MLA Citation and Documentation Style Quick Tips

The Works Cited Page The Works Cited page lists the outside sources, or works, that you actually cite in the paper: that is, the sources from which you garner ideas, quote directly, summarize, or paraphrase in the body of your paper. Always create your Works Cited page first, before inserting your parenthetical, in-text citations (you’ll see why later in this lecture).

Formatting the Works Cited Page Our handbook contains all of the specific citation information that you’ll need for practically any type of source material that you will ever encounter, from books and magazines, to songs and films, lectures and advertisements, works of visual and performing art, and online information. For each of your outside sources, take the time to page through the MLA section of our handbook, looking at the section titles until you see the one for the type of source that you are citing. Then, follow both the citation formula and the example provided to cite your source correctly.

Online Help You are free to use an online citation generator to assist you, but do know that they often produce incorrect entries, so you’ll still have to proofread and double-check the results. If you’d like to try an online citation generator, one strategy would be to first enter your data into the generator, and then look up that type of entry in our handbook, to cross-check and verify that the online generator has produced the correct result, in proper MLA format. Purdue University has on online handbook for students to use, called their Online Writing Lab (OWL). Here you’ll find the most current citation information, arranged as it is in our handbook, by the type of source you’re citing: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/

Final Check of the Works Cited Page Once you’ve formatted your individual entries accurately, take another look at the sample Works Cited page in our handbook to verify that your overall page formatting is correct. Note that your page should be entitled “Works Cited” (but without the quotes on your own page title), because you are documenting—or citing—multiple original sources, or works. Your page title should be centered at the top margin of the page. Alphabetize all the entries by their first words. Be sure that you’ve used a hanging indent for individual entries, wherein the first line of each entry begins at the left margin, and the subsequent lines of the individual entries are indented one Tab, or 5 spaces.

In-Text Citations After you’ve constructed your Works Cited page, it’s time to cite your sources in the body of your paper, at the points where you use the outside information, whether it be general ideas, quotes, paraphrases or summaries. These are called “in-text citations” or “parenthetical citations.” Immediately after each piece of outside information, again, be it an idea, quote, paraphrase, or summary, insert parentheses, and then show where you obtained that piece of outside information inside of those parentheses. Again, your handbook contains all of the information you need for citing outside sources in-text, or parenthetically, but next I’ll show you how to master this skill easily.

In-Text Citations This is where your having already created your Works Cited page pays off, because you’ll use what you wrote for each entry as you cite it parenthetically. What appears in parentheses after your quote, paraphrase, or summary is the first word or phrase from the Works Cited entry, sometimes followed by additional information, depending upon the type of source you’re citing.

In-Text Citations For example, if your Works Cited entry for an online article looks like this: O’Connor, Gary. “How to Hack Your Most Annoying Day-to-Day Tasks.” How to Do Anything Better Guide. 2014. Web. June 1, 2015. here’s what your in-text citation will look like in the body of your paper: In his life-hack blog, lifestyle guru Gary O’Connor advises that people should break down seemingly overwhelming, dreaded tasks into short work sprints (O’Connor par.5). Note that because the last name “O’Connor” started your Works Cited entry, that is what should appear in the parentheses of your in-text citation. The “par.5” that follows the writer’s last name is the paragraph in the article in which the cited information appears. You’ll need this additional information when citing hard-copy print, in which case you cite the page number (Smith 137), or when citing online articles and sources that have clearly delineated paragraphs (not all of them do, as you well know).

In-Text Citations Similarly, if you have an outside source without a writer, you still parenthetically cite the first word or phrase of your Works Cited entry. Perhaps, for instance, you cite an advertisement on your Works Cite page like this: Lancôme Hydra-Intense Daily Moisturizing Potion. Marie Claire. 22.6 (June 2015): 93. Print. In this case, here’s how your parenthetical citation will appear in the body of your paper: At the top-right corner of the advertisement, in bold lettering, is the slogan, “Lancôme: For the Woman Within” (Lancôme Hydra-Intense 93). Enough of the Works Cited entry appears so that readers can flip to the Works Cited page, skim down the ex-dented lines along the left margin, and quickly locate which source you’re referring to here. Again, a page number is needed after the product name, because the advertisement appears in a hard-copy publication. Finally, when citing outside sources, be certain to always insert the final period AFTER the parentheses, to indicate that what appears in parentheses goes with—or belongs to—the sentence that appears before it.

Final Thoughts As you know, a full 10% of your formal paper grades consists of documenting and citing sources correctly, using MLA format, so it’s well worth taking the time to do all of this right. Read through the assigned MLA sections in our handbook thoroughly, and use that, along with the information here and in other helpful spots online, such as the Purdue OWL, to correctly format your MLA entries. If you do have any questions, as always, I’m very eager and happy to help you; just send me an e-mail.