ENGL 1900
Instructor: J. Garrett
1
MLA FORMAT MINI-GUIDE
*See also the “Inserting Quotations Into Your Writing” guideline, available on the class
website.
All English courses follow MLA format for both in-text citations and “Works Cited.” Part
of your essay grade comes from following the MLA style guidelines correctly. What
follows is a “cheat-sheet” for the types of sources that you will most commonly use.
This is by no means an exhaustive list. For guidelines for citing additional source types
see your writing handbook or the OWL: Online Writing Lab
(<http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/> and follow the link for “Research and Citation”).
IN-TEXT (PARENTHETICAL) CITATIONS
How much detail you need to put in your in-text citation depends on how much
information you have already given your reader in the context of your essay.
Here is the basic citation, which assumes no prior information has been given:
“None of them knew the colour of the sky” (Crane, “The Open Boat” 918).
Here we have the quotation within quotation marks, then the parenthetical citation, and,
finally, the end punctuation.
So, the basic citation consists of:
(Author last name, “Title” page)
PLEASE NOTE:
Titles of poems, short stories, magazine or newspaper articles, essays, journal
articles – basically anything that is a smaller part of a larger work – are put in
“quotation marks.”
Titles of novels, plays, magazines, newspapers, anthologies, journals, movies,
television shows, etc., are either underlined or italicised.
If you are unsure which method the title you are citing requires, ask me.
Here are exceptions to the basic rule:
You only need to give the title in your citation if you are discussing multiple texts by
the same author.
If you introduce either the author name or the title in the context of your essay prior
to the quotation, you can leave out that information. So, if you are only discussing
one text by Stephen Crane, you don’t need the title (your reader can go to your
“Works Cited” page to find that out), and if you introduce your quotation, as you
should, you only need to give the page number.
ENGL 1900
Instructor: J. Garrett
2
Example:
This is an important point because, as Crane makes a point of writing, “None of
them knew the colour of the sky” (918).
NOTE: The citation only includes the number of the page ― there is no “p.” to
introduce it.
If you are quoting from the same source several times in a row, you only need to
give the page number in your citations.
REMEMBER: You cite page numbers for everything except poems, where you cite
line numbers.
If you are quoting several short passages from the same page in quick succession,
you will leave the citation until after the final quotation.
Example:
Crane emphasises the harshness of the sea with his description of its “jagged”
waves that shot up “like rocks” the colour of “slate” (918).
WORKS CITED
Any time you quote ANY text in your essays you MUST include a “Works Cited” page at
the end of your essay. This is so your readers will know where your quotations come
from, and can look up your sources themselves if they want to.
PLEASE NOTE: All works cited entries have a hanging indent. This means that if the
bibliographical information goes onto a second line, that line and any following it are
indented. Works cited pages are also double-spaced, and there is no space between
citations.
Example:
Everard, Jerry. Virtual States: The Internet and the Boundaries of the Nation-State.
London and New York: Routledge, 2000.
Here are the basics that you will use most often:
To cite the coursepack:
AuthorLastName, AuthorFirstName. “Title of Work in the Coursepack.” Title of
Coursepack. Ed. Jillian Garrett. Edmonton: Printer of Coursepack, year. xx-xx.
(NOTE: the “xx-xx” above indicates the page numbers of the text. There is no “p.” in
front of the numbers.)
ENGL 1900
Instructor: J. Garrett
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To cite an online reading:
AuthorLastName, AuthorFirstName. “Title of Reading.” Title of Website. Author of
website (first name, last name). Date of copyright of website. Web Page. URL:
<http://www.webaddress.ca>. Last date you accessed website.
Example:
Meissner, Doris. “After the Attacks: Protecting Borders and Liberties.” September 11
Digital Archive: Saving the Histories of September 11, 2001. Center for History
and New Media, and American Social History Project. 2001. Web Page. URL:
<http://911digitalarchive.org/objects/49.pdf>. 03 November 2004.
NOTE: There is only a corporate author listed for this web page (Center for History and
New Media, and American Social History Project). This is common.
To cite an anthology:
AuthorLastName, AuthorFirstName. “Title of Reading.” Title of Anthology. Ed.
FirstName LastName of editor(s). City of publication: Name of publisher, Date of
publication. xx-xx.
Example:
Griswold, Charles L. “The Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the Washington Mall:
Philosophical Thoughts on Political Iconography.” Art and the Public Sphere.
Ed. W. J. T. Mitchell. Chicago and London: U of Chicago P, 1992. 79-112.
NOTE: If there are more than three authors or editors, you don’t list them all. Simply
give the name of the first person and then type, “et al.”
E.g. Meissner, Doris, et al.
To cite a book with one author:
AuthorLastName, AuthorFirstName. Title of Book. City of publication: Name of
publisher, Date of publication.
Example:
Saco, Diana. Cybering Democracy: Public Space and the Internet. Minneapolis: U of
Minnesota P, 2002.
To cite a journal article:
AuthorLastName, AuthorFirstName. “Title of Article.” Title of Journal Volume.Issue
(Date of publication): xx-xx.
Example:
ENGL 1900
Instructor: J. Garrett
4
Lupu, Naom. "Memory Vanished, Absent, and Confined: The Countermemorial Project
in 1980s and 1990s Germany." History and Memory 15.2 (2003): 130-64.
To cite a journal article accessed through an electronic database:
AuthorLastName, AuthorFirstName. “Title of Article.” Title of Journal Volume.Issue
(Date of publication): xx-xx. Name of Database. Name of Library, City, Province.
Last date you accessed website. URL: <http://www.webaddress.ca>.
Example:
Davis, Todd F. and Kenneth Womack. “Reading (and Writing) the Ethics of Authorship:
Shakespeare in Love as Postmodern Metanarrative.” Literature/Film Quarterly
32.2 (2004): 153-62. Literature Online. University of Alberta Library, Edmonton,
AB. 03 November 2004. URL: <http://lion.chadwyck.com.login.ezproxy.library.
ualberta.ca/>.
NOTE: When giving web addresses for online texts, line breaks should occur at slashes
(/) wherever possible. If the URL is lengthy or complicated use the URL of the
database search page.