Overview
Click the above link for a brief overview to MLA format. What is it? What must students have in their essays? What is plagiarism, and how do students avoid it?
A Note About The New 8th Edition
MLA recently updated to their 8th edition, making their format much more streamlined and, honestly, user-friendly. But, not all textbooks and websites have updated to this version yet. The content on this page uses the 8th edition, but if your textbook or reference guide uses the 7th edition instead, you're welcome to follow that format. The only thing I will not allow is your mixing formats. Choose one!
A Note About The New 8th Edition
MLA recently updated to their 8th edition, making their format much more streamlined and, honestly, user-friendly. But, not all textbooks and websites have updated to this version yet. The content on this page uses the 8th edition, but if your textbook or reference guide uses the 7th edition instead, you're welcome to follow that format. The only thing I will not allow is your mixing formats. Choose one!
LectureSCan I really get through explaining page formatting, in-text citations, and the works cited list in 15 minutes? I gave it my best in this more detailed presentation.
And another 15 minutes devoted to helping you understand the Academic Honesty Policy as it relates to plagiarism so you know how to avoid it in your upcoming essays. As a bonus, you'll see an example of how I do an initial read of an essay for MLA format.
In Ms. W's WordsConfused? Irritated? Flustered? Those are common student reactions I receive when we start discussing formatting our research for our essays. Rarely do I hear from anyone who loves MLA format. With the threat of plagiarism over your heads and the many varied options for formatting a single source, but really only one right answer to choose, the task of MLA format can be daunting. I get that.
I'd love to keep you from stressing, but when there's a looming deadline, you'll stress anyway. All I can do is offer encouragement and advice. You can figure this out. Let's just reset how we think about using this tool, shall we? |
ExamplesWatch the two videos below for specific "how-to" examples of documenting online and print sources within your paragraphs and on a works cited list using MLA format.
The video below will help if you're looking to set up the pages of your Word Document to meet MLA requirements for the heading and works cited page.
https://youtu.be/xFu89R3hrnU
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MLA Format is a Tool to Help.
MLA format is simply a tool, much like any other tool we learn to use to make our jobs easier. Some tools we use to make our own jobs easier; some tools we use to benefit others. It helps students show where they've found their research. This format, one of several options depending on the academic subject, helps students prove they found good ideas from solid academic sources. It also helps readers seek new information easier. If a reader becomes curious about the content within a student's essay, he/she can look up that research using the content on the Works Cited list and easily find the original source material either online or at the library thanks to the student's willingness to provide accurate information. MLA Format is not Trouble, but it is Time Consuming. If it is supposed to be useful, it shouldn't be hard. The problem is that there are so many varied ways things get published now (print, self-published, not to mention the various ways we can reach out through the internet to share our ideas--and for each different way we can get our ideas to other people, there must be a way to credit those ideas. Thus, we have to parse through the options available for citing our sources. Citing print sources is fairly straightforward, but we must spend time at the library or waiting for inter-library loans. Most students prefer the ease and flexibility of online research, but because of the publication options, we must spend time figuring out how to cite those online sources correctly and completely. We must make a choice: ease of research or ease of citation? Rarely are we fortunate to have both. Choose how you want to spend your time. MLA Format is a Series of Clues to Find a Source.
We read an article on a website (or Facebook) and get to the "for more information, click..." portion. Do we click to learn more? Probably. We're chasing down the clues to get more information! Sometimes, those clicks are based on academic scholarship, superscripts or subscripts on the page leading to original articles that were quoted or hyperlinked in the stories we're currently reading. It isn't necessarily MLA, but it is a standard online means of attributing ideas to their sources, as so nicely pointed out on Hubspot. And now you have an example of what I mean. However, I could also have mentioned that Hubspot has a short article that "[walks] through a couple common scenarios bloggers come across" and suggests a few "attribution methods" (Wainwright "How to Cite Sources"). And now you have an example in-text citation in MLA format. You're welcome. When you submit your essay, embedding links for your audience isn't an option, so you must do something else: give your audience clues to help them find their way to your source. In-text citations are clues to lead readers to the Works Cited page.
(Rowling Prince 93)
(Rowling Goblet 227) (Pasternak 188) (Wainwright "How to Cite Sources") (42) Almost all of the above parenthetical references should be enough of a clue to lead readers to the correct reference on a Works Cited page. The top two items would be for J. K. Rowling's sources, and they're narrowed down by title. One is for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and the other is for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. (As an aside, can you tell what my family is reading right now?) Are there enough clues to let the reader know which source is which? Yes! The next parenthetical reference leads a reader to Pasternak's complete citation on the Works Cited page, and Wainwright's citation follows. But what about the final reference above? If the essay has at least 4 sources--two Rowling titles, one Pasternak and one Wainwright--is this a good enough clue? Which page 42? Wainwright's source is a website, so that can be excluded from our search (probably), but that still leaves three options. More clues are needed, aren't they? Good thing there are also an introduction and the research itself as the other two parts of in-text citations.
Will this provide enough clues to lead the reader to the correct citation on the Works Cited page?
Now we have enough information. The above example has the page number and authors' last names, too. We can definitely find them now in a complete citation on a Works Cited page.
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A full citation on the Works Cited page will have enough clues to lead readers to the source.
No matter the exact book, magazine, encyclopedia, journal, website, work of art or music, or other item used within the essay paragraphs; and whether digital, print, or other medium; there should be enough clues on the Works Cited page to lead the readers directly to every source. Look at the citations on the Works Cited list below (it isn't a separate page, so I won't call it that). What critical clues are provided to help us find the sources?
Works Cited
Pasternak, Boris. Doctor Zhivago. Pantheon Books, Inc., 1958.
Roberts, Edgar V. and Robert Zweig, editors. Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing. Compact 6th Edition, Pearson Education, Inc., 2015. Rowling, J. K. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Scholastic, Inc., 2000. Rowling, J. K. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Scholastic, Inc., 2005. Wainwright, Corey. "How to Cite Sources & Not Steal People's Content on the Internet." Rpt. 7 July 2015. Hubspot, Aug. 2012. Accessed 21 Sep. 2016. |
*I'm unable to indent the second line effectively on this website, but you should know to do so in your essays.
**Yes, my copy of Doctor Zhivago was published in 1958. I collect books.
**Yes, my copy of Doctor Zhivago was published in 1958. I collect books.
What critical clues are provided above?
Starting with the one different source, let's check the website. We have the author, the name of the webpage, the name of the website, the date the article was most recently updated, the month it was originally posted, and the date the source was found online. This should be enough information for us to find the source, too, even if the URL changes with future updates. If the information is critical to our needs but no longer easily accessible, we have enough details to contact the web host/editor to get the content.
Starting with the one different source, let's check the website. We have the author, the name of the webpage, the name of the website, the date the article was most recently updated, the month it was originally posted, and the date the source was found online. This should be enough information for us to find the source, too, even if the URL changes with future updates. If the information is critical to our needs but no longer easily accessible, we have enough details to contact the web host/editor to get the content.
Now for the books. These are a challenge only because we can't simply search for the keywords online. We'll need to take a trip to a library (or check a library's digital collection). The good news is that for student research materials that we like, we can reasonably assume that the print sources used either came from the college library or from one of our local library branches--and depending on where you live and which campus is nearest your house, you can have the print books (once returned!) delivered to the library branch closest to you through inter-library loan. If we're tracking down print sources from research we're reading online, we may have to take more time and do more digging.
With the citations, each source in MLA format is organized by most critical information to least critical information, so knowing this should help us find what we need. We have the authors first, then the titles of the works. Next we have an edition for the Roberts & Zweig textbook, but the others are first editions for those series, so no edition is given. Finally, we see the publisher and the date of publication, useful especially with reprinted books. Sometimes authors move to different publishers and their older works are reissued under the new publishing company. Sometimes, the works are retranslated or re-edited, too. This affects us as clue-following researchers! If we're looking for information found on page 103 of one book according to a research paper citation, but the book we find is from a different publisher and has been translated or edited differently, the information we need in the book we have may be on a different page! We'll need to take some time to skim around to find the information. If we find the correct source, we can go immediately to the correct page. |
Reminder
My point, students, is completing the citations within your papers may be time consuming, but it shouldn't be overly difficult. You really are just following the patterns set down for you in your textbook or other MLA reference. It isn't meant to cause problems. In fact, it is meant to be a useful research tool for you.
You can figure this out!
My point, students, is completing the citations within your papers may be time consuming, but it shouldn't be overly difficult. You really are just following the patterns set down for you in your textbook or other MLA reference. It isn't meant to cause problems. In fact, it is meant to be a useful research tool for you.
You can figure this out!