Documentation and Work Cited Guide

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MLA Documentation and Work Cited Guide

Creating a proper listing for a Works Cited page or giving credit to authors of the information is often a difficult experience for novice researchers. To make this experience less painful, we have gathered information from a variety of sources and have given examples of how this data should be cited in the list of works cited and within the body of the paper.

Be sure to follow the punctuation exactly as it is shown in the works cited entries: periods, commas, underlines, colons, etc. Note the placement of the end punctuation in the in-text citations. The period or end punctuation generally follows the in-text citations.

If you have access to the Internet, you may also use http://citationmachine.net/ to create your Works Cited entries.

Books

Book with one author

Works Cited Entry:

Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Cleveland: World, 1947. Print.

Author. Title. Placement of Publication. Publisher. Date of Publication. Medium of

publication consulted.

In-text Citation:

The book ends with Huck remarking that he has no intentions of becoming civilized (Twain 377).

Twain refers to the author’s last name and 377 is the page number where the information is located.

Additional book by the same author

If another book by the same author follows this entry in the list of works cited, the

author’s name should be replaced with three hyphens as in the example which

follows:

---. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Boston: Houghton, 1962. Print.

Book with two authors

Works Cited Entry:

Kotre, John, and Elizabeth Hall. Seasons of Life: Our Dramatic Journey From Birth to

Death. Boston: Little, 1990. Print.

Authors. (First name listed is reversed; second is in order) Title. Placement of

Publication. Publisher. Date of Publication. Medium of publication consulted.

In-text Citation:

When authors are mentioned in the signal phrase:

Kotre and Hall state that “most young people emerge from high school with only a hazy idea of what their future occupation might entail” (168).

When authors are named in the text, you need only cite the page number as shown above.

When authors are not mentioned in a signal phrase:

Teenagers often do not have clear occupational concepts when they leave high school (Kotre and Hall 168).

Book with three authors

Works Cited Entry:

Smolan, Rich, Phillip Moffitt and Matthew Naythons. Ancient Arts and Modern

Medicine. New York: Prentice, 1990. Print.

Authors. (First name listed is reversed; second is in order) Title. Placement of

Publication. Publisher. Date of Publication. Medium of publication consulted.

In-text Citation:

“Women have always been healers, and in traditional cultures, women are often the principal healers – the first resort against illness or disease” (Smolan, Moffitt, and Naythons 85).

Book with more than three authors

Works Cited Entry:

Ericksson, Bengt O., et al. Sports Medicine: Health and Medication. New York: Columbia UP, 1990. Print.

First author. Abbreviation et al. (meaning “and others”) Title. Placement of

Publication. Publisher. Date of Publication. Medium of publication consulted.

In-text Citation:

Physical exercise can provoke an asthmatic attack in an asthmatic who is otherwise symptom-free (Eriksson et al 66).

Book with an editor when the entire book is used

Works Cited Entry:

Asby, Ruth and Deborah Gore Ohrn, eds. Herstory: Women Who Changed History. New

York: Viking, 1994. Print.

Authors. Editors designation (eds.) Title of book. Place of Publication. Publisher. Date of

Publication. Medium of publication consulted.

If no author is given or if reference is given to more than one article, place the editor in

The author position. However, if only one article with an author is used, the

author of the article comes in the author position with the editor following the

title of the book.

In-text Citation:

Queen Isabella I had a disagreement with her brother Enrique over whom she was to marry. He had arranged for her to marry someone he had chosen, but she wished to marry her second cousin Ferdinand, a marriage which would have great political potential (Asby and Ohrn 40).

Work in an anthology

Works Cited Entry:

Daniels, Jonathan. “Tar Heels All.” Discovering North Carolina. Ed. Jack Claiborne and

William Price. Chapel Hill: UNC P, 1991. 99-101. Print.

Author of work in anthology. Name of work in anthology. Title of book. Edited by. Place

of publication. Publisher. Date of Publication. Page numbers. Medium of publication consulted.

In-text Citation:

“…there were only two classes of people, those who never had worn shoes and those who made you feel that you never had” (Daniels 99).

Translation

Works Cited Entry:

Beowulf. Trans. E. Talbot Donaldson. Ed. Nicholas Howe. New York: Norton, 2001.

Print.

Title of work. Translated by. Edited by. Place of publication. Publisher. Date of

Publication. Medium of publication consulted.

In-text Citation:

“…Grindle attacked and much destruction began.” (Beowulf 99).

If the original text has an author, the author’s name comes before the title in the Works Cited citation and will be used in the internal parenthetical documentation.

Works Cited Entry:

Hosseini, Khaled. A Thousand Splendid Suns. Trans. Alexander Harper. New

York: Doubleday, 2004. Print.

Original author. Title of work. Translated by. Place of publication. Publisher. Date of

Publication. Medium of publication consulted.

In-text Citation:

"Marriage can wait, education cannot" (Hosseini 219).

An introduction, preface, foreword, or afterward

Works Cited Entry:

Moore, Christopher. Introduction. Selected Poems of Henry Wadsworth Longefellow. By

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. New York: Gramercy, 1992. iv-x. Print.

Author of introduction, preface, etc. Title of piece quoted. Title of book. Author of book.

Place of publication. Publisher. Date of Publication. Page numbers. Medium of publication consulted.

In-text Citation:

Born on February 27, 1807, in Portland, Maine, Longfellow counted a long, distinguished line of upper class New Englanders in his lineage (Moore 7).

Article in a familiar reference book (e.g. encyclopedia)

Works Cited Entry:

Adams, Charles. “Islam.” Encyclopedia Americana. 1993 ed. Print.

Author of article. Name of article. Name of reference book. Date of edition. Medium of

publication consulted.

In-text Citation:

The city of Mecca organized two annual caravans; each citizen from the poorest to the most wealthy was allowed to invest in these ventures (Adams).

Familiar reference book with no author given

Works Cited Entry:

“Harmonica.” Encyclopedia International. 1981 ed. Print.

Title of article. Name of reference book. Date of edition. Medium of

publication consulted.

In-text Citation:

Credit for the invention of the harmonica in 1821 is usually given to Fredrich Buschmann of Berlin (“Harmonica”).

Citing a specific definition among several

Works Cited Entry:

“Noon.” Def. 4b. The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. 1989. Print

Word looked up. Definition number. Name of reference book. Edition. Date of edition.

Medium of publication consulted.

In-text Citation:

“The appearance of the sun directly overhead is commonly referred to as “high noon” (“Noon” def 4b).

Citing Indirect Sources

Whenever you can, take material from the original source, not a secondhand one. Sometimes, however, only an indirect source is available – for example, someone’s published account of another’s spoken remarks. If what you quote or paraphrase is itself a quotation, put the abbreviation qtd. in (“quoted in”) before the indirect source you cite in your parenthetical reference. (You may document the original source in a note)

Works Cited Entry:

Bowell, James. The Life of Johnson. Ed. George Birkbeck Hill and L. F. Powell. 6 vols.

Oxford: Clarendon, 1934-50. Print.

Author of work. Name of work. Name of editor. City of Publication. Publisher. Date of

publication. Medium of publication consulted.

In-text Citation:

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

A Book Published in a Second or Subsequent Edition

Works Cited Entry:

Baker, Nancy L., and Nancy Hurling. A Research Guide for Undergraduate Students:

English and American Literature. 6th ed. New York: MLA, 2006. Print.

Author(s) of work. Name of work. Edition. City of Publication. Publisher. Date of

publication. Medium of publication consulted.

In-text Citation:

Undergraduate studies in English and American literature are the cornerstones of core college courses (Baker and Hurling 274-290).

Poetry in a Book

Works Cited Entry:

Dickinson, Emily. “Death.” American Women Poets of the Romantic Era. Ed. Paula R.

Feldman. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1997. 472-473. Print.

Author of poem. Name of poem. Name of work. Editor. City of Publication. Publisher.

Date of publication. Medium of publication consulted.

In-text Citation:

Emily Dickinson concludes the poem with the realization of death’s presence:

Since then 'tis centuries, and yet each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses' heads
Were toward eternity. (21-24)

Poetry from a Web Site

Works Cited Entry:

Whitman, Walt. “Song of Myself.” Leaves of Grass. Brooklyn, 1855. The Walt

Whitman Archive. Web. 12 Mar. 2009.

Author of poem. Name of poem. Name of work. City of Publication. Date of publication.

Title of the database or Web site. Medium of publication consulted. Date of

access.

In-text Citation:

Throughout sections 18-32 of "Song of Myself," Walt Whitman celebrates the erotic dimension of all the senses, but he turns to the miraculous touch in section 28: "Is this then a touch? quivering me to a new identity?"

If you quote part or all of a single line of verse that does not require special emphasis, put it in quotation marks within your text. You may also incorporate two or three lines in this way, using a slash with a space on each side ( / ) to separate them.

In-text Citation:

Bradstreet frames the poem with a sense of mortality: “All things within this fading world hath end” (1).

Verse quotations of more than three lines should begin on a new line. Unless the quotation involves unusual spacing, indent each line one inch from the left margin and double-space between lines, adding NO quotation marks that do not appear in the original.

In-text Citation:

Elizabeth Bishop’s “In the Waiting Room” is rich in evocative detail:

It was winter. It got dark

early. The waiting room

was full of grown-up people,

arctics and overcoats,

lamps and magazines. (6-10)

NOTE ON COMMONLY STUDIED VERSE PLAYS AND POEMS:

Omit page numbers altogether and cite by division (act, scene, canto, book, part) and line, with periods separating the various numbers – for example, “Odyssey 9. 19” refers to book 9 line 19, of Homer’s Odyssey. If you are citing only line numbers, do not use the abbreviation I or II., which can be confused with numerals. Instead, initially use the word line or lines and then, having established that the summers designate lines, give the numbers alone. Ex. (Taming of the Shrew 4.1)

Books of the Bible give the name of the book and chapter and verse numbers – rather than by a page number. Subsequent citations of the same edition may provide division numbers alone. When included in parenthetical references, the titles of the books of the Bible and of famous literary works are often abbreviated. Ex. (1 Chron. 21.8; Rev. 21.3) Ex. Shakespeare – (Ham. 1.5.35-37) (Mac. 1.5.17)

Works Cited Entry:

The New Jerusalem Bible. Henry Wansbrough, gen ed. New York: Doubleday, 1985.

Print.

Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. Ed. Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine. New York:

Washington Square-Pocket, 1992. Print.

Periodicals

Newspaper

Works Cited Entry:

Morrison, Clarke. “Homelessness Has a Face.” Asheville Citizen-Times 14 Nov. 1996

: B1. Print.

Author of article. Name of article. Name of Newspaper. Date. Edition, if listed on the

masthead. Page number and section of article. Medium of publication consulted.

In-text Citation:

Recent surveys show that “34 percent of homeless men seeking refuge in shelters are veterans” (Morrison B1).

Monthly magazine

Works Cited Entry:

Clifford, Mary Louise. “Keeper of the Light.” American History Sept./Oct. 1996: 24-28.

Print.

Author of article. Name of article. Name of periodical. Date. Page number/s of article.

Medium of publication consulted.

(Do not place a period after the name of the magazine).

In-text Citation:

Sons, wives and daughters learned to keep the lighthouse lights burning and often replaced the men lighthouse keepers if they became disabled or died (Clifford 24).

Weekly magazine

Works Cited Entry:

Wolff, Rick. “Does Your Child Take Sports Too Seriously?” Sports Illustrated 24 June

1996: 26. Print.

Author of article. Name of article. Name of periodical. Date, Month, and Year of the

article (in that order) without punctuation for weekly publications. Page number/s

of article. Medium of publication consulted.

(Do not place a period after the name of the magazine).

In-text Citation:

For most kids, the disappointment of being on a losing team lasts only a few minutes; they are quick to realize that there will be a new game on another day (Wolff 26).

Article with interrupted page numbers

Works Cited Entry:

Martin, Michael. “Mountain Legend.” American History Sept./Oct. 1996: 36+. Print.

For an entry where the page numbers do not follow consecutively, use a plus sign after the page number to indicated a break in the numbering sequence.

In-text Citation:

The preceding Works Cited entry should be cited internally the same way as the other

magazine articles.

In the event that no author of the article is given, begin with the first major work of the

title of the article.

A Lecture (also includes Lecture with a PowerPoint)

Works Cited Entry:

Galati, Rhea, Dr. “Southern Gothic Literature Overview.” Habersham Central High

School, Mt. Airy. 11 March 2007. Lecture.

Speaker’s name. The title of the presentation. The sponsoring organization. The location.

The date of the lecture. Medium of publication consulted.

In-text Citation:

Southern Gothic literature embodies the gothic flavor with rotting mansions and very strange individuals (Galati).

A Painting, Sculpture, or Photograph

Works Cited Entry:

Evans, Walker. Penny Picture Display. 1936. Photography. Museum of Mod. Art, New

York.

Artist’s name. The title of the work. The date of composition (if year is unknown, write

N.d.). The institution and city where it is housed. Book/periodical where it is

published. Editor. City of publication. Publishing company. Date of publication.

In-text Citation:

The painting, Penny Picture Display, is an excellent example of the Great Depression style (Walker).

Electronic Sources

Example of Professional Web Site and Where to locate information

Title of Web site found at the top of the homepage

© Copyright 2006 The American National Red Cross. All Rights Reserved. ABOUT US | CONTACT US

Date of the latest update found at the bottom of the homepage

The American National Red Cross 2025 E Street NW – Washington, DC 20006

Sponsoring organization found at the bottom of the homepage

URLs are not longer a part of the Works Cited format. If your instructor requires a URL, follow the guidelines in 5.6.1 of MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers: Seventh Edition.