BASICS 1
What information goes in an in-text citation?
Author's last name and page number
(Stoker 213)
How do you put in titles of longer works, such as books, journals, and websites?
In italics.
E.g.: Bram Stoker's novel Dracula is written in epistolary form.
How are the entries on the Works Cited page arranged?
In alphabetical order by the authors' last names.
What do you put in your in-text citation when there is no author given?
The title of the source you are citing instead. Use the first one, two, or three main words from the title, in either italics or in "quotation marks" (the same way it is written in your Works Cited list).
How do you put titles of shorter works, such as essays, chapters of books, and sections of websites?
Within quotation marks.
In her essay "Why Do Birds Sing?," Petra Robertson argues...
What should your margins be set to on all sides?
One inch.
If a works cited entry is longer than one line, what should you do?
Indent all lines after the first line (Create a "hanging" citation).
What four pieces of information go in the heading on the first page of your paper?
Your first and last name, professor's name, course, date.
Name two things that make citing a long quote different from a short quote.
The quote is put in block form (indented from left margin), no quotation marks around it.
How long does a quote need to be in order to be put in block format?
Longer than four lines.
TRUE OR FALSE:
If the author's last name is mentioned in the text, then it does not need to be included within the parenthetical citation.
TRUE.
When should "et al." be used in MLA style?
When the source has 3 or more authors.
(Bailey et al. 219)
Key you must press to indent each new paragraph.
TAB.
What is a signal phrase?
A short phrase that introduces a quote, paraphrase, or summary; it signals to readers that an outside source is being used.
E.g.: "According to Stoker,... / As Stoker argues,...
TRUE OR FALSE:
Paraphrases should not be followed by a parenthetical citation.
FALSE.
Paraphrases should be treated like quotations because they include someone else's ideas.
The following is a citation for what type of source:
Fischer, Daniel. Mission Jupiter: The Spectacular Journey of the Galileo Spacecraft. New York: Copernicus, 2001. Print.
A printed book.
The following is a citation for what type of source:
Klass, Perri. “Learning the Language." Writing About Writing, edited by Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs, Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2020, pp. 584-87.
A book chapter / article in an anthology / textbook.
TRUE OR FALSE:
The parenthetical citation should include the author’s last name, a comma, and a page number.
E.g.: (McCarthy, 348)
FALSE
(McCarthy 348)
If you are having trouble figuring out how to cite a source using MLA 2021 (9th ed), where can you go for help?
Point out at least two options.
- Ask your instructor or go to Canvas.
- Ask a librarian.
- Go to owl.english.purdue.edu.
- Use Easy Bib or Citation Generator.
The following is a citation for what type of source:
Johnson, Carrie. “Report Faults Handling of Wiretap Notes.” Washington Quarterly. Vol.50, no. 3, 1994, pp. 127-53.
Journal article
TRUE OR FALSE:
If you are citing an article that starts on page 12 and ends on page 33, you should put “p. 12-33” in your list of works cited.
FALSE
You should put (pp. 12-33)
What is DOI in a works cited entry, what does it refer to?
A DOI, or Digital Object Identifier, is a string of numbers, letters and symbols used to uniquely identify an article or document, and to provide it with a permanent web address (URL).
If you are citing a website, but there is no date listed on it, what date should you include in your works cited entry?
“Accessed ...”
E.g.:
The Purdue OWL Family of Sites. The Writing Lab and OWL at Purdue and Purdue U, 2008, owl.english.purdue.edu/owl. Accessed 3 Apr. 2023.
If I quote from two different sources in the same sentence, how do I cite both?
While the MLA does not prohibit references to more than one source in the same sentence, it is generally best to begin a new sentence when referring to a new source.
E.g.:
There is no official consensus on how to define the new formalism. Some scholars assert that the method is difficult to pin down (Wolfson 9). On the other hand, some say that a non-formalist approach may be used to examine a text’s trans-historical effect (Marcovits 591).
How do you acknowledge "indirect sources" in a parenthetical citation?
Using "qtd. in" in parentheses, followed by the author who used the quote, and the page number.
E.g.: (qtd. in Stoker 252)