What are citations?
What do citations include?
Why do we cite sources?
What should you cite?
MLA (Modern Language Association) style is most commonly used to write papers and cite sources within the liberal arts and humanities.
If you are asked to use MLA format, be sure to consult a copy of MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, located in McQuade Library's reference collection:
The Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) is the gold standard for online tools to teach you about citations and formatting.
From the website you can learn to:
In your citation, the elements should be listed in the following order:
Each element should be followed by the corresponding punctuation mark shown above.
The general format for any MLA citation:
Basic book format:
The author’s name or a book with a single author's name appears in last name, first name format. The basic form for a book citation is:
Last Name, First Name. Title of Book. City of Publication, Publisher, Publication Date.
*Note: the City of Publication should only be used if the book was published before 1900, if the publisher has offices in more than one country, or if the publisher is unknown in North America.
Basic format for electronic sources:
Author. "Title." Title of container (self contained if book), Other contributors (translators or editors), Version (edition), Number (vol. and/or no.), Publisher, Publication Date, Location (pages, paragraphs and/or URL, DOI or permalink). 2nd container’s title, Other contributors, Version, Number, Publisher, Publication date, Location, Date of Access (if applicable).
Basic format for a page from a website:
Author Last, Author First. “Article or Page Title.” Website Name, URL Accessed day month year.
Format for an article in a online scholarly Journal
Dolby, Nadine. “Research in Youth Culture and Policy: Current Conditions and Future Directions.” Social Work and Society: The International Online-Only Journal, vol. 6, no. 2, 2008, www.socwork.net/sws/article/view/60/362. Accessed 20 May 2009.