Style-Sheet
Based on Gibaldi, Joseph. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. 5th ed. New York: The Modern
Language Association of America, 1999.
THE FORMAT OF YOUR RESEARCH PAPER (Gibaldi 103-110)
Always choose a standard, easily readable typeface. Be sure to keep a backup copy of your
essay on disk. Print on one side of the paper; do not use other side for any purpose.
Margins:
Leave margins of 2.5 cm on all sides of the text.
Indent the first word of a paragraph five spaces (one TAB space).
Spacing:
Your essay should be double spaced throughout.
Page numbers:
Number all pages consecutively throughout the research paper.
DOCUMENTING SOURCES
References ought to be
a) in the form of footnotes (Gibaldi 268-269):
Although Said’s Orientalism is directed against the dualism of “West” and “East” other dualisms, such as, for
example, Orientalism as representation or real or as vision as narrative, can be found throughout the text. 1
Or
b) brief parenthetical citations in the text (Gibaldi 114-116):
Although Said’s Orientalism is directed against the dualism of “West” and “East” other dualisms, such as for
example, Orientalism as representation or real or as vision as narrative, can be found throughout the text. (Young
141).
Once a title has been mentioned, it can be used in abbreviated form for the remainder of the
article: (Young, White 141).
If more than one work by the author is in the list of works-cited, a shortened version of the
title is given: (Young, White 141)
Prose: If a quotation runs to more than four lines in your paper, set it off from your text by
beginning a new line, indenting it 2,5 cm but do not use quotation marks.
1
Young, Robert. White Mythologies: Writing History and the West. London and New York: Routledge, 1990.
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Poetry: If you quote part or all of a single line of verse, put it in quotation marks within your
text. You may also incorporate two or three lines in this way, using a slash on each side ( / ) to
seperate them:
Reflecting on the “incident” in Baltimore, Cullen concludes, “Of all the things that happened there / That’s all
that I remember” (11-12)
THE LIST OF WORKS CITED ( Gibaldi 116-148)
A book by a Single Author:
Young, Robert. White Mythologies: Writing History and the West. London and New York:
Routledge, 1990.
An Anthology or Compilation:
Thieme, John, ed. The Arnold Anthology of Post-Colonial Literatures in English. London:
Arnold, 1996.
A Book by Two or More Authors:
Eggins, Suzanne, and Diane Slade. Analysing Casual Conversion. London: Cassell, 1997.
Rabkin, Eric S., Martin H. Greenberg, and Joseph D. Olander, eds. No Place Else:
Explorations in Utopian and Dystopian Fiction. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1983.
If there are more than three authors, you may name only the first and add et al.
Gilman, Sander, et al. Hysteria beyond Freud. Berkeley: U of California P, 1993.
A Work in an Anthology:
If you are citing an essay , a short story , a poem, or another work that appears within an
anthology or some other book col1ection, you need to add the fol1owing information to the
basic book entry: Author, title and (if relevant) translator of the part of the book being cited:
Allende, Isabell. "Toad's Mouth." Trans. Margaret Sayers Peden. A Hammock beneath the
Mangoes: Stories from Latin America. Ed. Thomas Colchie. New York: Plume, 1992. 83-88.
An Article in a Reference Book:
"Noon." The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. 1989.
An Introduction, a Preface, a Foreword, or an Afterword:
Borges, Jorge Luis. Foreword. Selected Poems, 1923-67. By Borges. Ed. Norman Thomas Di
Giovanni. New York: Delta-Dell, 1973. xv-xvi.
Doctorow, E. L. Introduction. Sister Carrie. By Theodore Dreiser. New York: Bantam, 1982.
v-xi.
Elliott, Emroy. Afterword. The Jungle, By Upton Sinclair. New York: Signet, 1990. 342-50.
An Edition:
Twain, Mark. Roughing It. Ed. Harriet E. Smith and Edgar M. Branch. Berkeley: U of
California P, 1993.
A Translation:
Dostoevsky, Feodor. Crime and Punishment. Trans. Jessie Coulson. Ed. George Gibian. New
York: Norton, 1964.
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A Multivolume Work:
Martin, Michael T., ed. New Latin American Cinema. 2 vols. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 1997.
A Book in a Series:
Neruda, Pablo. Canto General. Trans. Jack Schmitt. Latin Amer. Lit. and Culture 7. Berkeley:
U of California Press, 1991.
Phil, Marshall R. The Korean Singer of Tales. Harvard-Yenching Inst. Monograph Ser. 37.
Cambridge: Havard UP,1994.
CITING ARTICLES AND OTHER PUBLICATIONS IN PERIODICALS
(Gibaldi 149-162)
An Article in a Scholarly Journal with Continuous Pagination:
White, Sabina, and Andrew Winzelberg. "Laughter and Stress." Humor 5 (1992): 343-55.
An Article in a Scholarly Journal That Pages Each Issue Separately:
Barthelme, Frederick. "Architecture." Kansas Quarterly 13.3-4 (1981): 77-80.
An Article in a Scholarly Journal That Uses Only Issue Numbers:
Bowering, George. "Baseball and the Canadian Imagination." Canadian Literature 108
(1986): 115-24.
A Special Issue:
Makward, Christine. "Reading Maryse Conde's Theater." Maryse Conde. Ed. Delphine Perret
and Marie-Denise Shelton. Spec. issue of Callaloo 18.3 (1995): 681-89.
A Review:
Updike, John. "Fine Points." Rev. of The New Fowler's Modern English Usage, ed. R. W.
Burchfield. New Yorker 23-30 Dec. 1996: 142-49.
An Article in a Newspaper:
Lohr, Steve. "Now Playing: Babes in Cyberspace." New York Times 3 Apr. 1998.
An Article in a Magazine:
Perlstein, Rick. "Abridged Too Far?" Lingua Franca Apr.-May 1997: 23-24.
CITING MISCELLANEOUS PRINT, NONPRINT AND ELECTRONIC
SOURCES (Gibaldi 162-202)
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An Interview:
Nader, Ralph. Interview with Ray Suarez. Talk of the Nation. Natl. Public Radio. WBUR,
Boston. 16 Apr. 1998.
An Online Scholarly Project; An Information Database:
Project Barlebv. Ed. Steven van Leeuwen. May 1998. Columbia U. 5 May 1998
<http://www. columbia.edu/acis/bartleby/>
Britannica Online. Vers. 98.2. Apr. 1998. Encyclopaedia Britannica. 8 May 1998
<http://www.eb.com/>.
A Part of an Online Book:
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "Self-Reliance." Essays. First Series. 1841. 12 Feb. 1997
<ftp://ftp. books. com/ebooks/NonFiction/Philosophy/Emerson/history.txt> .
An Article in a Scholarly Journal:
Elam, Diane. "Disciplining Woman: Feminism or Woman's Studies." Surfaces 5.101 (1995):
11 pp. 24 June 1998
<http://tornade.ere.umontreal.ca:80/~guedon/Surfaces/voI15/elam.html> .
A Publication on CD-ROM:
Braunmüller, A.R., ed. Macbeth. By William Shakespeare. CD-ROM. New York: Voyager,
1994.
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