STYLE SHEET
for research papers on literature
(MLA format)
Institute of English and American Studies
This style sheet should serve as your guidelines when working on your research papers on literature. Failure to conform to these guidelines will result in the rejection of the research paper.
I. PLAGIARISM
When using other people’s ideas – either in the form of direct quotation or as paraphrasis (that is, a summary in your own words) –, the source of the ideas must at all times be indicated in your text. The failure to indicate the source of the ideas and words you are using is called plagiarism. Plagiarism is a very serious offence and the student who is convicted of deliberate plagiarism will be duly punished.
So that you won’t be accused of stealing other peoples’ ideas and words, always observe these guidelines as a reference as you are working on your paper.
II. THE OVERALL ORDER OF THE RESEARCH PAPER
Title page
Body of paper (with footnotes if necessary)
Bibliography/Works Cited
III. HOW TO INDICATE THAT YOU ARE USING VARIOUS SOURCES?
1. Direct quotations
A direct quotation is a group of words copied word-for-word from a source.
a. short quotations (less than five lines or fifty words):
Enclose the exact words within quotation marks in the text. Example:
In describing himself, Langston Hughes observed: “I like Tristan, goat’s milk, short novels, and simple folk” (Hughes 102).
Or:
In describing himself, Langston Hughes said that he liked “short novels, and simple folk” (Hughes 102).
b. longer quotations (more than five lines or fifty words)
Indent the entire quotation 10 spaces from the left margin. No quotation marks are used around such indented or “block” quotations. The block quotation is separated by a blank line from the text before and after it. Example:
In describing himself, Langston Hughes observed:
I like Tristan, goat’s milk, short novels, and simple folk, boats, and bullfights; I dislike Aida, parsnips, long novels, narrative poems, cold, pretentious folk, and bridge. (Hughes 102)
2. Punctuation of Titles
– Wherever you are using them, titles of books, plays, motion pictures, television series, newspapers, magazines, journals and albums or CDs must always be italicised.
(e.g. Moby Dick, Romeo and Juliet, Return of the Jedi, EastEnders, Daily Telegraph, Playboy, Comparative Literature, The Wall, etc.)
– Titles of shorter works (poems, short stories, essays, articles, book chapters, songs) are enclosed in quotation marks
(“Ode”; “The Garden Party”; “Tradition and the Individual Talent”; “A Hard Day’s Night”)
– The first word and all the important words in all titles should be capitalised.
3. Internal Citations and Notes
When in your essay you quote from your sources or use ideas from them, refer to the sources parenthetically. It is not necessary in the text to provide detailed bibliographical information about your sources: indicate only the name of the author and the page number. The detailed information should be provided at the end of your essay, in your bibliography. The sole function of the parenthetical notes is to enable the reader of your essay to identify the source in the bibliography.
Used with short quotations, the parenthetical note is placed after the quotation marks which close the quotation, and before the end punctuation of the sentence. Example:
In describing himself, Langston Hughes said that he liked “short novels, and simple folk” (Hughes 102).
With an indented, block quotation, the parenthetical note is placed at the very end, after the closing quotation marks and the end punctuation. Example:
I like Tristan, goat’s milk, short novels, and simple folk, boats, and bullfights; I dislike Aida, parsnips, long novels, narrative poems, cold, pretentious folk, and bridge. (Hughes 102)
When paraphrasing (when you sum up other’s ideas in your own words), you should also use a parenthetical note for the source of the original idea. Example:
Langston Hughes once claimed that he liked Tristran but was not so keen on Aida (Hughes 102).
– In most cases, the author’s name and the page number are sufficient in your parenthetical note. Example: (Hughes 102)
– When you include the author’s name in your text as part of the passage that leads up to the quotation and it is quite clear which source you are quoting or paraphrasing, it is enough to give the page number in your parenthetical note. You also need only the page number if the source is the same as for the preceding quotation. Example:
In his Autobiography, Hughes said that he did not like “pretentious folk, and bridge” (102).
Or (when you are paraphrasing):
In his Autobiography, Hughes claimed that he did not like pretentious people (102).
– When you quote or refer to more than one text by the same author in your essay, the parenthetical note should also contain the title of the work to avoid confusion. Note that long titles can and should be shortened to save space (but only in parenhetical notes; the bibliography should always contain the full title). Example:
(Hughes, Autobiography 102)
or:
(Hemingway, Old Man 99) (short for The Old Man and the Sea)
4. Informational or Content Notes.
Do not use footnotes or endnotes simply to indicate your sources. For this purpose, always use parenthetical quotations. Use footnotes only if you want to insert some additional information that you have not included in the main body of the text yet it is somehow relevant to your argument. Example:
1This problem is examined in detail in John L. Johnson’s useful article “Why did Langston Hughes Hate Aida?”
5. Bibliography or Works Cited
The bibliography, placed at the end of your text, is where you should list all the sources that you have used in preparing your research paper. If your entries include only works that you are actually quoting in your paper, the source list is entitled “Works Cited.” If you also list other works which you have read but have not referred to or quoted, the source list should be entitled “Works Consulted.”
General guidelines to preparing the “Works Cited” or Works Consulted” section:
– List your entries in alphabetical order by the last name of the author.
– The first line in each entry is not indented, but all additional lines are indented five spaces from the left margin.
– The entries are not numbered.
– The entries should include all relevant bibliographical information: Full name of the author. Full Title. Place of publication: Name of publisher, date of publication (and the page numbers if the entry refers to a part of a book or an article in a journal or paper).
– When the author of the source is Hungarian, no comma should be used between the surname and the Christian name.
Here is a sample source list, showing accepted form, punctuation, and information.
Book by a single author:
Mansfield, Katherine. The Collected Short Stories. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1981.
Book by a Hungarian author:
Földényi F. László. A medúza pillantása. Budapest: Lánchíd, 1990.
Book by a single author, translated:
Otto, Rudolf. The Idea of the Holy. Trans. John W. Harvey. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1959.
Book by two athors (only the name of the first auhtos has to be reversed):
Horkheimer, Max and Theodor W. Adorno. The Dialectics of Enlightenment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971.
Book by more than three authors (“et al” means “and others”:
Jung, Carl Gustav, et. al. Man and His Symbols. Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Co., 1969.
Edited book:
O'Sullivan, Vincent, ed. Poems of Katherine Mansfield. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988.
Multi-volume book:
Murry, John Middleton, ed. The Letters of Katherine Mansfield. Vols. I-II. London: Constable, 1928.
Article from a scholarly journal:
Jameson, Fredric. “Magic Realism in Film.” Critical Inquiry 12.1 (Winter 1986): 301–25.
Article from an edited book:
Punter, David. “Essential Imaginings: The Novels of Angela Carter and Russell Hoban.” The British and Irish Novel Since 1960. Ed. James Acheson. London: Macmillan, 1991. 142–58.
Article from a book written entirely by the same author:
Malinowski, Bronislaw. “Magic, Science and Religion.” Magic, Science and Religion and Other Essays. Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Co., 1954. 5-67.
More than one books by the same author:
Rushdie, Salman. Imaginary Homelands. London: Granta – Penguin, 1992.
---. The Moor’s Last Sigh. London: Vintage, 1996.
Motion picture (listed alphabetically by name of director instead of author):
Ray, Nicholas, dir. Rebel Without a Cause. Warner Brothers, 1955.
Government publication (since there is no stated author, alphabetise the entry under government body):
United States. Cong. House. Committee on the Judiciary. Immigration and Nationality with Amendments and Notes on Related Laws. 7th ed. Washington: GPO (Government Printing Office), 1980.
Unsigned encyclopaedia entry (you don’t have to include volume and page, only edition year):
“A Vocational Education.” Encyclopaedia Americana. 1950 ed.
Electronic materials (e.g. online CD-ROM):
The Dickens Web. Developer: George P. Landow. Editors: Julie Launhardt and Paul D. Kahn. Environment: Intermedia 3.5. Providence, R.I.: Institute for research in Information and Scholarship, 1990.
Articles from internet sources
Landow, George P. “Hypertextuális Derrida.” http://www.artpool.hu/hypermedia/index.html (date of access: 28 August 2008)