The new MLA documentation style cites sources within your research paper by providing identifying information in parentheses following the citation. The information in the parenthetical reference must match the corresponding information in the list of Works Cited at the end of your paper. In writing your research paper, you must document everything that you borrow--not only direct quotations and paraphrases but also information and ideas. As in science and social science formats, in the MLA format, you provide complete bibliographical information only once--in the list of Works Cited at the end of the paper.

NOTE: A documented essay or research paper must be double-spaced throughout, including quotations, notes, and the list of works cited.

1. Author's name not mentioned in your text

   When you introduce material without using the author's name, give only the author's last name and the page number(s) within parentheses:

   One modern researcher has found that dreams move backward in time as the night progresses, that they gradually turn from the contemporary world to childhood and "stored images" (Dement 71).

2. Author's name given in your text

   If you use the author's name to introduce the material cited, give only the page number(s) within parentheses:

   Freud states that a "dream is the fulfillment of a wish" (154).

   You need a short title before the pagination if you are citing more than one work by the same author:

   According to Foulkes, modern dream researchers now accept the principle that dreams express "profound aspects of personality" (Sleep 184). Yet Foulkes himself has found that young children's dreams are in general "rather simple and unemotional" ("Dreams"78).

3. Citing more than one work by the same author

   If you are citing more than one work by the same author and you do not give the author's name in your text, give the author's name and a short title in parentheses--along with page number(s):

   Modern dream researchers now accept the principle that dreams express "profound aspects of personality" (Foulkes, Sleep 184). But investigation has shown that young children's dreams are in general "rather simple and unemotional" (Foulkes, "Dreams" 78).

4. Citing more than one work in a single parenthetical reference

   If you wish to include two or more works with different authors in a single parenthetical reference, cite each work as you normally would in a reference, but use semicolons to separate the citations:

   (Frye 42; Bree 101-33).

5. Quoted material set off from the text

   When you set off a long quotation from the text of your paper, indent 10 spaces from the left margin and place the citation after the final period:

   In A Room Of One's Own, Virginia Woolf goes on to speak
   about women in literature and history:

   A very queer, composite being thus emerges.Imaginatively she is of the highest impor-tance; practically she is completely insignificant. She pervades poetry from cover to cover; she is all but absent from history.She dominates the lives of kings and conquerors in fiction; in fact she was theslave of any boy whose parents forced a ring upon her finger. Some of the most inspired words, some of the most profound thoughts in literature fall from her lips; in real life she could hardly read, could scarcely spell, and was the property of her husband. (45-46)

6. A work with more than one author

   If you cite a work with two or three authors and you don't mention them in your text, give all of their last names in the citation:

   For all their efforts to generalize about child behavior, psychologists recognize that "no two children are exactly alike" (Gesell and Ilg 68).

   A work with more than three authors should be cited with the use of et al., which stands for et alia, meaning "and others":

   Critics have said that in O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra "the catastrophe achieves something of the finality as well as the magnitude which great tragedy requires" (Spiller et al. 1249).

7. An entire work

   If you are citing an entire work, not just a part, it is usually better to include the author's name in your text than in a parenthetical reference:

   Edens et al. have a useful collection of essays on teaching Shakespeare.

   If you choose not to use the author's name in your text, include it in a parenthetical citation. Use only the last name of the author. If two or three names begin the entry, give the last name of each person listed. If one name followed by "et al." begins the entry, give the last name of the person listed, followed by "et al.," without any intervening punctuation:

   Teaching Shakespeare is a useful collection of essays for English professors (Edens et al.).

8. A work with a corporate author

   A work with a corporate author should be cited by a shortened version of the author if you have not mentioned it in your text:

   Rising above the trees at the end of converging avenues in the city of Washington, the great white dome of the United States Capitol has been said to appear like "a vision in fantasy" (Capitol Society 8).

9. A work in more than one volume

   If you cite a work of more than one volume, use a colon to separate the volume number from the pagination. To refer, for instance to volume 1, page 151 of Page Smith's A New Age Now Begins, you would write:

   "Having witnessed the corruption of the English government at first hand," Smith writes, the colonists who visited England "were determined to preserve America from exploitation and repression" (1: 151).

10. A work listed by title, including dictionary and encyclopedia

    In a work listed by title, the title, or a shortened version, replaces the author's name before the page number(s). Omit a page reference if you are citing a work with alphabetized entries (such as a dictionary or an encyclopedia), a one-page article, or a nonprint source. When condensing the title of an anonymous work, begin with the word by which it is alphabetized in the list of works cited. The following example is from the Encyclopedia Americana:

    The nine grades of mandarins were "distinguished by the color of the button on the hats of officials" ("Mandarin").

11. An indirect source

    If you are quoting or paraphrasing someone's published account of another's spoken or written material, write "qtd. in" ("quoted in") before the indirect source you cite in your citation:

    Samuel Johnson admitted that Edmund Burke was an "extraordinary man" (qtd. in Boswell 2: 450).

12. A play with act, scene, and line numbers

    A play with act, scene, and line numbers should be cited with Arabic numerals divided by periods. For instance, to cite Act 5, Scene 5, lines 23-28 of Shakespeare's Macbeth, you would write:

    Out, out, brief candle!
    Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
    That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
    And then is heard no more. It is a tale
    Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
    Signifying nothing.(Macbeth 5.5.23-28)
    

    Some teachers may want you to use Roman numerals for such play citations. If so, use a capital Roman numeral for the act, a lowercase Roman numeral for the scene, and Arabic numerals for the lines:

    ...Signifying nothing.(Macbeth V.v.23-28)

13. A poem

    To cite the source of material quoted from a poem, use the word "line" or "lines" followed by the number:

    In Robert Frost's poem, "The Death of the Hired Man," one character describes home as the "place where, when you have to go there/ They have to take you in" (lines 118-119).

14. A poem divided into "books" or cantos

    A poem divided into books or cantos with numbered lines should be cited with Arabic numerals divided by a period. The first number stands for the book or canto; the second stands for the line or lines:

    When Milton's Satan first sees Adam and Eve in their bliss, he cries out "O Hell! what do mine eyes with grief behold!" (Paradise Lost 4.353)

15. The Bible

    A reference to the Bible is normally placed in parentheses, immediately following the quotation. Passages in the Bible are normally cited by book, chapter, and verse; no other documentation is needed:

    In Genesis, the very first book of the Bible, we are told that Jacob went to sleep and dreamed of a ladder reaching up to heaven with angels climbing up and down it and the voice of God above it saying, "I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Issac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed" (Genesis 28.12-13).

16. Using notes with parenthetical documentation

    Two kinds of notes may be used with parenthetical documentation.

    1. Content notes offering the reader comment, explanation, or information that the text cannot accommodate:

    The commentary to the sixteenth-century literary scholars Bernardo Segni and Lionardo Salviati shows them to be less than faithful followers of Aristotle.¹
    Note ¹Examples are conveniently available in Weinberg.
    See Segni, Rettorica et poetica d'Aristotile (Firenze, 1549) 281, qtd. in Weinberg 1: 405, and Salviati, Poetica d'Aristotile parafrasata e comentata, ms. 2.2.11, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Firenze, 140v, qtd. in Weinberg 1: 616-17.

    Note that in the Works Cited, only Weinberg will be listed.

    2. Bibliographic notes for evaluative comments on sources
    and for references containing numerous citations.

    For older people, the past decade has represented the best of times and the worst of times.¹ Note

    ¹For contrasting points of view, see National Committee and Brody C5.

At the end of your paper, you must provide a list of Works Cited--an alphabetical reference list of all the works you have cited in your paper, whether in the text itself or in your explanatory notes. As in the old MLA format, you arrange the entries alphabetically according to the authors' last names. When you include several works by one author, list these alphabetically by title. Instead of repeating the author's name, use three hyphens followed by a period. Here are the basic format rules:

Note: Double space within each entry and between entries. In an entry, all lines after the first are indented five spaces.

1. A book with one author

   MacKendrick, Paul. The Greek Stones Speak: The Story of

   Archaeology in Greek Lands. New York: St. Martin's,

   1962.

   
   Note: Author's name has last name first and is followed by a period. The title is given in full and followed by a period. Next comes the place of publication followed by a colon; then the name of the publisher, a comma, the date of publication, and a period. When the publisher is a university press, you abbreviate the words "university press" as "UP" (Oxford UP, for example).

2. A book with two or three authors

   Gesell, Arnold, and Francis L. Ilg. Child Development: An

   Introduction to the Study of Human Growth. New York:

   Harper & Row, 1949.

   Note: Give the authors' names in the order in which they appear on the title page; only the first author's name is inverted.

3. A book with three or more authors

   Spiller, Robert, et al. Literary History of the United States. New

   York: Macmillan, 1960.

4. A book with a corporate author

   United States Capitol Society. We, The People: The Story of the

   United States Capitol. Washington: National Geographic Soc.,

   1964.

5. A work in more than one volume

   Smith, Page. A New Age Now Begins. 2 vols. New York: McGraw,

   1976.

   Note: Use this form if the material in your paper comes from both volumes of the work. If the material comes from only one volume, give the volume number at the end of the entry.

   Smith, Page. A New Age Now Begins. 2 vols. New York: McGraw,

   1976. Vol.2.

6. A work with an editor

   Dreiser, Theodore. Sister Carrie. Ed. Kenneth S. Lynn. New York:

   Rinehart, 1959.

7. A work in a book with other selections by the same author

   Thomas, Lewis. "The Long Habit." Lives of a Cell: Notes of a

   Biology Watcher. New York: Viking, 1974. 47-52.

8. A work in a book with selections by various authors

   Dimock, George E., Jr. "The Name of Odysseus." Essays on the

   Odyssey: Selected Modern Criticism. Ed. Charles H.

   Taylor. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1963. 54-72.

9. A second or later edition

   Ornstein, Robert E. The Psychology of Consciousness. 2nd ed. New

   York: Harcourt, 1977.

10. A modern reprint

    Weston, Jessie L. From Ritual to Romance. 1920. Garden City:

    Anchor - Doubleday, 1957.

11. A review with known author

    Ashton, Sherley. Rev. of Death and Dying, by David L. Bender and

    Richard C. Hagen. Humanist July-Aug. 1982: 60.

12. A review without known author

    Rev. of Anthology of Danish Literature, ed. F. J. Billeskov Jansen

    and P. M. Mitchell. Times Literary Supplement 7 July 1972:

    785.

13. A book with multiple publishers

    Duff, J. Wight. A Literary History of Rome: From the Origins to the

    Close of the Golden Age. Ed. A.M. Duff. 3rd ed. 1953.

    London Benn; New York: Barnes, 1967.:

14. A republished book

    Doctorow, E.L. Welcome to Hard Times. 1960. New York: Bantam,

    1976.

15. A play

    Williams, Tennessee. A Streetcar Named Desire. New York: New

    Directions, 1947.

16. A long poem with numbered lines

    Milton, John. Paradise Lost. Ed. Scott Elledge. New York: Norton,

    1975.

17. A translation

    Freud, Sigmund. Totem and Taboo. Trans. James Strachey. New

    York: Norton, 1950.

    Note: Like the name of an editor, the name of a translator follows the title of the work.

18. An article in an encyclopedia

    Spilhaus, Athelstan, and Jane J. Stein. "Pollution Control."

    Encyclopedia Brittanica: Macropedia. 1974 ed. Kilma,

    Edward S. "Phonetics." Funk & Wagnells New Encyclopedia.

    1973

    Note: In the encyclopedia cited in this example, the authors of each article are identified by their initials at the end of the article, and their names are listed in a guide to the work. In citing any well- known reference work, you need not give any details about publication, except for the edition number, if any, and the year. If the author is not named and the entries are listed alphabetically, begin with the title of the article:

    "Pollution." The Columbia Encyclopedia. 1963 ed.

19. A publication which is part of a series

    Downer, Alan S. Recent American Drama. University of Minnesota

    Pamphlets on American Writers 7. Minneapolis: U Of

    Minnesota P, 1961.

20. An article or journal or magazine with continuous pagination

    Delbruck, Max. "Mind from Matter?" The American Scholar 47

    (1978): 339-53.

    Note: Continuous pagination means that the numbering of eachissue of a journal starts where the preceding issue left off. The sequence of items is author, title of the article, name of the journal, volume number (in arabic numerals), year of issue (in parentheses), and page numbers.

21. An article in a journal or magazine without continuous pagination

    Posen, I. Sheldon and Joseph Sciorra. "Brooklyn's Dancing

    Tower."Natural History 92.6 (1983): 30-37.

    Note: If the article is unsigned, begin the entry with the title.

22. An article in a newspaper

    Strout, Richard L. "Another Bicentennial." Christian Science

    Monitor 10 Nov. 1978: 27.

    Note: When your source is an editorial in a newspaper, let the reader know.

    "How to End Watergate." Editorial. New York Times, 10 Jan. 1979,

    city ed.: A22.

    Note: The edition is specified because the content of editions can vary, and the section is identified because the pagination in each section starts over from p. 1.

23. A personal letter to the researcher

    Savvides, George. Letter to the author. 10 Jan. 1979.

24. An interview with title

    Fellini, Federico. "The Long Interview." Juliet of the Spirits. Ed.

    Tullio Kezich. Trans. Howard Greenfield. New York:

    Ballantine, 1966. 17-64.

25. An interview without title

    Kundera, Milan. Interview. New York Times 18 Jan. 1982, late ed.:

    13.

26. A personally conducted interview

    Pei, I.M. Personal interview. 27 July 1983.

    or

    Poussaint, Alvin F. Telephone interview. 10 Dec. 1990.

27. A CD-ROM or other portable database

    Angier, Natalie. "Chemists Learn Why Vegetables Are Good for

    You." New York Times 13 Apr. 1993, late ed.: CI. New York

    Times Ondisc. CD-ROM. UMI-Proquest. Oct. 1993.

    Note: Citation should include name of vendor (i.e., UMI-Proquest) and electronic publication date (i.e., Oct. 1993).

    28. An online database

    Angier, Natalie. "Chemists Learn Why Vegetables Are Good for

    You." New York Times 13 Apr. 1993, late ed.: C1. New York

    Times Online. Online. Nexis. 10 Feb. 1994.

    Note: Citation should include name of the computer service (i.e., Nexis) and date of access (i.e., 10 Feb. 1994).

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