Univ. of Gothenburg/Dept. of Languages and Literatures/English
CA & AKJ 2011
MLA Style Sheet: A Summary of Format Conventions for the Literary Essay
Every scholarly field has its preferred style, or set of guidelines for writing. MLA style is commonly
accepted in the humanities. MLA tells you how to document research and helps you organize your
research paper.
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Choose an easily readable typeface such as Times New Roman and set it to 12 points. This is
used in the whole text, including quotations.
Set your word processor to double space in the entire document (2.0), including quotations,
notes and works cited.
All margins should be a uniform 1-inch (2.5 cm).
Do not justify the right hand margin, i.e. do not set the text so that each line finishes at the
same distance from the edge of the page.
Do not underline your title, but capitalize according to the rules for capitalization. Do not
place a period at the end of the title. Centre the title.
Number all pages consecutively (beginning with page 2) in the upper right-hand corner with
the help of the automatic page numbering.
Indent the first word of each paragraph ½ inch, approx. 1 cm.
Quote selectively. The quotations must reproduce the original exactly. You must construct a
clear and grammatically correct sentence that allows you to incorporate a quotation with
accuracy. Alternatively you can paraphrase the original and only quote fragments. If you
change a quotation in any way, make the alteration clear to the reader by following the rules
for this.
Short quotations (less than four lines) are put in quotation marks and incorporated into the
text: As Brownlow observes, “this poet’s maturity is uncertain” (215).
When quoting verse lines, separate these by a slash with a space on each side: / .
Long quotations (more than four lines when incorporated into the text), are set off from the
text by beginning a new line, indenting one inch from the left margin without adding quotation
marks.
If you leave out part of a text passage in your quotation, you must use an ellipsis, three spaced
periods . . . , to show that the quotation does not completely reproduce the original. Obviously,
you cannot change the meaning of the original passage. Whenever you use an ellipsis, make
sure that the complete passage – your text and the quotation – is grammatically complete and
correct.
If you have to change or add a word in a quotation for the sake of clarity or grammatical
consistency use square brackets to indicate the change: Milton’s Satan speaks of his “study
[pursuit] of revenge.”
If you want to emphasize part of a quotation, italicize it and indicate parenthetically that you
have done so: Lincoln specifically advocated a government “for the people” (emphasis added).
Explanatory notes are placed at the bottom of the page as footnotes, or at the end of the text,
as endnotes. Use the footnote or endnote function in Word.
Here are some sample page references with author’s name and page number(s) given in
parenthesis between end of quotation and full stop. The information in these references must
match the corresponding information in the entries in the Works cited-list:
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When author’s name is not given in the text: The ex-centrics know that “they
cannot reject the subject wholesale, mainly because they have never really been
allowed it” (Hutcheon 68).
Univ. of Gothenburg/Dept. of Languages and Literatures/English
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CA & AKJ 2011
When author’s name is given in the text: According to Rebelledo one significant
characteristic of Chicana literature in general is “the seizing of subjectivity” (4).
When more than one work is involved add title, abbreviated if long: As Moi
observes, “[t]he power struggle intersects the sign,” Sexual/Textual 158). / “Theorized
in this way the category of women is . . . an arbitrarily imposed definition with real
social effects” (Moi, “Appropriating Bourdieu”1036).
17. On a separate page at the end of your paper, you include a Works Cited list consisting of
those works you have actually referred to in the text. Use the hanging indentation format for
this list. This means that the first line is flush (aligned) with the left margin and the following
lines are indented one-half inch. Every source you document must have a publication
medium marker. The most common are “Print” and “Web.” When citing on-line
publications, you also have to include the date when you accessed the work (end of the
citation). Note that MLA no longer requires the use of URLs in citations:
An article in a scholarly journal:
Moi, Toril. “Appropriating Bourdieu: Feminist Theory and Pierre Bourdieu’s Sociology of
Culture.” New Literary History 22.4 (1991): 1017-1049. Print.
A book:
Moi, Toril. Sexual/Textual Politics: Feminist Literary Theory. London: Methuen, 1985. Print.
An essay in a collection:
Herrera-Sobek, Maria. “The Politics of Rape: Sexual Transgression in Chicana Fiction.
Charting New Frontiers in American Literature: Chicana Creativity and Criticism. Ed
Maria Herrera-Sobek and Helen Maria Viramontes. Albuquerque: U of New Mexico
P, 1996. 245-56. Print
An article in an online-only scholarly journal:
Landauer, Michelle. “Images of Virtue: Reading, Reformation and the Visualization of Culture
in Rosseau’s La nouvelle Héloïse.” Romanticism on the Net 46 (2007): n. pag. Web. 8
Nov, 2009.
A periodical publication in an online database:
Chan, Evans. “Postmodernism and Hong Kong Cinema.” Postmodern Culture 10.3 (2000); n.
pag. Project Muse. Web. 5 June 2008.
An article in an online scholarly journal that also appears in print is cited as you would a
scholarly journal in print, including the page range of the article. Provide the medium of
publication – Web, in this case, and the date of access.
18. Your essay should have a title page (see example in Björk/Räisänen).
This style sheet is based on the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 7th ed. For the
many reference and citation formats not listed here, consult the Handbook. There are also several
resources on the web. The following are recommended:
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The Online Writing Lab (OWL) at Purdue University: “Research and Citation”
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/section/2/
The Writing Center at University of North Carolina:
http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/