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MLA FORMATTING AND STYLE GUIDE (9^TH EDITION)

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Welcome to “MLA Formatting and Style Guide“. This Power Point Presentation is designed to introduce your students to the basics of MLA Formatting and Style. You might want to supplement the presentation with more detailed information available on the OWL’s “MLA Formatting and Style Guide“ at http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/

Designer: Ethan Sproat

Based on slide designs from the OWL “APA Formatting and Style Guide “PowerPoint by Jennifer Liethen Kunka and Elena Lawrick.

Contributors: Tony Russell, Alllen Brizee, Jennifer Liethen Kunka, Joe Barbato, Dave Neyhart, Erin E. Karper, Karl Stolley, Kristen Seas, Tony Russell, Elizabeth Angeli, and Jacqueline Borchert, Lavanya Karthikeyan

Revising Author: Arielle McKee, 2014; Jacqueline Borchert, 2021

Updated July, 2021

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What is MLA?

MLA (Modern Language Association) Style formatting is often used in various humanities disciplines.

In addition to the handbook, MLA also offers The MLA Style Center, a website that provides additional instruction and resources for writing and formatting academic papers. https://style.mla.org/

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The MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 9th ed. supersedes both the 8^th edition handbook and the MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing, 3rd ed. The style of documentation outlined in the 9^th edition serves the needs of students who are writing research papers, as well as scholars who publish professionally. This presentation will mostly focus on MLA formatting and style concerns that affect writing research papers.

MLA style is often used in the following disciplines: humanities, languages, literature, linguistics, philosophy, communication, religion, and others.

MLA format provides writers with a uniform format for document layout and documenting sources. Proper MLA style shows that writers are conscientious of the standards of writing in their respective disciplines. Properly documenting sources also ensures that an author is not plagiarizing.

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What does MLA regulate?

MLA regulates:

document format
in-text citations
works-cited list

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MLA Update 2016

The 9^th edition handbook focuses on clarification, guidance, and expansion on MLA 8’s introduction of core elements for Works Cited through calcification and expansion and meaning of the categories.

The three guiding principles:

Cite simple traits shared by most works.
Remember that there is more than one way to cite the same source.
Make your documentation useful to readers.

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Principle 1:While retaining the overhauled system of core elements for documentation of MLA 8, MLA clarifies and expands on the meaning of each category (1. Author, 2. Title of Source, 3. Title of Container, 4. Contributor, 5. Version, 6. Number, 7. Publisher, 8. Publication Date, 9. Location) in different contexts of documentation. The writer must examine it and document it based on a set of universal principles (more about that to come). It is important to remember that the category element is not always literal in certain contexts.

Principle 2: Two scholars may use the same source differently. Therefore, a writer who is working on a specialized topic in a particular field will include documentation information that a writer who is using the source more generally will not.

Principle 3: As a writer, you document sources so that your readers may locate them and learn more about your particular argument or essay. Proper citation demonstrates your credibility by showing that you’ve thoroughly researched your topic. Your citations must be comprehensive and consistent so that readers may find the sources consulted and come to their own opinions on your topic.

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Overview

This presentation will cover:

How to format a paper in MLA style (9^th ed.)

General guidelines
First page format
Section headings

In-text citations

Formatting quotations

Documenting sources in MLA style (9^th ed.)

Core elements
List of works cited

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Your Instructor Knows Best

Basic rule for any formatting style:

Always

Follow your instructor’s

guidelines

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Format: General Guidelines

An MLA Style paper should:

Be typed on white 8.5“ x 11“ paper
Double-space everything
Use 12 pt. Times New Roman (or similar) font
Leave only one space after punctuation
Set all margins to 1 inch on all sides
Indent the first line of paragraphs one half-inch

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Format: General Guidelines (cont.)

An MLA Style paper should:

Have a header with page numbers located in the upper right-hand corner
Use italics for titles of container works (e.g., books) and quotation marks for sources within containers (e.g., chapters within books)
Place endnotes on a separate page before the list of works cited

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Formatting the 1^st Page

The first page of an individually-written MLA Style paper will:

Have no title page unless it is a group project

For a group project, list all names of contributors in their own line, followed by the remainder of the MLA 9 header described below

Double space everything
List your name, your instructor's name, the course, and date in the upper left-hand corner
Center the paper title (use standard caps but no underlining, italics, quote marks, or bold typeface)
Create a header in the upper right corner at half inch from the top and one inch from the right of the page (list your last name and page number here)

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Do not make a title page for your paper unless specifically requested or the paper is assigned as group project. In the case of a group project, list all names of the contributors, giving each name its own line in the header, followed by the remainder of the standard MLA 9 header as described below. Format the remainder of the page as requested by the instructor.
In the upper left-hand corner of the first page, list your name, your instructor's name, the course, and the date. Again, be sure to use double-spaced text.
Double space again and center the title.
Do not underline, italicize, or place your title in quotation marks; write the title in Title Case (standard capitalization), not in all capital letters.
Use quotation marks and/or italics when referring to other works in your title, just as you would in your text: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas as Morality Play; Human Weariness in “After Apple Picking“
Double space between the title and the first line of the text.
Create a header in the upper right-hand corner that includes your last name, followed by a space with a page number; number all pages consecutively with Arabic numerals (1, 2, 3, 4, etc.), one-half inch from the top and flush with the right margin. (Note: Your instructor or other readers may ask that you omit last name/page number header on your first page. Always follow instructor guidelines.)

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Sample 1^st Page

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･Do not make a title page for your paper unless specifically requested

･In the upper left-hand corner of the first page, list your name, your instructor's name, the course, and the date. Again, be sure to use double-spaced text.

･Double space again and center the title.

Do not underline, italicize, or place your title in quotation marks; write the title in Title Case (standard capitalization), not in all capital letters.

･Use quotation marks and/or italics when referring to other works in your title, just as you would in your text: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas as Morality Play; Human Weariness in “After Apple Picking“

･Double space between the title and the first line of the text.

･Create a header in the upper right-hand corner that includes your last name, followed by a space with a page number; number all pages consecutively with Arabic numerals (1, 2, 3, 4, etc.), one-half inch from the top and flush with the right margin. (Note: Your instructor or other readers may ask that you omit last name/page number header on your first page. Always follow instructor guidelines.)

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Formatting Section Headings

Section Headings are generally optional:

Headings in an essay should usually be numbered
Headings should be consistent in grammar and formatting but, otherwise, are up to you

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Section Headings

Writers sometimes use Section Headings to improve a document’s readability. These sections may include individual chapters or other named parts of a book or essay.

Essays

MLA recommends that when you divide an essay into sections that you number those sections with an Arabic number and a period followed by a space and the section name.

Books

MLA does not have a prescribed system of headings for books. If you are only using one level of headings, meaning that all of the sections are distinct and parallel and have no additional sections that fit within them, MLA recommends that these sections resemble one another grammatically. For instance, if your headings are typically short phrases, make all of the headings short phrases (and not, for example, full sentences). Otherwise, the formatting is up to you. It should, however, be consistent throughout the document.

If you employ multiple levels of headings (some of your sections have sections within sections), you may want to provide a key of your chosen level headings and their formatting to your instructor or editor.

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Sample Section Headings

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Numbered (all flush left with no underlining, bold, or italics):

Example:

1. Soil Conservation

1.1 Erosion

1.2 Terracing

2. Water Conservation

3. Energy Conservation

Unnumbered (by level):

Example:

Level 1: bold, flush left

Level 2: italics, flush left

Level 3: centered, bold

Level 4: centered, italics

Level 5: underlined, flush left

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In-Text Citations: the Basics

An in-text citation is a brief reference in your text that indicates the source you consulted.

It should direct readers to the entry in your works-cited list for that source.
It should be unobtrusive: provide the citation information without interrupting your own text.
In general, the in-text citation will be the author’s last name (or abbreviated title) with a page number, enclosed in parentheses.

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Author-Page Style

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Wordsworth, William. Lyrical Ballads. Oxford UP, 1967.

In-Text Citations: Author-Page Style

MLA format follows the author-page method of in-text citation. This means that the author's last name and the page number(s) from which the quotation or paraphrase is taken must appear in the text, and a complete reference should appear in your works-cited page. The author's name may appear either in the sentence itself or in parentheses following the quotation or paraphrase, but the page number(s) should always appear in the parentheses, not in the text of your sentence.

The both citations in the in-text examples on this slide, (263) and (Wordsworth 263), tell readers that the information in the sentence can be located on page 263 of a work by the author, William Wordsworth. If readers want more information about this source, they can turn to the works-cited list, where, under Wordsworth, they would find the information in the corresponding entry also shown on this slide.

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Print Source with Author

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For the following print source

Burke, Kenneth. Language as Symbolic Action: Essays on Life, Literature,

and Method. U of California P, 1966.

If the essay provides a signal word or phrase—usually the author’s last name—the citation does not need to also include that information.

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With Unknown Author

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How to cite a work with no known author:

We see so many global warming hotspots in North America likely because this region has “more readily accessible climatic data and more comprehensive programs to monitor and study environmental change…” (“Impact of Global Warming” 6).

In-text Citations for Print Sources with No Known Author

When a source has no known author, use a shortened title of the work instead of an author name. Place the title in quotation marks if it's a short work (e.g. articles) or italicize it if it's a longer work (e.g. plays, books, television shows, entire websites) and provide a page number.

In this example, since the reader does not know the author of the article, an abbreviated title of the article appears in the parenthetical citation which corresponds to the full name of the article which appears first at the left-hand margin of its respective entry in the works-cited list. Thus, the writer includes the title in quotation marks as the signal phrase in the parenthetical citation in order to lead the reader directly to the source on the works-cited page. See comments from previous slide.

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With Unknown Author

When author and title are not enough:

If two or more works by the same author have the same title, more information is needed to clearly references a specific item on your works cited in square brackets after the title.

Example: The first illustrated version (Milton, Paradise Lost [Tonson]) does not name the suspected four illustrators that contributed.

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With Unknown Author

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Corresponding Entry in the List of Works Cited:

“The Impact of Global Warming in North America.” Global Warming: Early Signs. 1999. Accessed 23 Mar. 2009.

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Other In-Text Citations 1

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Authors with Same Last Names

In-text example:

Although some medical ethicists claim that cloning will lead to designer

children (R. Miller 12), others note that the advantages for medical research outweigh this consideration (A. Miller 46).

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Other In-Text Citations 2

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Work by Multiple Authors

In-text Examples:

Smith et al. argues that tougher gun control is not needed in the United States (76).

The authors state: “Tighter gun control in the United States erodes Second Amendment rights” (Smith et al. 76).

A 2016 study suggests that stricter gun control in the United States will significantly prevent accidental shootings (Strong and Ellis 23).

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Other In-Text Citations 3

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Multiple Works by the Same Author

In-text examples:

Lightenor has argued that computers are not useful tools for small children (“Too Soon” 38), though he has acknowledged elsewhere that early exposure to computer games does lead to better small motor skill development in a child's second and third year (“Hand-Eye Development” 17).

Visual studies, because it is such a new discipline, may be “too easy” (Elkins, “Visual Studies” 63).

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Other In-Text Citations 4

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Citing Multivolume Works

In-text example:

… as Quintilian wrote in Institutio Oratoria (1: 14-17).

Citing the Bible

In-text example:

Ezekiel saw “what seemed to be four living creatures,” each with the faces of a man, a lion, an ox, and an eagle (New Jerusalem Bible, Ezek. 1:5-10).

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Other In-Text Citations 5

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Citing Indirect Sources

In-text example:

Ravitch argues that high schools are pressured to act as “social service centers, and they don't do that well” (qtd. in Weisman 259).

Multiple Citations

In-text example:

Romeo and Juliet presents an opposition between two worlds: “the world of the everyday… and the world of romance.” Although the two lovers are part of the world of romance, their language of love nevertheless becomes “fully responsive to the tang of actuality” (Zender 138, 141).

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Other In-Text Citations 6

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Works in time-based media

In-text example:

Buffy’s promise that “there’s not going to be any incidents like at my old school” is obviously not one on which she can follow through (“Hush” 00:03:16-17).

Works-cited entry:

“Hush.” Buffy the Vampire Slayer, created by Joss Whedon, performance

by Sarah Michelle Gellar, season 4, episode 10, Mutant Enemy, 1999.

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Other In-Text Citations 7

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Sources without page numbers

In-text example:

Disability activism should work toward “creating a habitable space for all beings” (Garland-Thomson).

Corresponding works-cited entry:

Garland-Thomson, Rosemarie. “Habitable Worlds.” Critical Disability

Studies Symposium. Feb. 2016, Purdue University, Indiana.

Address.

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Formatting Short Quotations (in Prose)

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Short prose quotations

In-text example:

According to some, dreams express “profound aspects of personality” (Foulkes 184), though others disagree.

According to Foulkes's study, dreams may express “profound aspects of personality” (184).

Is it possible that dreams may express “profound aspects of personality” (Foulkes 184)?

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Formatting Long Quotations (in Prose)

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Quoting more than four lines of prose

In-text example:

Nelly Dean treats Heathcliff poorly and dehumanizes him throughout her narration:

They entirely refused to have it in bed with them, or even in their room, and I had no more sense, so, I put it on the landing of the stairs, hoping it would be gone on the morrow. By chance, or else attracted by hearing his voice, it crept to Mr. Earnshaw's door, and there he found it on quitting his chamber. Inquiries were made as to how it got there; I was obliged to confess, and in recompense for my cowardice and inhumanity was sent out of the house. (Bronte 78)

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Formatting Short Quotations in Poetry

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Quoting 1-3 lines of poetry

Examples:

Properzia Rossi tells the statue that it will be a container for her feelings: “The bright work grows / Beneath my hand, unfolding, as a rose” (lines 31-32).

In “The Thorn,” Wordsworth’s narrator locates feelings of horror in the landscape: “The little babe was buried there, / Beneath that hill of moss so fair. // I’ve heard the scarlet moss is red” (stanzas xx-xxi).

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Formatting Long Quotations in Poetry

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Use block quotations for three or more lines of poetry.
If the poem is formatted in an unusual way, reproduce the unique formatting as accurately as possible.

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Adding/Omitting Words

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Works Cited: The Basics

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Each entry in the list of works cited is made up of core elements given in a specific order.

The core elements should be listed in the order in which they appear here. Each element is followed by the punctuation mark shown here.

While earlier editions of the MLA Handbook showed writers how to create a works-cited entry based on the source’s publication format (book, periodical, film, etc.), the updated 8^th edition demonstrates that documentation should be created by consulting the list of core elements. The 9^th edition continues use of these and explains each element more in depth. Rather than asking: “how do I cite a book, DVD, or webpage,” the writer now creates an entry by looking at the list of core elements– which are facts common to most works– and assembling them in a specific order.

These changes have been made to reflect the differences in how we consult works. In the updated model, the writer should ask: “who is the author?” and “what is the title?”, regardless of the nature of the source. The following slides will explain each of the core elements, and how they might differ from one medium to another.

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Works Cited List: Author

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Author – the primary creator of the work

Begin the entry with the author’s last name, followed by a comma and the rest of the name, as presented in the work. End this element with a period.

Examples:

Baron, Naomi S. “Redefining Reading: The Impact of Digital Communication Media.” PMLA, vol. 128, no. 1, Jan. 2013, pp. 193-200.

Jacobs, Alan. The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction. Oxford UP, 2011.

The author can be a writer, artist, or other type of creator and can be an individual, group of people, organization, or government.

While these examples are in different mediums (the first one is a periodical, the second is a printed book), they are both formatted according to the list of key elements. Note: there are other types of author situations, such as multiple authors, translators, editors, corporate authors, performers, and pseudonyms (such as online user names).

If it is important that your readers know an author’s/person’s pseudonym, stage-name, or various other names, then you should generally cite the better-known form of author’s/person’s name. For example, since the author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is better-known by his pseudonym, cite Lewis Carroll opposed to Charles Dodgson (real name).

Refer to the 9t^h edition handbook or the MLA online Style Center https://style.mla.org/ for more information.

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Works Cited List: Title of Source

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Title of source – the title of the work

Books and websites should be in italics:

Hollmichel, Stefanie. So Many Books. 2003-13, somanybooksblog.com.

Linett, Maren Tova. Modernism, Feminism, and Jewishness. Cambridge UP, 2007.

Periodicals (journal, magazine, newspaper article), television episodes, and songs should be in quotation marks:

Beyoncé. “Pretty Hurts.” Beyoncé, Parkwood Entertainment, 2013, www.beyonce.com/album/beyonce/?media_view=songs.

Goldman, Anne. “Questions of Transport: Reading Primo Levi Reading Dante.” The Georgia Review, vol. 64, no. 1, 2010, pp. 69-88.

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Works Cited List: Title of Container

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Title of container – a work that contains another work

Examples:

Bazin, Patrick. “Toward Metareading.” The Future of the Book, edited by Geoffrey Nunberg, U of California P, 1996, pp. 153-68.

Hollmichel, Stefanie. “The Reading Brain: Differences between Digital and Print.” So Many Books, 25 Apr. 2013, somanybooksblog.com/2013/04/25/the-reading-brain-differences-between-digital-and-print/.

“Under the Gun.” Pretty Little Liars, season 4, episode 6, ABC Family, 16 July 2013. Hulu, hulu.com/watch/511318.

Containers are the larger wholes in which the source is located such as a periodical, anthology, website, CD, TV or podcast series, or exhibit. . For example, if you want to cite a poem that is listed in a collection of poems, the individual poem is the source, while the larger collection is the container. The title of the container is usually italicized and followed by a comma, since the information that follows next describes the container.

In the first example, “Toward Metareading” is the title of an essay, and The Future of the Book is the title of the edited collection in which the essay appears.

The container may also be a website, which contains articles, postings, and other works.

The container may also be a television series, which is made up of episodes.

Apps and databases should be cited only when they are containers of the particular works you are citing, such as when they are the platforms of publication of the works in their entirety, and not an intermediary that redirects your access to a source published somewhere else, such as another platform. For example, the Philosophy Books app should be cited as a container when you use one of its many works, since the app contains them in their entirety. However, a PDF article saved to the Dropbox app is published somewhere else, and so the app should not be cited as a container.

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Works Cited List: Title of Container

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Title of container

	Not a container	A container
Blackboard	When it links you to another website	When something, like a lecture, is published on it
Amazon	When you download an e-book from it	When a customer review is published on the site
Google	When it displays snippets of text in the results page of a search	When it publishes an original artwork, such as a Google Doodle
Facebook	When you click on a link (e.g., a link to a news story) that takes you to another website	When a user publishes or comments on a link or post

Fig. 5.31. MLA, MLA Handbook Ninth Edition, 2021, p. 137

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Works Cited List: Other Contributors

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Contributor – people, groups, or organizations that contribute without being its primary creator.

Examples:

Chartier, Roger. The Order of Books: Readers, Authors, and Libraries in Europe between the Fourteenth and Eighteenth Centuries. Translated by Lydia G. Cochrane, Stanford UP, 1994.

“Hush.” Buffy the Vampire Slayer, created by Joss Whedon, performance by Sarah Michelle Gellar, season 4, episode 10, Mutant Enemy, 1999.

Woolf, Virginia. Jacob’s Room. Annotated and with an introduction by Vara Neverow, Harcourt, Inc., 2008.

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Works Cited List: Version

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Version – notation indicating which of multiple versions of a work released in multiple forms

If a source is listed as an edition or version of a work, include it in your citation.

Examples:

The Bible. Authorized King James Version, Oxford UP, 1998.

Newcomb, Horace, editor. Television: The Critical View. 7^th ed., Oxford UP, 2007.

Scott, Ridley, director. Blade Runner. 1982. Performance by Harrison Ford, director’s cut, Warner Bros., 1992.

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Works Cited List: Number

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Number – indicates position in sequence

If a source is part of a numbered sequence, such as a multi-volume book, or journal with both volume and issue numbers, those numbers must be listed in your citation.

Examples:

Baron, Naomi S. “Redefining Reading: The Impact of Digital Communication Media.” PMLA, vol. 128, no. 1, Jan. 2013, pp. 193-200.

“Hush.” Buffy the Vampire Slayer, created by Joss Whedon, performance by Sarah Michelle Gellar, season 4, episode 10, Mutant Enemy, 1999.

Wellek, René. A History of Modern Criticism, 1750-1950. Vol. 5, Yale UP, 1986.

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Works Cited List: Publisher

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Publisher – primarily responsible entity for producing the work or making it available to the public.

The publisher produces or distributes the source to the public. If there is more than one publisher, and they are all are relevant to your research, list them in your citation, separated by a forward slash (/).

Examples:

Harris, Charles “Teenie.” Woman in a Paisley Shirt behind Counter in Record Store. Teenie Harris Archive, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, teenie.cmoa.org/interactive/index.html#date08.

Jacobs, Alan. The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction. Oxford UP, 2011.

Kuzui, Fran Rubel, director. Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Twentieth Century Fox, 1992.

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Works Cited List: Publication Date

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Publication date –tells when the version of work was published

The same source may have been published on more than one date, such as an online version of an original source. When the source has more than one date, use the date that is most relevant to your use of it.

Examples:

Belton, John. “Painting by the Numbers: The Digital Intermediate.” Film Quarterly, vol. 61, no. 3, Spring 2008, pp. 58-65.

“Hush.” Buffy the Vampire Slayer, created by Joss Whedon, performance by Sarah Michelle Gellar, season 4, Mutant Enemy, 1999.

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Works Cited List: Location

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Location – specifies work’s location, such as page range

Be as specific as possible in identifying a work’s location.

Examples:

Adiche, Chimamanda Ngozi. “On Monday of Last Week.” The Thing around Your Neck, Alfred A. Knopf, 2009, pp. 74-94.

Deresiewicz, William. “The Death of the Artist—and the Birth of the Creative Entrepreneur.” The Atlantic, 28 Dec. 2014, www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/01/the-death-of-the-artist-and-the-birth-of-the-creative-entrepreneur/383497/. Bearden, Romare. The Train. 1975, Museum of Modern Art, New York.

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Works Cited List: Optional Elements

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Optional elements:

Date of original publication:

Franklin, Benjamin. “Emigration to America.” 1782. The Faber Book of America, edited by Christopher Ricks and William L. Vance, Faber and Faber, 1992, pp. 24-26.

City of publication:

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. Conversations of Goethe with Eckermann and Soret. Translated by John Oxenford, new ed., London, 1875.

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Works Cited List: Optional Elements

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Optional elements:

URLs

DOIs (digital object identifier)

Chan, Evans. “Postmodernism and Hong Kong Cinema.” Postmodern Culture, vol. 10, no. 3, May 2000. Project Muse, doi: 10.1353/pmc.2000.0021.

Date of access

“Under the Gun.” Pretty Little Liars, season 4, episode 6, ABC Family, 16 July 2013. Hulu, www.hulu.com/watch/511318. Accessed 23 July 2013.

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Works Cited List: Optional Elements

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Annotated Bibliography

Annotations:

Are succinct descriptions or evaluations of a source.
Are at the end of an entry, with a one-inch indentation from where the entry begins.
Can be concise phrases or complete sentences, but not exceed a single paragraph.

Spinoza, Benedict de. Ethnics Proved in Geometrical Order. Edited by Matthew J. Kisner. Translated by Michael Silverhorne and Matthew J. Kisner. Cambridge UP, 2018.

A comprehensive work that systemically lays out Spinoza’s rationalist philosophy, explaining the nature of God, humanity’s place in the universe, human psychology, our freedom, and the best ethical life.

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