AHS English Essentials
Formatting an MLA Document
Making a Formal Outline
MLA 8th Edition: Works Cited Pages
MLA 8th Edition: In-Text Citations
Parenthetical Citations
What to Put in the Parenthetical
Paraphrased Material (When It’s “In Your Own Words”)
Short Quotations (fewer than 4 lines)
Examples of Short Quotations
Quoting Dialogue
Examples for Quoting Dialogue
Long Quotations
Block Quote Example
Adding or Changing Words
Removing Text
Quick Guide: Citing from a Book in MLA 8
Citation Checklists
Works Cited
Parenthetical Citations
Verbal Citation
Works Cited (Sample)
Academic Integrity
Specific Violations
Disciplinary Consequences for Cheating and Plagiarism
Academic Consequences for Cheating and Plagiarism
Plagiarism-Specific Procedures
How to Join a Class on TURNITIN.COM
How to Submit a Paper on TURNITIN.COM
Expository Essay Checklist
Punctuation Handout
Steps for Writing an Expository Essay
Transition Words and Phrases List
Tone and Mood Words List
Google Search Tips
Research Terms List
Evaluation Form for Web Sources
Basic Speaking and Reading Guidelines
APA Citation (6th Edition)
Formatting In-Text Citations in APA
APA References Pages
Formatting an MLA Document
1. 1-inch margins
1. Go to “Layout” on the toolbar on the top
2. Go to “Margins” on the left-hand side of the toolbar
3. Click “Normal” –1inch all the way around the paper
2. Double-spacing
1. Right click somewhere on the document, and click “Paragraph”
2. Under “Spacing,” make sure both the “before” and “after” box areat 0 pt.
3. To the right of those boxes one menu says “Line Spacing.”Select “Double.”
4. Check the box titled “Don’t add space between paragraphs of the same style.”
5. Near the bottom of the paragraph menu, select “Set as Default.”Make sure to click the follow up box that says “All documents based on this template.”
3. Header with last name and page number in upper right-hand corner
1. Click “Insert” on the top-left of the toolbar
2. Click “Page Number” on the top-right toolbar
3. Click “Top of Page” and “Plain Number 3” (the page number in the top, right-hand corner)
4. Type your last name, then add one space after your last name, so there will be a space between your last name and the page number.
5. Highlight and make the font of your heading Times New Roman, size 12.
4. MLA heading
Your first and last nameJohn Smith
Your instructorMr. Jones
Your class (include class period)English 10 (P2)
The due date (do not abbreviate month)12 September 2017
5. You are now ready to type your paper. It must be typed in size 12, Times New Roman font.
Note: If you work on your paper both at school and at home, you must always check your settings. Your document’s settings will change to the computer’s “style settings” every time you load your document on a different computer.
Making a Formal Outline
An outline is a general plan of the material to be presented in a speech or paper; the outline shows the purpose and order of various topics, the relative importance of each, and the relationships among the various parts.
Sometimes, teachers will ask for a “topic outline.” This means you can just use single words or brief phrases, rather than writing out complete sentences. The sample below is a “sentence outline.”
All outlines must begin with a thesis statement; it must be a complete, concise, grammatically correct sentence, specific and brief, which expresses the purpose,point of view, or position you are taking toward the subject or the information you intend to convey.
Example Outline
Thesis: Here, type out the thesis statement.
I. This outline is in “sentence form” and called a “sentence outline.”
A. Eachsubdivision of the outline must be a complete sentence.
B. Each subdivision may have only one sentence in it.
II. Each Roman numeral should be a claim that supports your thesis (some call these sentences “topic
sentences” or “main ideas”); the introduction and conclusion are not typically part of your outline, but
you may want to ask your teacher whether and how to include them.
A. Capital letters are for the evidence or logical reasoning that support the claim.
1. Arabic numerals are for sub-points supporting the ideas above.
2. Often, this is where analysis (explanation) of how the evidence or reasoning supports the claim.
a. Little letters are for sub-points under the numbers.
b. If you need even more sub-points, under the lower-case letters, use
small Roman numerals (i. ii. iii. iv. v.)
B. A sub-point or analysis/explanation needs to relate to the idea it appears underneath.
1. This means capital letters are a subdivision to the roman numerals.
2. This also means Arabic numerals refer to the idea in the capital letter.
III. All sub-points should be indented the same.
A. This means that all of the capital letters are indented the same.
B. Also, allArabic numerals are indented the same, and so on.
IV. No sub-point can stand alone.
A. Every A must have a B.
B. Every 1 must have a 2.
C. You don’t need to have a C or a 3, but you can.
MLA 8th Edition: Works Cited Pages
Texts and mediahave become increasingly mobile, and the same document or media may be found in several different sources, so MLA has turned to a style of documentation that is based on a general method that may be applied to every possible source.
MLA 8 is based on a few principles, rather than an extensive list of specific rules. The process of documentation is uniform and flexible; we no longer look up how to cite a source based on what type of source it is. Once familiar with the method, writers can use it to document any type of source.
Overview
To cite from any source, one must find as many “core elements” as possible. The “core elements” are the general pieces of information MLA suggests including in each Works Cited entry.
For each citation on the Work(s) Cited page, the core elements should be listed in the following order and with the following punctuation:
- Author.
- Title of source.
- Title of container,
- Other contributors,
- Version,
- Number,
- Publisher,
- Publication date,
- Location.
No matter what the final element is (it could be element 7, 8, or 9), end the entry with a period.
- Author: Last name, comma, rest of the name, period.
Said, Edward W.Culture and Imperialism.Knopf, 1994.
- Title of Source: Some sources should go in italics; others use quotation marks.
Use Italicsfor book titles, websites, movies, albums, and other full-length sources.
Said, Edward W.Culture and Imperialism.Knopf, 1994.
Use “quotation marks” for short stories, poems, songs, and articles in periodicals (journal, magazine, newspaper).
Kincaid, Jamaica.“Girl.”The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Short Stories,
edited by Tobias Wolff, Vintage, 1994, pp. 306-07.
- Title of Container:
“Containers” are the larger wholes in which the source is located. For example, to cite a short story that appears in a textbook, the individual story is the source, while whatever it is found within (in this case, the textbook) is the container.
The title of the container is italicized, and it is followed by a comma.
In this example, the container is abook, which is a compilation of“short stories.”
Kincaid, Jamaica. "Girl."The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Short Stories,
edited by Tobias Wolff, Vintage, 1994, pp. 306-07.
The container may also be a television series, which is made up of “episodes.”
“94 Meetings.”Parks and Recreation,created by Greg Daniels and Michael Schur,
performance by Amy Poehler, season 2, episode 21, Deedle-Dee Productions and
Universal Media Studios, 2010.
The container may also be a website, which could contain“articles,”“blog posts,”and“pages.”
Zinkievich, Craig. “Star Trek Online: Second Interview.”Skewed and Reviewed,25 Apr.
2009, Accessed
10 Mar. 2017.
In some cases, a container might be within an even larger container!Perhaps one read a short story out of a book of short stories onGoogle Books. Maybe one watched an episode out of television series accessed throughNetflix. Or one might have found an article within the electronic version of a journal accessed through JSTOR. It is important to cite these containers within containers so readers can find the exact source one used. Below, the boxes identify both a first and a second container being cited.
“94 Meetings.”Parks and Recreation, season 2, episode 21, NBC, 29 Apr.
2010.Netflix,
974d361-27cd-44de-9c2a-2d9d868b9f64-12120962.
Langhamer, Claire. “Love and Courtship in Mid-Twentieth-Century England.”
Historical Journal,vol. 50, no. 1, 2007, pp. 173-96.ProQuest, doi:10.1017/S0018246X06005966. Accessed 27 May 2009.
Steps 4, 5, and 6 are relatively rare; if they do not apply to your source, simply skip them!
- Other Contributors:
In addition to the author, there may be other contributors to the source who should be credited, such as editors, illustrators, translators, etc. If their contributions are relevant to the research, or necessary to identify the source, include their names in thecitation entry.
Note: Terms like editor, illustrator, translator, etc., are NOT abbreviated.
Foucault, Michel.Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of
Reason.Translated by Richard Howard, Vintage-Random House, 1988.
Woolf, Virginia.Jacob’s Room.Annotated and with an introduction by Vara Neverow,
Harcourt, Inc., 2008.
- Version: If a source is listed as an edition or version of a work, include it in your citation.
The Bible.Authorized King James Version,Oxford UP, 1998.
Crowley, Sharon, and Debra Hawhee.Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students.
3rd ed.,Pearson, 2004.
- Number: If a source is part of a numbered sequence, such as a multi-volume book or a journal with both volume and issue numbers, one must list those numbers in the citation.
Note: MLA 8 now says to include indicators like “vol.” or “no.” or “episode.”
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, Accessed
20 May 2009.
“94 Meetings.”Parks and Recreation,created by Greg Daniels and Michael Schur,
performance by Amy Poehler,season 2, episode 21, Deedle-Dee
Productions/Universal Media Studios, 2010.
Quintilian.Institutio Oratoria.Translated by H. E. Butler,vol. 2,Loeb-Harvard UP,
1980.
Only skip steps 7 and 8 if you truly cannot find a publisher and/or a publication date after a good-faith effort.
- Publisher: The publisher produces and/or distributes the source to the public. Sometimes, a source has multiple publishers. If so, one should list them all in the citation, separated by a forward slash (/).
Klee, Paul.Twittering Machine.1922.Museum of Modern Art,New York.The
Artchive,
Accessed May 2006.
Women's Health: Problems of the Digestive System.American College of Obstetricians,
2006.
Daniels, Greg and Michael Schur, creators.Parks and Recreation.
Deedle-Dee Productions/Universal Media Studios,2015.
Note: the publisher’s name need not be included in the following sources: periodicals, works published by their author or editor, a website whose title is the same name as its publisher, a website that makes works available but does not actually publish them (such asYouTube,WordPress, orJSTOR).
8: Publication Date: Next, include the date of publication; abbreviate months.
- The same source may have been published on more than one date; if so, use the date that is most relevant to the source used.
- For example,The Catcher in the Rye was published in 1951, but if the book in front of you was published in 1991, use that later date. Also, commonly, an online article may have a date on it and then an “updated” date. You are viewing the updated version, so use that later date.
Salinger, J.D..The Catcher in the Rye.Little, Brown, 1991.
“Hush.” Buffy the Vampire Slayer, created by Joss Whedon, performance by Sarah
Michelle Gellar, season 4, episode 10, WB Television Network,14 Dec. 1999.
“Climate Change Explained.” Youtube, uploaded by The Daily Conversation, 2 Dec. 2015,
Accessed 10 Oct. 2017.
“Climate Change Indicators in the United States.” United States Environmental Protection Agency, Apr. 2010, Accessed 8 May 2016.
9: Location:
When making a Work(s) cited page, writers should be as specific as possible in identifying a work’s location.
Note: Location means where to find the source material, it is NOT the city of publication!
An essay in a book or an article in journal should include page numbers.
Adiche, Chimamanda Ngozi. “On Monday of Last Week.”The Thing around Your Neck,Alfred
A. Knopf, 2009,pp. 74-94.
Additionally, the location of an online work should include a URL!
Wheelis, Mark. "Investigating Disease Outbreaks Under a Protocol to the Biological and
Toxin Weapons Convention."Emerging Infectious Diseases, vol. 6, no. 6, 2000,
pp. 595-600, 8 Feb.
2009.
When citing a physical object experienced firsthand, identify the place of location.
Matisse, Henri.The Swimming Pool.1952,Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Optional Elements
Date of original publication:If a source was published on more than one date, the writer may want to include both dates if it will provide the reader with necessary or helpful information.
Erdrich, Louise.Love Medicine.1984.Perennial-Harper,1993.
City of publication:MLA 8does NOT. However, MLA 8 does statethat since pre-1900 works were usually associated with the city in which they were published, one may substitute the city name for the publisher’s name.
Thoreau, Henry David.Excursions.Boston,1863.
Date of access:When one cites an online source, theMLA Handbook recommends including a date of access since an online work may change or move at any time.
Bernstein, Mark. "10 Tips on Writing the Living Web."A List Apart: For People Who
Make Websites,16 Aug. 2002, alistapart.com/article/writeliving.
Accessed 4 May 2009.
RecommendedOptional Elements
URLs:The MLA8thedition recommends including URLs when citing online sources. Place URLs between the date published and the date accessed. Place a period at the end of the URL.
DOIs:A DOI, or digital object identifier, is a series of digits and letters that leads to the location of an online source. Articles in journals are often assigned DOIs to ensure that the source is locatable, even if the URL changes. If a source is listed with a DOI, the writer should use that instead of a URL.
MLA 8th Edition: In-Text Citations
An in-text citation (or parenthetical citation) is thekey word (usually the author’s name) and the page number placed in parenthesis (notice, there is no comma between them).
If the author’s name is mentioned in a signal phrase, it is not needed in the parenthetical. In the first example below, a signal phrase has been used, so the parenthetical reads (9) instead of (Said 9).
If there is no author, Key word choice is based on the FIRST MAJOR WORD that appears in the citation on the Works Cited page.
According toEdward W. Said, imperialism is defined by “the practice, the theory, and the attitudes of a dominating metropolitan center ruling a distant territory” (9).
-or-
Imperialism is “the practice, the theory, and the attitudes of a dominating metropolitan center ruling a distant territory” (Said 9).
Work Cited
Said, Edward W.Culture and Imperialism.Knopf, 1994.
Note: If the example above had no author, the parenthetical reference would look like this: (Culture 9). Notice how the key word is also italicized. One does this because one must match the format of the key word to its format in its entry on the Works Cited page, and Culture is italicized in the Works Cited entry.
Final Thoughts:
Once students become familiar with the core elements that should be included in each entry in the Works Cited list, they will be able to create documentation for any type of source. While the MLA handbook and Purdue OWL still include helpful examples students may use as guidelines, they will not need to consult these sources every time they need to figure out how to cite a source they have never used before!So long as one has included the core elements in the proper order and used consistent punctuation, he or she should be able to create a Work(s) Cited entry for any source!
Parenthetical Citations
Readers must know from where you have taken ideas and quotes. Therefore, you must include a citation after each idea or quote that you took from a source.
What to Put in the Parenthetical
- Give the author’s last name and the page number.
- Your in-text citations (also called parenthetical notations) will look like this: (Hawthorne 54-5).
- If there is no author, use the first item that does appear in the Works Cited entry, and format it in the same way it is in the Works Cited (it will probably either have quotation marks around it or it will be italicized). For example, you may put the title of an article if there is no author listed.
- If more than one of your Works Cited entries starts with the same word, then choose what to put in the parenthetical by finding the first item of each entry that is different from the other(s). For example, if there are two works by the same author, you would use the title of the works rather than the author’s last name.
- If there is no page number, you do not need to put anything after the author name (or title).
Paraphrased Material (When It’s “In Your Own Words”)
- If you talk about something that happened the novel, but you are putting it in your own words and not using a direct quotation from the book, you still must cite the page number.
- However, you do not put your paraphrasing (something that’s in your own words) in quotation marks!
Example: Pearl’s parents decide to run away when they are in the forest (Hawthorne 126).
Short Quotations (fewer than 4 lines)
- Place quotation marks around the passage.
- Provide the author and specific page citation in the text.
- Punctuation marks such as periods, commas, and semicolons should be removed from the end of a quote. Be sure to then end your sentence or use appropriate punctuation to keep it going AFTER the parenthetical citation.
- Question marks and exclamation points that were in the text itself should remain within the quotation marks; you can also add them outside the quotation marks or after the parenthetical if you, the writer, are asking a question.
Examples of Short Quotations
Margot realizes her husband has changed after his hunting success: “From the far corner of the seat Margaret Macomber looked at the two of them. There was no change in Wilson. She saw Wilson as she had seen him the day before when she had first realized what his great talent was. But she saw the change in Francis Macomber now” (Hemingway 17).