Guide to MLA Style for Citations

Works Cited Lists: Overview of Formats for Entries || Books || Parts of Books

Articles || Online Publications || Films and Videos || Arrangement of Items in Works Cited List

In-Text Citations: Overview || Examples || (Further References)

Introduction

The purpose of documentation is to give credit to the sources from which you have drawn ideas, words, or information, and to allow others to follow-up the sources you have used for your work. You need to provide information that is sufficiently clear and complete for others to identify the specific sources you have made use of---in order to avoid plagiarism and to allow others to corroborate and learn from your work as fully as possible. The documentation style developed by the Modern Language Association of America (MLA style) offers one conventional system for doing this; in published sources, you will also see other systems in use (such as that of the Chicago Manual of Style or that of the American Psychological Association [APA Style]). This guide summarizes the main features of MLA documentation style, but, if you want to master MLA style, it also helps to examine actual published work that makes use of MLA style (such as essays in PMLA) to see these guidelines in action, as it were. For full discussion of the MLA style conventions, however, you should consult Joseph Gibaldi, MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 6th ed. (2003). (See, also, other works listed in the section of this guide on "Further References."

Your documentation efforts will only be as good as your bibliographic note-keeping while you are researching a paper. Whenever you undertake research for an assignment, you should record the bibliographic information for each source that you have consulted, as well as page references for each quotation, idea, or bit of information you draw from that source. You will need this information, both for in-text citations and for the works cited list for your paper. If you fail to record this information initially, it can often be difficult to retrieve the necessary information later on.

MLA style makes use of parenthetical in-text citations, keyed to a works cited list at the end of your paper. The basic idea is to present the minimum necessary documentation in the in-text citation to allow your reader to locate the relevant item in the works cited list, and to find the specific passage that you are referencing in that work. The full bibliographic information for the item is presented in the works cited list. This allows for efficient, unobstrusive documentation of sources, but the minimalism of MLA style can also lead to ambiguities and omissions if you are not careful. It is essential to re-check your in-text citing of sources and the correlation between in-text citations and the works cited list before finally submitting a research paper.

Sample entries for different kinds of source materials are given in the next sections: first a quick overview of formats for the major kinds of source materials, followed by fuller discussion of each type of citation in subsequent subsections. Keep in mind that this guide currently does not deal with citations of museum or art gallery exhibitions, artworks (paintings, sculptures, photographs), public monuments, performances (theater, dance, opera, concert), lectures or readings, musical compositions, advertisements, television programs, CDs, LPs, other audio formats, oral interviews, personal communications (oral or written), memos, unpublished manuscripts, legal sources, maps, charts, cartoons, comic strips, online chatrooms, online discussion lists, email, and other kinds of source material. If you notice errors in this document, or come across cases (that fall within its coverage range) that are not treated adequately (or at all) in the examples provided, please let me know via email.

Overview of Formats for Entries in Works Cited List

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The works cited list should include all sources used in your paper, and only those sources. If you want to include sources that you consulted but did not directly make use of in your paper, you can present a "Works Consulted" list instead. (But, with most essay assignments, the expectation is that you will document only the sources you actually use in your paper.) The works cited list appears at the end of your paper, beginning on a new page but continuing the page numbering from your paper. (For example, if the body of your paper ends on page 6, your works cited list will begin on page 7.) The title "Works Cited" (without quotation marks or underlining) should be centered at the top of the page. Each entry in the works cited list should be double-spaced, just like the rest of your paper. Each entry should begin flush with the left-hand margin, but if it continues onto other lines, these should be indented one-half inch (or five spaces). This format is called hanging indentation and can be set using your word processing program. (The examples below show you what this format looks like.)

The basic formats for entries in a works cited list are outlined below for four common types of sources: a book; a selection from a book; an article in a scholarly journal (or other periodical publication); an online publication. This is meant to give you a sense of the kinds of bibliographic information you should record for each type of source (in the templates) and what the format of an entry should look like (in the numbered examples), but you should also consult the examples given in subsequent sections for refinements and variations on these format requirements. (The templates are repeated again at the start of each subsection.)

For a Book

(Go to section)

(1) author's name (lastname, firstname); (2) title of whole work (underlined); (3) name of editor, translator, compiler, etc. (where applicable); (4) edition used (where applicable); (5) number of volumes in the work (where applicable); (6) publication information (place of publication, name of publisher, year of publication)
[template 1]

Derrida, Jacques. Of Grammatology. Trans. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Corrected ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1998.
[example 1.0]

For Part of a Book

(Go to section)

(1) author's name (lastname, firstname); (2) title of the selection from the whole work (in quotation marks, unless the piece is book-length and was originally published as an independent work---in which case, underline the title); (3) title of the whole work (underlined); (4) name of editor, translator, compiler, etc. (where applicable); (5) edition used (where applicable); (6) publication information (place of publication: name of publisher, year of publication); (7) page numbers.
[template 2]

Reiss, Timothy J. "Mapping Identities: Literature, Nationalism, Colonialism." Debating World Literature. Ed. Christopher Prendergast. London: Verso, 2004. 110-47.
[example 2.0]

For an Article from a Scholarly Journal:

(Go to section)

(1) author's name (lastname, firstname); (2) title of article (in quotation marks); (3) title of journal (underlined); (4) volume number (and issue number, if pagination begins anew with each issue); (5) year of publication (in parentheses); (6) page numbers.
[template 3]

Das Gupta, Arun. "Rabindranath Tagore in Indonesia: An Experiment in Bridge-Building." Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 158 (2002): 451-77.
[example 3.0]

This section also discusses citation of articles from magazines and newspapers, and citation of book reviews.

For an Online Publication

(Go to section)

(1) author's name (lastname, firstname); (2) title of the document (in quotation marks---but see exceptions for entire websites, online books, home pages); (3) information about print publication (if applicable and available); (4) title of the website (underlined); (5) name of editor (where applicable); (6) version number of document (where available); (7) date of online publication (or the latest update) (where available); (8) name of institution or organization that sponsors the site (often listed at the bottom of a site's homepage) (if not cited earlier); (9) date you accessed the material; (10) URL (in angle brackets)
[template 4]

"English Emblem Book Chronology." The English Emblem Book Project. Penn State University Libraries. August 2, 2005. <http://emblem.libraries.psu.edu/
chrono.htm>
[example 4.0]

Section 1: Format for Books

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(1) author's name (lastname, firstname); (2) title of whole work (underlined); (3) name of editor, translator, compiler, etc. (where applicable); (4) edition used (where applicable); (5) number of volumes in the work (where applicable); (6) publication information (place of publication, name of publisher, year of publication)
[template 1]

Derrida, Jacques. Of Grammatology. Trans. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Corrected ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1998.
[example 1.0]

Thompson, John B. Books in the Digital Age: The Transformation of Academic and Higher Education Publishing in Britain and the United States. Cambridge: Polity, 2005.
[example 1.1]

• Cite the full title and author's name as they appear on the title-page of the work
• Include only the first city listed, if several cities are listed for the publisher ("London" not "London and New York")
• Shorten the publisher's name to the first distinctive element ("Farrar" not "Farrar, Straus and Giroux"; "Faber" not "Faber & Faber"; "Basic" not "Basic Books"---but "New Clarion" not simply "New"); omit initials ("Dent" not "J. M. Dent"); omit elements after the proper name (such as "Press" or "Publishers" or "& Company" or "and Sons") ("Norton" not "W. W. Norton & Company"). For university presses, use "Princeton UP", "U of Toronto P", "UP of Missouri" (depending on the style adopted by the press)
• If no year of publication is listed, use the latest copyright date

Morson, Gary Saul and Caryl Emerson. Mikhail Bakhtin: Creation of a Poetics. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1990.
[example 1.2]

Quirk, Randolph, et al. A Comprehensive Reference Grammar of the English Language. London: Longman, 1985.
[example 1.3]

Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. Loose Canons: Notes on the Culture Wars. 1992. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1993.
[example 1.4]

• When there is more than one author, only the first author's name is inverted (lastname, firstname); the subsequent names are listed in the usual order (firstname lastname)
• List the names in the order in which they appear on the title page (not necessarily in alphabetical order) [1.2]
• Where there are more than three authors, list only the first author's name, followed by "et al." [1.3]
• Omit titles, affiliations, and degrees from names, but include suffixes that are part of an author's name (like "Jr." or "III") [1.4]

Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature. Springfield: Merriam-Webster, 1995.
[example 1.5]

University of Chicago Press. The Chicago Manual of Style. 15th ed. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2003.
[example 1.6]

• List anonymous works by title [1.5]
• When listing works by corporate authors, omit any articles (a, an, the) from the start of the name. Include a corporate author's name, even if the corporate author is the publisher [1.6]

Lenin, Vladimir Ilich. What Is To Be Done? Trans. S. V. Utechin and Patricia Utechin. Ed. S. V. Utechin. Oxford: Clarendon P, 1963.
[example 1.7]

Tatar, Maria. Off with Their Heads! Fairy Tales and the Culture of Childhood. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1992.
[example 1.8]

Cheyfitz, Eric. The Poetics of Imperialism: Translation and Colonization from The Tempest to Tarzan. Expanded ed. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1997.
[example 1.9]

• There is no period after a title that ends with a question mark or an exclamation point [1.7]
• So, too, there is no colon between the main title and the subtitle if the main title ends with a question mark, an exclamation point, or a dash [1.8]
• If a title of a book includes the title of a book within it, do not underline the included title (even though this may produce some odd-looking entries) [1.9, 1.14, 1.15]
• The MLA Handbook does not deal explicitly with cases where there are two subtitles to a work: I have adopted here the recommendation of the Chicago Manual of Style, which is to place a semi-colon after the first subtitle [1.10]

Felsenstein, Frank, ed. English Trader, Indian Maid: Representing Gender, Race, and Slavery in the New World; An Inkle and Yarico Reader. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1999.
[example 1.10]

Booth, Alison, J. Paul Hunter, and Kelly J. Mays, ed. The Norton Introduction to Literature. 9th ed. New York: Norton, 2005.
[example 1.11]

Marlowe, Christopher. Tamburlaine the Great. Ed. J. S. Cunningham. The Revels Plays. Manchester: Manchester UP, 1981.
[example 1.12]

Cunningham, J. S., ed. Tamburlaine the Great. By Christopher Marlowe. The Revels Plays. Manchester: Manchester UP, 1981.
[example 1.13]

Edgeworth, Maria. Castle Rackrent and Ennui. Ed. Marilyn Butler. London: Penguin, 1992.
[example 1.14]

Molière. The Misanthrope and Other Plays. Trans. John Wood and David Coward. Ed. David Coward. London: Penguin, 2000.
[example 1.15]

Smollett, Tobias. The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom. 1753. Ed. Jerry C. Beasley. Athens: U of Georgia P, 1988.
[example 1.16]

• For an edited volume, list the editor's name as the name of the author, but add "ed." after it (similarly for a compiler, with "comp.") [1.10, 1.11]
• For a modern edition of a literary or other work, you will most likely enter it under the author's name, with the editor's name appearing after the title [1.12, 1.14]. But if your references to the work are primarily to the editorial apparatus (e.g., the editor's introduction, notes, appendices, editorial decisions regrading the text), put the editor's name first, then give the author's name after the title, following the word "By" [1.13]
• Where you have both a translator and an editor to list after the title of a work, the translator's name comes first [1.7, 1.15]
• When using a modern edition of a work, it is sometimes useful to provide the date of original publication. This appears immediately after the title [1.16, 1.20]

Note: The notion of an "edition" can be confusing, since the term is commonly used in several distinct senses. A work can be revised and published in a new edition: in such cases, edition information must be included in your bibliographic entry (e.g., "Rev. ed." [for revised edition] or "3rd ed." or "Abr. ed." [for abridged edition] or "Expanded ed.") [1.6, 1.9, 1.11]. In other cases, a work is republished (i.e., the same, unrevised text) in a new format (e.g., a paperback "edition") or in an "edition" by a new publisher (e.g., after it has been out of print for some time): in such cases, you should include the date of original publication as well as the bibliographic information for the "edition" you are using [1.4, 1.23, 1.24]. Finally, literary and other cultural works are often edited and published in new scholarly or teaching "editions": in such cases, you need to include the name of the editor(s), along with the full bibliographic information for this new edition [1.12-16, 1.20, 1.22].

Rothenberg, Jerome and Pierre Joris, ed. Poems for the Millennium: The University of California Book of Modern and Postmodern Poetry. 2 vols. Berkeley: U of California P, 1995-98.
[example 1.17]

Cassidy, Frederic, ed. Dictionary of American Regional English. 3 vols. to date. Cambridge: Belknap-Harvard UP, 1985- .
[example 1.18]

Rothenberg, Jerome and Pierre Joris, ed. Poems for the Millennium: The University of California Book of Modern and Postmodern Poetry. Vol. 1. Berkeley: U of California P, 1995.
[example 1.19]

Crane, Stephen. The Red Badge of Courage: An Episode of the American Civil War. 1895. Charlottesville: UP of Virginia, 1975. Vol. 2 of The University of Virginia Edition of the Works of Stephen Crane. Ed. Fredson Bowers. 10 vols. 1969-79.
[example 1.20]

Barrows, Herbert. Reading the Short Story. Vol. 1 of An Introduction to Literature. Ed. Gordon N. Ray. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1959.
[example 1.21]

Donne, John. The Anniversaries and the Epicedes and Obsequies. Ed. Gary A. Stringer and Ted-Larry Pebworth. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1995. Vol. 6 of The Variorum Edition of the Poetry of John Donne. Gen. ed. Gary A. Stringer. 8 vols. to date. 1995- .
[example 1.22]

• If you are using two or more volumes from a multi-volume work, include the number of volumes in the work after the title and include the inclusive dates of publication (if the volumes were not all published in a single year) [1.17]
• If the multi-volume work is still in progress, write "to date" after the number of volumes that have been published so far, and give the beginning date of publication with a hyphen followed by a blank space [1.18, 1.22]
• If you are using only one volume from a multi-volume work, list that volume number after the title and include only the date of publication for that volume [1.19]
• If the single volume you are using of a multi-volume work has its own title, author, or editor, you should include this information [1.21, 1.22]. If all the volumes of the work have the same editor, then the editor's name goes after the series name, rather than after the title of the specific volume you are using [1.20]

Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. 1925. Introd. Matthew J. Bruccoli. New York: Collier, 1992.
[example 1.23]

The WPA Guide to 1930s Alabama. Tuscaloosa: U of Alabama P, 2000. Rpt. of Alabama: A Guide to the Deep South. 1941.
[example 1.24]

Duck, Stephen. Poems on Several Occasions. London, 1736.
[example 1.25]

• For a reprinted version of a work (e.g., a paperback version of a work originally published in hardback or a new reprinting of an older work), include the original date of publication, after the title, before giving the publication information for the new reprinting [1.4, 1.23, 2.4]
• For a work reprinted under a new title, list the information for the new reprinting first, followed by "Rpt. of" (reprint of) the original title and the original publication date [1.24]
• For works published before 1900, it is acceptable to omit the publisher's name, giving only the place of publication, followed by a comma (not a colon), and the year of publication [1.25]

You should consult the MLA Handbook for various other cases, such as how to handle publishers' imprints, multiple publishers, books in series, government publications, proceedings of a conference, books with missing publication information, unpublished and published dissertations.

Section 2: Format for Parts of Books

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(1) author's name (lastname, firstname); (2) title of the selection from the whole work (in quotation marks, unless the piece is book-length and was originally published as an independent work---in which case, underline the title); (3) title of the whole work (underlined); (4) name of editor, translator, compiler, etc. (where applicable); (5) edition used (where applicable); (6) publication information (place of publication: name of publisher, year of publication); (7) page numbers.
[template 2]

Reiss, Timothy J. "Mapping Identities: Literature, Nationalism, Colonialism." Debating World Literature. Ed. Christopher Prendergast. London: Verso, 2004. 110-47.
[example 2.0]

Munro, Alice. "Boys and Girls." The Norton Introduction to Literature. Ed. Alison Booth, J. Paul Hunter, and Kelly J. Mays. 9th ed. New York: Norton, 2005. 509-19.
[example 2.1]

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "Art and Criticism." Emerson's Literary Criticism. Ed. and Introd. Eric W. Carlson. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1995. 84-96.
[example 2.2]

Arnould-Mussot, Jean-François. The American Heroine: A Pantomime in Three Acts. Trans. Samuel Chandler. English Trader, Indian Maid: Representing Gender, Race, and Slavery in the New World; An Inkle and Yarico Reader. Ed. Frank Felsenstein. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1999. 234-46.
[example 2.3]

Beckford, William. Vathek, An Arabian Tale. 1786. Vathek and Other Stories: A William Beckford Reader. Ed. Malcolm Jack. 1993. London: Penguin, 1995. 27-121.
[example 2.4]

Tilley, Virginia Q. "Mestizaje and the 'Ethnicization' of Race in Latin America." Race and Nation: Ethnic Systems in the Modern World. Ed. Paul Spickard. New York: Routledge, 2005. 53-68.
[example 2.5]

• An entry for a selection from a book generally uses quotation marks for the selection and underlining for the book title [2.1, 2.2, 2.5]. But if the selection was originally published as a separate volume itself, then the selection title is also underlined [2.3, 2.4]
• In citing page numbers for the selection, give full numbers for numbers from 1 to 99 (e.g., "31-39" not "31-9") [2.2, 2.5]; for numbers from 100, give just the last two digits where possible (e.g. "132-54" not "132-154"; "1,018-79" not "1,018-1,079") [2.1, 2.3], but give more digits where necessary (e.g., "79-267" or "172-219" or "1,018-212") [2.4]
• If there is additional information that pertains to the selection specifically (e.g., translator, original date of publication, editor), give it immediately after the title of the selection [2.3, 2.4]

Gosse, Edmund. "Behn, Aphra." Dictionary of National Biography. 1885.
[example 2.6]

"Fiction." Def. 5a. Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. 1989.
[example 2.7]

"Broumas, Olga." The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Ed. Virginia Blain, Patricia Clements, and Isobel Grundy. New Haven: Yale UP, 1990.
[example 2.8]

• No page numbers are necessary for citations of reference works that are arranged alphabetically [2.6, 2.7, 2.8]
• Entries for items from reference works can be abbreviated, at least for "standard" reference works: the publication information can be reduced to simply the edition (if given) and the year of publication [2.6, 2.7]
• For less familiar reference works, especially those that have only appeared in one edition, you should provide full publication information [2.8]

Goldstone, Richard J. Foreword. Between Vengeance and Forgiveness: Facing History after Genocide and Mass Violence. By Martha Minow. Boston: Beacon, 1998. ix-xiii.
[example 2.9]

Bhabha, Homi K. "Framing Fanon." Foreword. The Wretched of the Earth. By Frantz Fanon. Trans. Richard Philcox. Pref. Jean-Paul Sartre. New York: Grove, 2004. vii-xli.
[example 2.10]

Williams, Raymond. Preface. Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society. By Williams. Rev. ed. New York: Oxford UP, 1985. 27.
[example 2.11]

Anderson, Benedict. Introduction. Mapping the Nation. Ed. Gopal Balakrishnan. London: Verso, in association with New Left Review, 1996. 1-16.
[example 2.12]

• Prefaces, forewords, introductions, and the like, are the only parts of works for which you use roman numerals (when they are so numbered in the source text). Otherwise, when referring to volumes, parts, acts, scenes, cantos, books, chapters, etc., use arabic numerals (even if your source uses roman numerals)
• For references to introductions, forewords, prefaces, and afterwords, list the author of the section, then the title of the section (if it has one [2.10]) in quotation marks, followed by a label identifying it as an Introduction, Foreword, Preface, Afterword (capitalized but without any quotation marks)
• If the rest of the book is by the same author, use "By" and their last name only, after the title of the book [2.11]
• If the rest of the book is by some other author(s), use "By" or "Ed." and the full name of the author or editor [2.9, 2.10, 2.12]

Moretti, Franco. "Conjectures on World Literature." New Left Review 2nd ser. 1 (2000): 54-68. Rpt. in Debating World Literature. Ed. Christopher Prendergast. London: Verso, 2004. 148-62.
[example 2.13]

Tilly, Charles. "Softcore Solipsism." Labour/Le Travail 34 (1994): 259-68. Rpt. in Stories, Identities, and Political Change. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002. 15-24.
[example 2.14]

Lewis, C. S. "Viewpoints: C. S. Lewis." Twentieth-Century Interpretations of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Ed. Denton Fox. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice, 1968. 100-01. Rpt. of "The Anthropological Approach." English and Medieval Studies Presented to J. R. R. Tolkein on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday. Ed. Norman Davis and C. L. Wrenn. London: Allen, 1962. 219-23.
[example 2.15]

• When the item from a book is a reprint of a work previously published elsewhere, you include the complete bibliographic data for the earlier publication, then, following "Rpt. in," the information for the volume you have used [2.13]
• When a previously published item is reprinted in a book by the same author, you don't need to repeat the author's name with the title of the book [2.14]
• When an item is reprinted under a new title, list the bibliographic information for the reprint first, then, after "Rpt. of," give the bibliographic information for the original publication of the item [2.15]

Section 3: Format for Articles (etc.) in Periodicals

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(1) author's name (lastname, firstname); (2) title of article (in quotation marks); (3) title of journal (underlined); (4) volume number (and issue number, if pagination begins anew with each issue); (5) year of publication (in parentheses); (6) page numbers.
[template 3]

Das Gupta, Arun. "Rabindranath Tagore in Indonesia: An Experiment in Bridge-Building." Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 158 (2002): 451-77.
[example 3.0]

Gossman, Lionel. "Literature and Education." New Literary History 13 (1982): 341-71.
[example 3.1]

Vaver, Anthony. "Professionalizing English Studies: From the Eighteenth-Century Social Critic to the Postmodern Literary Theorist." Minnesota Review 43-44 (1995): 228-35.
[example 3.2]

Culler, Jonathan. "Anderson and the Novel." Diacritics 29.4 (1999): 20-39.
[example 3.3]

Gillies, Alexander. "Herder and the Preparation of Goethe's Idea of World Literature." Publications of the English Goethe Society ns 9 (1933): 46-67.
[example 3.4]

Reese, Trevor R. "Georgia in Anglo-Spanish Diplomacy, 1736-1739." William and Mary Quarterly 3rd ser. 15 (1958): 168-90.
[example 3.5]

• For articles from journals that have continuously numbered pages throughout a given volume (i.e., the numbering does not begin again from page 1 with each new issue), you need only the volume number, year of publication, and page numbers, in addition to author and title (of course) [3.1]
• For journals that use issue numbers instead of volume numbers, give these in place of the volume number [3.2]
• For journals that do number their pages anew with each issue, you need both volume and issue number (with a period between them) [3.3]
• For a journal that has more than one series, indicate the series after the title and before the volume number ("ns" means "new series"; otherwise, use "2nd ser." or "3rd ser." etc.) [3.4, 3.5]
• In listing the names of journals, newspapers, and other periodicals, drop any introductory article for English-language sources (e.g., "William and Mary Quarterly" not "The William and Mary Quarterly"; "New Yorker" not "The New Yorker"; "French Review" not "The French Review") [3.5, 3.6]

Bolaño, Roberto. "Gómez Palacio." Trans. Chris Andrews. New Yorker 8-15 Aug. 2005: 78-81.
[example 3.6]

Paul, Annie Murphy. "Self Help: Shattering the Myths." Psychology Today Mar.-Apr. 2001: 60-68.
[example 3.7]

Hennenberger, Melinda. "The Leonardo Cover-Up." New York Times 21 Apr. 2002, late ed., sec. 6: 42+.
[example 3.8]

Alaton, Salem. "So, Did They Live Happily Ever After?" Globe and Mail [Toronto] 27 Dec. 1997: D1+.
[example 3.9]

Hirsch, Marianne. "The Day Time Stopped." Chronicle of Higher Education 25 Jan. 2002: B11-14.
[example 3.10]

• For an article from a monthly or weekly magazine, omit volume and issue numbers (even if they appear in the source) and use only the publication date to identify the issue. All months are abbreviated, except May, June, and July [3.6, 3.7]
• For an article from a newspaper, use the date of publication to identify the issue, and specify the edition ("late ed." or "morning ed.") where available [3.8]
• If the name of a locally published newspaper does not indicate the city in which it appears, include this information (enclosed in square brackets) after the title [3.9]; but no place is needed for nationally published newspapers [3.10]

Porter, Bernard. "An Awfully Big Colonial Adventure." Rev. of The Oxford History of the British Empire, gen. ed. Wm. Roger Louis. TLS 14 Jan. 2000: 4-5.
[example 3.11]

Rev. of Anthology of Danish Literature, ed. F. J. Billeskov Jansen and P. M. Mitchell. TLS 7 July 1972: 785.
[example 3.12]

Bordewich, Fergus M. Rev. of Once They Moved like the Wind: Cochise, Geronimo, and the Apache Wars, by David Roberts, and Brave Are My People: Indian Heroes Not Forgotten, by Frank Waters. Smithsonian Mar. 1994: 125-31.
[example 3.13]

Collins, Jeffrey. "Watteau and the Fête Galante." Rev. of Watteau et la fête galante. Musée des Beaux-Arts, Valenciennes, 5 March-14 June 2004. Eighteenth-Century Studies 38 (2005): 691-96.
[example 3.14]

Tommasini, Anthony. "A Feminist Look at Sophocles." Rev. of Jocasta, by Ruth Schonthal and Hélène Cixous. Voice and Vision Theater Co. Cornelia Connelly Center for Educ., New York. New York Times 11 June 1998, late ed.: E5.
[example 3.15]

• For a review, give the name of the author of the review and the title (if either of these elements is available), followed by "Rev. of" and the title of the work being reviewed; then a comma and "by" (or "ed." or "trans." or "dir.") the name of the author (or editor, translator, or director) of the work under review [3.11]
• If the review has no author, but does have a title, begin with that; if the review has an author, but no title, proceed to "Rev. of" after the name of the author of the review; if neither author nor title are given, begin with "Rev. of" [3.12]
• If more than one work is included in the review, list titles and authors in the order given at the beginning of the review [3.13]
• For a review of a performance or exhibition, add the relevant information about the event after the title of the event [3.14, 3.15]

You should consult the MLA Handbook for various other cases, such as how to handle entries for abstracts (from an abstracts journal), letters to the editor, serialized articles, and entire special issues of journals.

Section 4: Format for Online Publications

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There is a vast range of kinds of documents published online; like the MLA Handbook, this guide deals only with the more academic sources available on the internet (via online databases or as independent webpages). Moreover, unlike the MLA Handbook, this guide does not deal with documents from email, online discussion lists, synchronous communications (MUDs and MOOs), CD-ROM, diskette, or magnetic tape. In the examples below, I deal first with online materials that have no counterparts in print publication; then I discuss online materials that were originally published in print.

References to online sources are limited by the lack of standards for online presentation. Information about online publication is often missing, incomplete, or unreliable. Many webpages include inaccurate or conflicting information about date of online publication. Many (or most) online documents lack reference markers (such as paragraph or section numbers), so it is hard to specify a particular passage in the document. Moreover, many online sources (especially those found as webpages rather than as part of online databases) are unstable: they migrate to a new location; they change their content or organization; they go off-line.

(1) author's name (lastname, firstname); (2) title of the document (in quotation marks---but see exceptions for entire websites, online books, home pages); (3) information about print publication (if applicable and available); (4) title of the website (underlined); (5) name of editor (where applicable); (6) version number of document (where available); (7) date of online publication (or the latest update) (where available); (8) name of institution or organization that sponsors the site (often listed at the bottom of a site's homepage) (if not cited earlier); (9) date you accessed the material; (10) URL (in angle brackets)
[template 4]

"English Emblem Book Chronology." The English Emblem Book Project. Penn State University Libraries. August 2, 2005. <http://emblem.libraries.psu.edu/
chrono.htm>
[example 4.0]

Section 5: Films and Videos

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In what follows, I use the term "film" to refer to any cinematic text, whether recorded on film or video or digital media. The first part deals with films in theatrical release; the second part with films released on DVD or other similar recorded media; the third part with films and clips available online.

(1) title of film (underlined); (2) name of director; (3) optionally, names of other personnel that you wish to include (such as writer, performers, producer); (4) name of distributor; (5) year of release.
[template 5]

The Scavengers. Dir. Eduardo Coutinho. First Run/Icarus, 1992.
[example 5.0]

Mendes, Sam, dir. American Beauty. DreamWorks SKG, 1999.
[example 5.1]

Mifune, Toshiro, perf. Rashomon. Dir. Akira Kurosawa. Daiei, 1950.
[example 5.2]

Goldman, Bo and Lawrence Hauben, adapt. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. By Ken Kesey. Dir. Milos Forman. Perf. Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher. Fantasy Films, 1975.
[example 5.3]

Montuori, Carlo, cinemat. Ladri di biciclette. Dir. Vittorio De Sica. Screenplay by Cesare Zavattini. Based on the novel by Luigi Bartolini. Produzioni De Sica, 1948.
[example 5.4]

• General references to a film will privilege the title [5.0]; but if your discussion focuses on the contribution of a particular person (director, performer, writer, cinematographer, etc.), begin with that person's name [5.1-5.4]
• The above formats apply to films in theatrical release. Often, however, you will be citing not the original film but a reproduction in one format or another: video recording, DVD, laserdisc. Such reproductions of films follow the following format:

(1) title of film (underlined); (2) name of director; (3) optional names of other personnel; (4) year of original release (if relevant); (5) medium or format of reproduction; (6) distributor of reproduction; (7) year of publication of reproduction.
[template 5a]

Battle of Algiers. Dir. Gillo Pontecorvo. 1966. Video recording. Rhino Home Video, 1993.
[example 5a.1]

Wit. Dir. Mike Nichols. Perf. Emma Thompson. Screenplay by Emma Thompson and Mike Nichols. Based on the play by Margaret Edson. DVD. HBO, 2001.
[example 5a.2]

• You might also have occasion to cite a clip of a film from an online source or a film clip that originally appeared online: in such cases, follow the template below, allowing for variations that highlight the contribution of a particular person (as with examples 5.1-5.4 above):

(1) title (underlined); (2) director; (3) any other contributors you wish to list; (4) year of original release; (5) name of website; (6) date accessed; (7) URL of website or web page.
[template 5b]

Nosferatu. Dir. F. W. Murnau. Screenplay by Henrik Galeen. Based on the novel by Bram Stoker. 1922. Google Video. 23 March 2007. <http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6185283610506001721>.
[example 5b.1]

• For postings of user-supplied content onto "community" websites, like YouTube, the bibliographic entry follows the protocols for online sources, rather than those for film texts per se [5b.2]

EclecticAsylumArt. "NewNuma.com 11608: Speed Painting with Chocolate." YouTube. 22 March 2007. 23 March 2007. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLMpbQxqi0o>
[example 5b.2]