What Goes First?
In an MLA Works Cited entry for a book, what element always comes first?
The author's last name (e.g., Morrison, Toni). If there is no author, the title comes first.
How do you format the title of a full-length book in a Works Cited entry?
Italicize it (e.g., The Warmth of Other Suns).
What punctuation follows the author's name in a Works Cited entry?
A period (e.g., Morrison, Toni.)
hooks, bell. "Eating the Other." Black Looks, vol 3, no. 1, 1992, pp. 21–39.
Missing period after "vol" — it should be "vol. 3" (abbreviation requires a period).
How is the Works Cited page organized?
Alphabetically by the first word of each entry (usually the author's last name).
A website article has no listed author. How do you begin its Works Cited entry?
Begin with the title of the article in quotation marks (e.g., "The History of the Internet.").
How do you format the title of a journal article in a Works Cited entry?
Put it in "quotation marks" (e.g., "Eating the Other").
In a journal citation, what separates the volume number, issue number, year, and page numbers?
Commas separate each element: vol. 7, no. 2, 1995, pp. 83–102.
Gladwell, Malcolm. "Outliers: The Story of Success." Little, Brown and Company, 2008.
Book titles are italicized, not in quotation marks. It should be: Outliers: The Story of Success (italicized).
What is a hanging indent, and where is it used in MLA?
A hanging indent is when the first line of an entry is flush left and all subsequent lines are indented. Every Works Cited entry uses one.
You are citing an article written by two authors. How do you list them?
List the first author last name first, then the second author in normal order: Smith, John, and Jane Doe.
How would you format the title of a newspaper article vs. the newspaper itself?
The article title goes in "quotation marks"; the newspaper name is italicized (e.g., "Climate Deal Reached." The New York Times).
What punctuation mark ends every Works Cited entry?
A period.
McGonigal, Jane. Gaming Can Make a Better World. TED, Feb. 2010, www.ted.com/talks/jane_mcgonigal.
The page/talk title should be in quotation marks since it is a page within a larger website: "Gaming Can Make a Better World."
A student's Works Cited page is titled "References." Is this correct for MLA?
No. MLA format titles the page "Works Cited" (not References, which is APA style).
Your source is an article in an edited anthology. What comes first in the entry?
The article's author comes first (Last, First), not the editor of the anthology.
How do you handle a title that already contains a title? For example, an article about the novel 1984.
The article title goes in quotation marks, and the book title inside it is italicized: "Surveillance and Freedom in 1984."
For a website source, what comes after the website name — the date or the URL?
The date comes before the URL (e.g., TED, Feb. 2010, www.ted.com/...).
Morrison, Toni. "The Site of Memory." Inventing the Truth, Vol. 7, No. 2, 1995, pp. 83–102.
"Vol." and "No." should be lowercase: vol. 7, no. 2. MLA uses lowercase abbreviations.
If you cite three sources by the same author, how do you handle the author field for the second and third entries?
After the first entry, replace the author's name with three hyphens (---) followed by a period for subsequent entries by the same author.
An organization publishes a report with no individual author named. What goes first in the entry?
The name of the organization serves as the author and goes first (e.g., American Psychological Association).
A website's individual page has a title, and the overall website has a name. How do you format each?
The page title goes in "quotation marks"; the website name is italicized (e.g., "About Us." National Geographic).
Identify the error: Williams, Pharrell. Happy. Columbia Records, 2014, www.example.com.
For a song/recorded source, the song title should be in quotation marks: "Happy."
Smith, John and Jane Doe. "Climate Change Solutions." Nature, vol. 12, no. 4, 2022, pp. 10–18.
A comma is needed before "and": Smith, John, and Jane Doe.
A student used a source in their paper but forgot to include it on the Works Cited page. What are the two problems this creates?
1) It is a form of plagiarism — the source is unattributed. 2) Readers cannot locate or verify the source, which undermines credibility.