MLA

Duc Phan, 9/18/2017

What is MLA?

MLA [Modern Language Association] style is most commonly used to write papers and cite
sources within the liberal arts and humanities. MLA style is recognized and used internationally
in all of North America and in other countries across the globe, including China, India, Japan and
Taiwan. This style is also used throughout schools at all levels, from grade school through
college levels. In addition, MLA style is used by scholarly journals, magazines, newsletters,
university presses and commercial presses.
Vocabulary

Plagiarism - talking words or ideas from another source without giving credit.

Paraphrase -A rewording of something written or spoken by someone else

Bias - extremely opinionated and one - sided writing.

Citation - A quotation from or reference to a book, paper, or author, especially in a scholarly

work.
 Header:

The header includes student last name and page number

The header is located in the top right corner of the page

Heading

The heading includes student name, instructor, class, date

The heading is located on the top left corner of the page

Title Formatting

Title of the paper is located in the center below the heading, near the top of the page

Do not underline, italicize, or place title in quotation marks

Write the title in Title Case (standard capitalization), not in all capital letters
Fonts

Use legible font {e.g. Times New Roman, Calibri, Arial, Lucida Sans.).

MLA recommends that the regular and italics type styles contrast enough that they are
recognizable one from another.

The font size should be 12 pt.

 In-Text Citation:
Print
For Print sources like books, magazines,
scholarly journal articles, and newspapers,
provide a signal word or phrase (usually the
authors last name) and a page number.
E.g. Wordsworth stated that Romantic poetry
was marked by a "spontaneous overflow of
powerful feelings" (263).
Romantic poetry is characterized by the
"spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings"
(Wordsworth 263).
Non-Print
Include in the text the first item that appears in the
Work Cited entry that corresponds to the citation
(e.g. author name, article name, website name)
E.g. The Purdue OWL is accessed by millions of
users every year. Its "MLA Formatting and Style
Guide" is one of the most popular resources
(Russell et al.).
Werner Herzog's Fitzcarraldo stars Herzog's
long-time film partner, Klaus Kinski. During the
shooting of Fitzcarraldo, Herzog and Kinski were
often at odds, but their explosive relationship
fostered a memorable and influential film.
 Works Cited Page

Works Cited page is on a separate page at the end of the paper.

Label the page Works Cited (do not italicize the words Works Cited or put them in quotation marks) and
center the words Works Cited at the top of the page.
Double space all citations, but do not skip spaces between entries.
Indent the second and subsequent lines of citations by 0.5 inches to create a hanging indent.
List page numbers of sources efficiently, when needed.
If you're citing an article or a publication that was originally issued in print form but that you retrieved from
an online database, you should type the online database name in italics. You do not need to provide
subscription information in addition to the database name.

E.g.
Book: Gleick, James. Chaos: Making a New Science. Penguin, 1987.
Website: Lundman, Susan. "How to Make Vegetarian Chili." eHow,
www.ehow.com/how_10727_make-vegetarian-chili.html. Accessed 6 July 2015.
Citation Websites

Scholar.google.com
Bibme.org
Citationmachine.net
Easybib.com
Citation Book

Author Last name, First name, Title in italics City of publication.

EX:

Morris Michelle learn Why