A Quick Guide to MLA Form
English 102
“Don’t hand your paper in without it.”
Dress for Success
• Rule Number One: an MLA paper looks like an
MLA paper.
– You only get one chance to make a first
impression. Show me that you know how to work
in MLA style before I read a word.
– The easiest places to spot MLA errors are:
• The heading
• The page numbers
• The works cited
A “Flyover View” 1
What’s Wrong with This Picture?
Is this MLA?
“Flyover View” 2
What’s wrong with this picture?
Is this MLA?
MLA Citation: Begin at the End
• The List of Works Cited at the end of the paper
is organized alphabetically by authors’ last
names.
• To find out what to do if you don’t have the
author’s name, see your reference book.
– Check the index under MLA/Works
Cited/Directory to.
– Tab the page with the directory, so you can get
there quickly.
Sample Works Cited Entries
Dickinson, Emily. “Because I Could Not Stop
for Death.” Literature: A World of Writing.
Ed. David L. Pike and Ana M. Acosta.
Boston: Pearson/Longman, 2011. 459.
Print.
Feldman, Paula R. “Women Poets and
Anonymity in the Romantic Era.” New
Literary History. 33.2 (Spring 2009) : 27989. J-Stor. Web. 23 Oct. 2009.
Helpful Hints
• Articles from your textbook are “Works from
an Anthology”
• Library database articles are “Works from a
Database”
MLA Citation: In-Text Citation
• Go to the index in your reference book and
find the entry for MLA; in-text citation;
directory to.
• Find the directory and tab it.
• KEEP IN MIND THAT IN-TEXT CITATION REFERS
TO THE PARENTHETICAL CITATION THAT
LITERALLY HAPPENS WITHIN THE TEXT.
Sample In-Text Citations
Paula Feldman questions the importance of
gender in the use of anonymity, arguing that
“male poets seem to have used the
subterfuge of anonymity and pseudonymity
nearly as much as their female counterparts”
(281).
Some critics have argued that anonymity may
not have been as closely tied to gender as one
might think (Feldman 281).
Poetry Sample In-Text Citation
• Keats only needed to hear the bird’s beautiful
music to imagine all of this, but once the bird
leaves so does his vision: “Adieu! The fancy
cannot cheat so well / As she is fam’d to do,
deceiving elf / Adieu / adieu! Thy plaintive
anthem fades” (lines 73-75).
Sample Poetry Citation
In “Because I Could Not Stop for Death,” Emily
Dickinson personifies death as one who rides
with the speaker in a carriage (lines 1-4).
Noting that Death took His time, the speaker
says “And I had put away / My labor and my
leisure too, / For His Civility –”(6-8).
MLA Citation: The Popcorn Trail
• The in-text citation needs to lead back to the
Works Cited.
– Arrange the Works Cited first, so you know how it
works alphabetically.
– Use whatever comes first (usually the author’s last
name) in the in-text citation, so that the reader
can easily locate the source on the List of Works
Cited.