Modern Language Association Writing Style

1
Modern Language Association Writing Style

• Key concepts for writing reports

2
Overview

• Format
• Works Cited
• Documenting Sources

3
MLA Format

• Leave a one inch margin on both sides and top and
  bottom of the text.
• Formal research is double-spaced while internal
  informal research is single-spaced
• Page numbers are placed in the upper right-hand
  corner ½ inch from the top

4
Tables and Illustrations

• Should be labeled either Tables or Illustration
• Should be given an Arabic number and summarized
  caption
• Provide source information

5
Works Cited

• Appears at the end of the paper
• Each entry begins flush to the margin
• If an entry is more than one line, indent
  subsequent lines

• Arrange alphabetically by authors last name
• For longer documents, you may wish to divide this
  section into topic areas

6
Citing Books

• Author
• Title of part of book
• Title of book
• Editor, translator, or compiler
• Edition

• Volume
• Name of series
• Place of publication
• Name of publisher
• Date of publication
• Page numbers

7
Book Cited Example

• Fairbanks, Carol. Prairie Women
• Images In American and Canadian
• Fiction. New HavenYale UP,
• 1986.

8
Anonymous Book Citation

• Encyclopedia of Photography. New York Crown,
  1984.

9
A work within an Anthology

• Hansberry, Lorraine. A Raisin in the
• Sun. Black Theater A Twentieth-
• Century Collection of the Work of
• Its Best Playwrights. Ed. Lindsey
• Patterson. New York Dodd, 1971.
• 221-76.

10
Citing references with multiple editions

• Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Works of
• Geoffrey Chaucer. Ed. F. N.
• Robinson. 2nd ed. Boston
• Houghton, 1957.

11
Citing Periodicals

• Booth, Wayne C. Kenneth Burkes
• Way of Knowing. Critical Inquiry 1
• (1974) 1-22

12
Citing Periodicals

• Fuerbring, Jonathon. Budgetary
• Rhythms. New York Times. 20 Mar.
• 1987, late ed. A8.

13
Citing Computer Software

• Rosenberg, Victor, et al. Pro-Cite. Vers.
• 1.3. Computer software. Personal
• Bibliographic Software, 1987. IBM
• PC-DOS 2.0, 256KB, disk.

14
Citing Television

• Agnes, the Indomitable de Mille. Narr.
• Agnes de Mille. Prod. Judy Kinberg.
• Dir. Merrill Brockway. Dance in
• America. Exec. Prod. Jac Venza.
• Great Performances. PBS. WGBH, Boston. 8
  May 1987.

15
Citing Interviews

• Pei, I.M. Personal interview. 27 July
• 1980. Poussaint, Alvin F. Telephone
• interview. 10 Dec. 1983.

16
Internet, World Wide Web citation

• Tips to Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle.
• Environmental Recycling Hotline. Retrieved 27,
  October 1995. lt www. primenetcom/cgi-bin/erh.plgt

17
Parenthetical Citation

• Via Ovicipitum dura est, or, for the benefit
  of the engineers among you The way of the
  egghead is hard (Stevenson 1954).
• Stevenson, Adlai. Lecture to Harvard University,
  Cambridge, Massachusetts, March 17, 1954.

18
Another Parenthetical Citation

• According to Jean Jaques Rousseau writing Emile
  in prison Cities are the abyss of the human
  species (1762).
• According to, cuts your work in half, in that
  no author is needed in the parenthesis.

19
Parenthetical citation of a webpage

• So I borrowed a quotation from an email I
  received and said, He's not dead... he's
  electroencephalographically challenged
  (Jardmail).
• Jardmail. Humorous quotations. 5 October 2004.
  lthttp//www.jardmail.co.uk/
• factslists/funnysayings.shtmlgt.