A Quick Guide to MLA Form English 102

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A Quick Guide to MLA FormEnglish 102

• Dont hand your paper in without it.

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Dress for Success

• Rule Number One an MLA paper looks like an MLA
  paper.
• You only get one chance to make a first
  impression. Show me that you know how to work in
  MLA style before I read a word.
• The easiest places to spot MLA errors are
• The heading
• The page numbers
• The works cited

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A Flyover View 1
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Whats Wrong with This Picture?
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Is this MLA?
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Flyover View 2
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Whats wrong with this picture?
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Is this MLA?
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MLA Citation Begin at the End

• The List of Works Cited at the end of the paper
  is organized alphabetically by authors last
  names.
• To find out what to do if you dont have the
  authors name, see your reference book.
• Check the index under MLA/Works Cited/Directory
  to.
• Tab the page with the directory, so you can get
  there quickly.

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Sample Works Cited Entries

• Dickinson, Emily. Because I Could Not Stop for
  Death. Literature A World of Writing. Ed.
  David L. Pike and Ana M. Acosta. Boston
  Pearson/Longman, 2011. 459. Print.
• Feldman, Paula R. Women Poets and Anonymity in
  the Romantic Era. New Literary History. 33.2
  (Spring 2009) 279- 89. J-Stor. Web. 23 Oct.
  2009.

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Helpful Hints

• Articles from your textbook are Works from an
  Anthology
• Library database articles are Works from a
  Database

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MLA Citation In-Text Citation

• Go to the index in your reference book and find
  the entry for MLA in-text citation directory
  to.
• Find the directory and tab it.
• KEEP IN MIND THAT IN-TEXT CITATION REFERS TO THE
  PARENTHETICAL CITATION THAT LITERALLY HAPPENS
  WITHIN THE TEXT.

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Sample In-Text Citations

• Paula Feldman questions the importance of gender
  in the use of anonymity, arguing that male poets
  seem to have used the subterfuge of anonymity and
  pseudonymity nearly as much as their female
  counterparts (281).
• Some critics have argued that anonymity may not
  have been as closely tied to gender as one might
  think (Feldman 281).

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Poetry Sample In-Text Citation

• Keats only needed to hear the birds beautiful
  music to imagine all of this, but once the bird
  leaves so does his vision Adieu! The fancy
  cannot cheat so well / As she is famd to do,
  deceiving elf / Adieu / adieu! Thy plaintive
  anthem fades (lines 73-75).

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Sample Poetry Citation

• In Because I Could Not Stop for Death, Emily
  Dickinson personifies death as one who rides with
  the speaker in a carriage (lines 1-4). Noting
  that Death took His time, the speaker says And I
  had put away / My labor and my leisure too, / For
  His Civility (6-8).

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MLA Citation The Popcorn Trail

• The in-text citation needs to lead back to the
  Works Cited.
• Arrange the Works Cited first, so you know how it
  works alphabetically.
• Use whatever comes first (usually the authors
  last name) in the in-text citation, so that the
  reader can easily locate the source on the List
  of Works Cited.