use the last names of each.

(First, Second, and Third 323)

More than three authors: Give all the authors' last names or just use the first and "et al" for the rest. In any case, use the same form as the entry in your Works Cited list.

(Bia, Pedreno, Small, Finch, Patterson 161) (Bia et al. 161)

If the Works Cited list contains two or more authors with the same surname: In the parenthetical reference, include the first initial. (A. DeCarrera 213)

If the initial is also the same, use the whole first name. (Annette DeCarrera 213)

If the reference is to an exact quotation, the author and page number appear in parentheses after the quote.

It may be true that "the attitude of the observer is of primary importance" (Robertson 136).

For exact quotations from sources without page numbers, use paragraph numbers, if available. If the work does not have page numbers or paragraph numbers, include in the text the name of the person that begins the corresponding entry in the works cited list, instead of using a parenthetical reference. For more information see MLA Handbook sections 6.4.1 and 6.4.2.

(Smith para 17) As Smith points out....

Citations taken from a secondary source should generally be avoided; consult the original work whenever possible. If only an indirect source is available, put the abbreviation qtd. in (quoted in) before the indirect source in the parenthetical reference and include the indirect source in the Works Cited. (MLA Style, sec. 6.4.7)

Parenthetical reference: In a May 1800 letter to Watt, Creighton wrote, "The excellent Satanism reflects immortal honour on the Club" (qtd. in Hunt and Jacob 493).

Works cited list: Hunt, Lynn, and Margaret Jacob. "The Affective Revolution in 1790s Britain." Eighteenth-Century Studies 34.4 (2001): 491-521.

Note: With all citations, regardless of format, the first line is flush to the left margin and all subsequent lines are indented one half inch (approximately 5 spaces).

Note: For space considerations, the citations shown below are single-spaced. However, MLA format calls for citations to be double-spaced, as illustrated in the Basic Format examples. To view a sample Works Cited page, as illustrated by the Purdue Online Writing Lab, click here.

Examples below reflect the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers (7th ed.) For more information and sample citations, visit the Online Writing Lab (OWL) at Purdue University.

Books

Articles

Note: When using library databases for journal articles, cite articles from online databases (e.g. Ebscohost, Gale, LexisNexis, ProQuest, etc.) the same as you would a print source, as these articles very often come from print periodicals. "In addition to this information, provide the title of the database italicized, the medium of publication, and the date of access." (Purdue Online Writing Lab, MLA Works Cited: Electronic Sources).

Note: For space considerations, the citations shown below are single-spaced. However, MLA format calls for citations to be double-spaced, as illustrated in the Basic Format example. To view a sample Works Cited page, as illustrated by the Purdue Online Writing Lab, click here.

Web

Note on the use of URLs: According to the OWL at Purdue MLA Formatting and Style Guide, MLA no longer requires the use of URLs in citations. However, "For instructors or editors who still wish to require the use of URLs, MLA suggests that the URL appear in angle brackets after the date of access. Break URLs only after slashes."

Note: For space considerations, the citations shown below are single-spaced. However, MLA format calls for citations to be double-spaced, as illustrated in the Basic Format examples. To view a sample Works Cited page, as illustrated by the Purdue Online Writing Lab, click here.