Updated+MLA+Packet - MLA Packet PDF

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1 MLA Two parts to MLA Style: 1. In-text (parenthetical) citation – you must indicate to your readers not only what works you used in writing the paper but also what you derived from each source and where in the work you found the material. Usually the author’s last name and a page reference are enough to identify the source and the specific location from which you borrowed material. Example: Medieval Europe was a place both of “raids, pillages, slavery, and extortion” and of “traveling merchants, monetary exchange, towns if not cities, and active markets in grain” (Townsend 10). The parenthetical reference “(Townsend 10)” indicates that the quotations come from page 10 of a work by Townsend. Given the author’s last name, your readers can find complete publication information for the source in the alphabetically arranged list of works cited that follows the text of your paper. 2. Works Cited – specifically formatted information about what you read, who wrote it, etc. so that readers can relocate it if desired, found at the end of your essay. If you cite anything within your essay, then a works cited page is required. Failure to include a works cited page is considered plagiarism. Example: Townsend, Robert M. The Medieval Village Economy. Princeton UP, 1993, p. 10. BOTH of these things are VITAL to the avoidance of plagiarism, which is: Plagiarism is the practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own.

When do you cite? In short, you should ALWAYS cite ANYTHING that didn’t spring from your brain. Don’t forget – ideas are considered property in the United States, so you have to give credit to those who originate ideas also, not just words – strange but true! What about facts you just know? That is what we call COMMON KNOWLEDGE, which does not need to be cited, ever: Common Knowledge • Standard information – major facts of history. • Folk, literature – the fairy tale of Snow White. • Commonsense observation – most people know, such as that inflation is most troublesome for people with low and fixed incomes. • Known phrases – Home is where the heart is. What about statistics and data? Can they be common knowledge? Yes, you must cite them as well. They are not common knowledge. There are THREE different types of citation: You must cite EVERY time you use a quotation, paraphrase, or summary.

How to use summary, paraphrase, and quotation: • Summaries, paraphrases, and quotations all require source citations. A summary of paraphrase without a source citation or a quotation without quotation marks and a source citation is plagiarism. • A summary is usually a much shorter version of an original paragraph or a longer passage. The summary should capture the main idea of the longer paragraph or passage. • Paraphrasing is to craft a restatement, in your own words, of what an original source is saying. You are examining a paragraph or passage and finding a way to accurately capture the original words in a different way. • When should you quote? You should quote when the source says something that

you don’t feel you can put in your own words better. You should also quote when you want to analyze or emphasize a particular passage within the source and the exact words of the author matter. • In each instance, you should provide some sort of in-text citation in order to protect yourself from plagiarism.

The actual, physical citation What does a traditional in-text citation look like? (Smith 75). Parenthesislastname pagenumberparenthesisperiod! This is the default – ALWAYS use this formula, unless it is an irregular source; meaning, you don’t have an author or page number. • If you have no author: You cite it by the title of the source being used. • If you have many authors: When a source has three or more authors, only the first one shown in the source is normally given. It is followed by et al. • If you have no page number: You will not list one. If it’s a website source, then you will list it with a paragraph number. For example: Parents can play a major part in preventing bullying. According to The Bully Project, “It’s common for parents to feel powerless and frustrated when their kids are getting bullied. But often parents don’t know it’s happening” (“Tools for Parents” par. 1).

Source incorporation (putting it in the right way!) You CANNOT drop quote bombs. A quote bomb is: When you are writing an essay and instead of leading into or mentioning where certain information came from, you throw in a quote. The reader has no idea if the quote is legitimate or even where it is from. The antidote to the quote bomb is the QUOTE SANDWICH:

The Research and citation should be information that is VITAL to making your argument. Never use information from another source just to use it. Your work should never be a series of sandwiches. Typically, 70-80% of a research paper should be your ideas and voice. We can avoid overdoing it by remembering that research’s function is to:

General rules for quotes: Short (Regular) Quotations: To indicate short quotations (fewer than four typed lines of prose or three lines of verse) in your text, enclose the quotation within double quotation marks. Provide the author and specific page citation (in the case of verse, provide line numbers) in the text, and include a complete reference on the Works Cited page. Punctuation marks such as periods, commas, and semicolons should appear after the parenthetical citation. Question marks and exclamation points should appear within the quotation marks if they are a part of the quoted passage but after the parenthetical citation if they are a part of your text. For example, when quoting short passages of prose, use the following examples: 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)? Long (Block) Quotations: For quotations that extend to more than four lines of verse or prose, place quotations in a free-standing block of text and omit quotation marks. Start the quotation on a new line, with the entire quote indented (tabbed) from the left margin (1/2 inch); maintain double-spacing. Your parenthetical citation should come after the closing punctuation mark. For example, when citing more than four lines of prose, use

the following examples: Over forty years ago, a Swedish graduate student of psychology named Dan Olweus conducted a study of aggression and victimization among one thousand sixthand eighth-grade boys (Bazelon 28). With the answers collected from this study: Olweus could identify the form of aggression that children told him they found particularly wounding. Boys suffered most acutely when they were the targets of repeated acts of aggression over time, acts from which they felt they couldn’t defend themselves. A fight between equals wasn’t the problem. The real damage was done by consistent domination of inflict pain. (Bazelon 28) The findings of this study prove to be true in Alex Libby’s case too. The boys in the study that were continuously targeted suffered as Alex did by his repeat offenders (Bully). Other in-text examples: Example for [sic]; quotes; author and page number One of these improvements was the developments of canals and steamboats, which allowed farmers to “sell what has previously been unsalable [sic]” and resulted in a “substantial increase in [a farmer’s] ability to earn income” (Danhof 5). Example for writing an idea of an author and page number Before 1820, the rural community accounted for eighty percent of consumption of farmers’ goods (Hurt 127). With the improvements in transportation, twenty-five percent of farmers’ products were sold for commercial gain, and by 1825, farming “became a business rather than a way of life” (128). Example of brackets and author with page number In his 1825 book Nature and Reason Harmonized in the Practice of Husbandry, John Lorain begins his first chapter by stating that “[v]ery erroneous theories have been propagated” resulting in faulty farming methods (1).

Rules for titles of sources: • Titles of larger pieces of work (sources) should be italicized for both in-text and the works cited page. They must be italicized every single time they are mentioned within the entire essay. For example: the title of a book, the name of an entire website, the title of a magazine or journal, the title of a recording album, the title of a movie, the title of a tv show. The Bluest Eye, The Bully Project, Glamour, Thriller, Pulp Fiction, Friends. • Titles of smaller pieces of work (sources) should be set off with quotation marks for both in-text and the works cited page. They must have quotation marks every single time they are mentioned within the entire essay. For example: the title of a chapter within a book, the title of a specific web page within a website, the title of a magazine or journal article within the magazine or journal, the title of a specific song on a recorded album, the title of a scene in a movie, the title of a TV show episode. “Autumn,” “Tools for Parents,” “How to Save Money,” “Beat It,” “Coffee Shop,” “The One with the Prom Video.”

Works Cited Rules • Works Cited is the last page in your document. If you have followed the page numbering throughout your essay, then it will be numbered as your last page. It should not appear in a separate document from your essay. • Works Cited should be centered, and it should appear at the top of the page. • It is Work Cited if you only have one citation on the page. It is Works Cited if you have more than one citation on the page. Works Cited has a capital W and C. • Works Cited is not bolded, italicized or underlined, and it does not appear as a larger font size. It should be Times New Roman 12 point font, like the rest of the essay. • You should list your entries in alphabetical order by the first letter in each entry. If the title starts with a number, then numbers are listed before letters. • If there is an author, then you always list the entry by their last name. • If there is no author, then you list the entry by the title of the source. • For every new entry, you will start the entry all the way to the left of the page. If the entry as typed goes to a second line or more, then you must indent the second or more lines. You will need to highlight the second or more lines, go to paragraph in the file section, click on the tiny arrow in the right corner, go to special, scroll down to hanging, and click on ok. You will need to do that for all entries with a second or more line. • There is no extra spacing in between each entry, and the Works Cited should be double-spaced, like the entire essay.

What’s New in the Eighth Edition of MLA The eighth edition of the MLA Handbook, published in 2016, rethinks documentation for an era of digital publication. The MLA now recommends a universal set of guidelines that writers can apply to any source and gives writers in all fields—from the sciences to the humanities—the tools to intuitively document sources. Learn more below about the changes to MLA guidelines. The List of Works Cited The eighth edition of the MLA Handbook introduces a new model for entries in the works-cited list, one that reflects recent changes in how works are published and consulted. Previously, a writer created an entry by following the MLA’s instructions for the source’s publication format (book, DVD, Web page, etc.). That approach has become impractical today, since publication formats are often combined (a song listened to

online, for example, could have been taken from a record album released decades ago) or are undefinable. In the new model, the work’s publication format is not considered. Instead of asking, “How do I cite a book [or DVD or Web page]?” the writer creates an entry by consulting the MLA’s list of core elements—facts common to most works—which are assembled in a specific order. The MLA core elements appear below:

In the new model, then, the writer asks, “Who is the author? What is the title?” and so forth—regardless of the nature of the source. Because of this fundamental change, the works-cited-list entries produced by the two approaches are different. Below are differences that might be overlooked by writers making the transition from the seventh edition. ABBREVIATIONS • Common

terms in the works-cited list like editor, edited by, translator, and review of are no longer abbreviated. The eighth edition provides a shorter list of recommended abbreviations (96–97). AUTHORS

• When

a source has three or more authors, only the first one shown in the source is normally given. It is followed by et al. (22). (Previously, the omission of coauthors was limited to sources with four or more authors and was presented as an option.) BOOKS AND OTHER PRINTED WORKS

• Page

numbers in the works-cited list (but not in in-text citations) are now preceded by p. or pp. (46).

• For books, the

JOURNALS

city of publication is no longer given, except in special situations (51).

• Issues

of scholarly journals are now identified with, for instance, “vol. 64, no. 1” rather than “64.1” (39–40).

• If an

issue of a scholarly journal is dated with a month or season, the month or season is now always cited along with the year (45).

ONLINE WORKS • The

URL (without http:// or https://) is now normally given for a Web source. Angle brackets are not used around it (48, 110).

• The

citing of DOIs (digital object identifiers) is encouraged (110).

• Citing

the date when an online work was consulted is now optional (53).

• Placeholders

for unknown information like n.d. (“no date”) are no longer used. If facts missing from a work are available in a reliable external resource, they are cited in square brackets (2.6.1). Otherwise, they are simply omitted.

PUBLISHERS • Publishers’ names

are now given in full, except that business words like Company (Co.) are dropped and, for academic presses, the abbreviations U, P, and UP are still used (97).

• A forward • The

slash (/) now separates the names of copublishers (108).

kinds of publications that don’t require a publisher’s name are defined (42).

• When

an organization is both author and publisher of a work, the organization’s name is now given only once, usually as the publisher (25). No author is stated.

MISCELLANEOUS • Full publication

information is now given for widely used reference works. Page-number spans are given for articles in alphabetically arranged reference books in print. In other words, reference works are treated like other works and are no longer subject to exceptions.

• The

medium of publication is no longer stated, except when it is needed for clarity (52).

In-Text Citations The principles behind in-text citations in MLA style are unchanged. A few details have been added or clarified, though: • For time-based

media like video, times are now cited in the text (57).

• The

use of my trans. to identify the writer’s translation of a non-English quotation is described (90–91).

• How

to shorten long titles when they have to be included in a parenthetical citation is clarified (117–18).

• The

common practice of documenting borrowings from Greek, Roman, and medieval works with part numbers, not page numbers alone, is described (122).

• The

punctuation used when various items are combined in one parenthetical citation is summarized (126–27).

• Ways

of formatting citations in research projects other than traditional papers are suggested (127–28). Other Aspects of Writing Following are new points that concern the writing in a research project:

• When

the title of a periodical (journal, magazine, newspaper) begins with an article (A, An, The), the article is now treated as part of the title: the article is italicized and its first letter capitalized. For example, the handbook previously specified “the Georgia Review” in text and “Georgia Review” in the works-cited list but now specifies “The Georgia Review” in all contexts.

• For works

in a language not written in the Latin alphabet, writers must choose between giving titles and quotations in romanization or in the language’s writing system (74, 91).

• Two • If a

forward slashes (//) mark stanza breaks in run-in quotations of verse (78).

block quotation of prose contains internal paragraphing, the first line of the quotation now begins without a paragraph indention even if one is present in the source (77)....