MLA Format
Expectations for ENG 101 & ENG 102
Mrs. Catherine Wishart,
Senior Adjunct Instructor
General Format
• Paper must be typed on standard white paper.
• Text of paper must be double-spaced, including the heading.
• Margins are set at 1 inch for left, right, top, and bottom
(older versions of Microsoft Word will set the margins at
1.25 inches for left and right – go in and reset manually).
• There must be a header on the right side that has the writer’s
last name and the page number.
Heading and Title
Name 1
Stephen Drew
Mrs. Wishart
ENG 102.401
30 October 2011
Note: header to the right
This is the correct order for
information
The title of published stories
are in quotation marks, but
not the title of the paper
Edgar Allen Poe’s Manipulations in “The Cask of Amontillado”
and “The Tell-Tale Heart”
Edgar Allen Poe is renowned for his spooky tales and haunting plotlines. One of
the reasons that his stories work so well is the manner in which Poe layers
manipulation into his tales. Throughout his works, including “The Cask of
In-Text Citations
 MLA uses parenthetical citation (information about the
source inside parentheses).
 Work the citation into a sentence that contains some of
your own words. Quotations should be integrated, not
just dropped into the paper.
 Example: Romantic poetry is characterized by the
“spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings”
(Wordsworth 263).
Note that the period is inserted after the last
parenthesis, not after the quotation mark.
Make Your Life Easier
• For the purposes of this research paper, make sure that there
is an author for all sources. If no author is listed and you want
to use the source, see your instructor for assistance.
• The lack of an author most often occurs when using an
Internet source.
• Avoid using any Internet source with an address ending in
“.com” unless approved by your instructor.
Citing Internet Sources
 You do not need to give paragraph numbers or page numbers
based on your print preview.
 Do not list the URL address within the text of the paper.
Instead, list the author of the source.
Methods of Parenthetical Citation
• The following are examples from Purdue OWL: MLA Format:
• According to some, dreams express “profound aspects of
personality” (Foulkes 184), though others disagree.
• According to Foulkes’s study, dreams may express “profound
aspects of personality” (184).
• Is it possible that dreams may express “profound aspects of
personality” (Foulkes 184)?
Quotes of More than Four Lines
 You may use only 1 or 2 such quotes in your research paper.
The paper should be mainly your thoughts.
Nelly Dean treats Heathcliff poorly and dehumanizes him when she says:
They entirely refused to have in bed with them, or even in their room, and
I put it on the landing of the stairs, hoping it would be gone in the morrow.
By chance, or else attracted by hearing his voice, it crept into Mr.
Earnshaw’s door, and there he found it on his quitting chamber. Inquiries
were made as to how it got there; I was obliged to confess, and in recompense
for my cowardice and inhumanity was sent out of the house. (Bronte 78)
Note placement of period with quote, lack of
quotation marks, and lack of punctuation after
the parenthesis.
Works Cited
• Begins on a separate page and is labeled Words Cited (no italics or
quotation marks).
• Double space, but do not skip spaces between entries.
• Indent the second and subsequent lines five spaces.
• List page numbers only when needed.
• Determine the Medium of Publication. Most will be print or web
sources.
Basic Format: Last name, First name. Title of Book. Place of Publication:
Publisher,Year of Publication. Medium of Publication.
Work from an Anthology: Last name, First name. “Title of Story.” Title of
Anthology. Ed. Editor’s Name. Place of Publication, Publisher,Year.
Page range of entry. Medium.
Work from a web source: Last name, First name. Title of Source. Name of
Institution publishing the source. Date source was published. Web.
Date you viewed source on the web.
Assistance with Works Cited
 The Burlington County Media Center has a license for
“Noodle Tools.”
 This site will assist you in building a proper Works Cited
page.
 Another site that is helpful in building a Works Cited page is
“Easybib.”
 Use of these sites is not considered plagiarism; it is
considered an excellent use of resources available in the
information age.
Works Cited Sample
Aristotle. Poetics. Ed. S. H. Butcher. The Internet Classics Archive.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Sept. 2007. Web. 23
Nov. 2011.
Gillespie, Paula, and Neal Lerner. The Allyn and Bacon Guide to
Peer Tutoring. Boston: Allyn, 2000. Print.
Wysocki. Anne Frances. Writing New Media:Theory and
Applications for Expanding the Teaching of Composition. Logan,
UT: Utah State UP, 2004. Print.
Group Practice
• Write out these sources correctly:
• An anthology named Literature: Approaches to Fiction, Poetry and
Drama. The editor is Robert DiYanni. It is published by
McGraw Hill in 2008. The story you have cited is “The
Rocking Horse Winner” by D. H. Lawrence, who was born in
1885 and died in 1930. The pages the story appear on are
from page 100 to 110.
Source Used for This PowerPoint
 The Purdue OWL. Purdue U Writing Lab, 2010. Web. 4 Oct.
2011.