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Citation Style Guides

MLA Basics - 9th Edition (2021)

  • A list of sources cited in your paper is entitled: Works Cited
  • The MLA template of core elements provides a quick guide and some example citations. The name of a core element can cover a a variety of situations, e.g. the Author might be an individual, a group, an organization, or a government.
  • The Works Cited list is alphabetized by authors' last names (or by title in the case of works with no author).
  • The list should include all sources from which you have quoted, paraphrased, or summarized.

Standard format for a book:

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

Standard format for a journal article:

Fischer, Michael. "Wittgenstein and Modernism." Philosophy and Literature, vol. 42 no. 2, 2018, pp. 463-466. Project Muse, https://doi.org/10.1353/phl.2018.0033.

MLA Citations

 

Authors

One Author:

Sejersen, Frank. Rethinking Greenland and the Arctic in the Era of Climate Change: New Northern Horizons. Routledge, 2015.

 Two Authors:

     Olsen, Gregg, and Rebecca Morris. If I Can't Have You.  St. Martin's True Crime, 2015.

Three or More Authors

Abramson, Paul R., et al. Change and Continuity in the 2012 and 2014 Elections. Sage, 2016. 

Organization as Author:

United States Congress Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. The Case for Climate Change Action: Hearing before the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, United States Senate, One Hundred Eighth Congress, First Session, October 1, 2003. Washington: U.S. Government Publishing Office, 2015. 

Unknown Author

"Wolf. Canis lupus." Animals, National Geographic, http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/wolf/

Books (print)

 

Basic format for a Book

Higgs, Catherine. Chocolate Islands: Cocoa, Slavery, and Colonial Africa. Ohio UP, 2012. 

Book with an Author and an Editor:

Gatewood, Charles B. Lt. Charles Gatewood and His Apache Wars Memoir. Edited by Louis Kraft, U of Nebraska P, 2005. 

Books with Editor(s)

Jarrett, Gene, editor. The Wiley Blackwell Anthology of African American Literature. Wiley-Blackwell, 2014. 

Graphic or illustrated Book

Auster, Paul. City of Glass. Illustrated by Pual Karasik and David Mazzucchelli. Picador, 2004. 

Book with an Author using a Pseudonym

Rand, Ayn [Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum]. The Fountainhead. Plume, 2005. 

Edition
Include edition if other than the first.  Include the number of the edition (1st, 2nd. 3rd, etc.).

Melville, Herman. Moby-Dick; or, The Whale. 150th anniversary ed., Penguin Books, 2001.

Multivolume Work

Stark, Freya.  Letters.  Edited by Lucy Moorehead. Compton, 1974-82. 8 vols.

Encyclopedia or Dictionary Entry

"Harmonic Analysis." The Harvard Dictionary of Music, edited by Don Michael Randel. 4th ed., Belknap Press, 2003, pp. 375-76.

Sacred Text

The Scofield Study Bible. New International Version. Edited by C.I. Scofield and Doris Rikkers. Oxford UP, 2004. 

Forewords, prefaces, introduction, or afterwords

Ryan, Alan. Foreword. Karl Marx, by Isaiah Berlin, Princeton UP, 2013, pp. xix-xxix.

Book with a title in its title

Sarat, Austin, and Martha Merrill Umphrey. Reimagining To Kill a Mockingbird: Family, Community, and the Possibility of Equal Justice Under Law. U of Massachusetts P, 2013. 

Book in a series

Tolkien, J. R. R. The Fellowship of the Ring. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1982. The Lord of the Rings.

Entire anthology

Miles, Jack, editor. The Norton Anthology of World Religions. W.W. Norton, 2015.

One selection from an anthology

Heywood, John. “The Play of the Weather (c. 1533).” The Oxford Anthology of Tudor Drama, edited by Greg Walker, Oxford UP,  2014, pp. 118-143. 

 

Books (electronic)

 

Publisher's e-book version

Black, Jeremy. Clio's Battles: Historiography in Practice. E-Book ed., Indiana UP, 2015.

E-Book from a database

Osborne, John. Rome in the Eight Century: A History of Art. Cambridge UP, 2020. Cambridge Core, https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108876056.

E-Book published on a website

Gaskell, Elizabeth Cleghorn. North and South. 1854. Project Gutenberg, 2003, https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4276

Entry in an online reference work

Quant, John F. “Asylum.” The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and Law. Oxford UP, 2015. www.oup.com/sjdf/395/article.html.

 

Articles (print)

Article in journal

Byford, Andy. "The Russian Diaspora in International Relations: ‘Compatriots’ in Britain." Europe-Asia Studies, vol. 64, no. 4, 2012, pp. 715-735.

Article in magazine (monthly)

Cheryomkin, Mikhail. “Beyond the World of the Living.” Russian Life, Sept.-Oct. 2015, pp. 28-33.

Article in magazine (weekly)

Koonse, Emma. “Mind, Body & Spirit.” Publisher’s Weekly, 14 Sept. 2015, pp. 25-28. 

Article in daily newspaper

Rubin, Alissa J. “Doctors Without Borders Exits Afghan City as Fight Worsens.” The New York Times, 5 Oct. 2015, late ed., p. A1. 

Abstract of journal article

Majid, Abdul, et al. "Peace in Sri Lanka." Abstract. South Asian Studies, vol. 30, no. 1, 2015, pp. 37-43.

Article with a title in its title

Rinaldi, Sergio, et al. “A Mathematical Model of ‘Gone with the Wind.’” Physica A, vol. 392, no. 15, 2013, pp. 3231-9. 

Editorial or other unsigned article

“Rein In Online Fantasy Sports Gambling.” New York Times, 5 Oct. 2015, p. A22. Op-ed.

Letter to editor

Ross, Martin E. “Money for Wildfires.” Letter. New York Times, 5 Oct. 2015, p. A22. 

Book or Film Review

Wong, Kate. Review of The Changing Arctic Landscape by Ken Tape. Scientific American, vol. 303, no. 2, 2010, p. 90.

Articles (electronic)

 

Article in a scholarly online journal

Cro, Melinda A., and Sara K. Kearns. "Developing a Process-Oriented, Inclusive Pedagogy: At the Intersection of Digital Humanities, Second Language Acquisition, and New Literacies." Digital Humanities Quarterly, vol. 14, no. 1, 2020, http://digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/14/1/000443/000443.html. 

Article from a database, with a DOI

Fischer, Michael. "Wittgenstein and Modernism." Philosophy and Literature, vol. 42 no. 2, 2018, pp. 463-466. Project Muse, https://doi.org/10.1353/phl.2018.0033.

Article from a database, with a Permalink

Nwagwu, Cordelia C. "The Environment of Crises in the Nigerian Education System." Comparative Education, vol. 33, no. 1, 1997, pp. 87-96. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/3099568.

Report

Patterson, Regan F. Gender, Climate and Transport in the United States. Women's Environment and Development Organization (WEDO), July 2021, https://wedo.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/WEDO_PolicyBriefonTransport_July15.pdf

Magazine article

Chrisman-Campbell, Kimberly. "Neckties Are the New Bow Ties." The Atlantic, 18 July 2021, https://www.theatlantic.com/
ideas/archive/2021/07/pandemic-will-change-course-necktie-history/619465/

Newspaper article

Specia, Megan. "On England’s Canals, Boaters Embrace the Peace and Pace of a Floating Life." The New York Times, 20 July 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/20/world/europe/england-canal-boats-permanent-homes.html

Editorial in online newspaper

Editorial Board. "Should Young Americans Be Required to Give a Year of Service?" The New York Times, 1 May 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/01/opinion/us-national-service-draft.html

Letter to editor

Anderson, Nels, Jr. "Homelessness: Consolidate Effort." The Seattle Times, 16 July 2021, https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/homelessness-consolidate-effort/

Websites

Web page with author

Cummings, Michael. "Telling Stories with Library Data." The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 21 July 2021, https://www.metmuseum.org/perspectives/articles/2021/7/library-data-stories

Web page with no author

"Fiction Writing Basics." Purdue Online Writing Lab, Purdue University, 2021, https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/subject_specific_writing/creative_writing/fiction_writing_basics/index.html

Website written and published by an organization

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Cornell University, 2021, https://www.birds.cornell.edu/home

Web page with no title

O’Brien, Rachel. Home Page. Allegheny College, 2009, www.allegheny.edu/robrien.

Website with author using a pseudonym

Podcast Answer Man [Cliff Ravenscraft]. “422-Creating a Resource knowledge Base.” Podcast Answer Man, ABCNews, 16 Oct. 2015, www.podcastanswerman.com.

Digital archives

Russell, Andrew J. Statuary on the Capitol. Washington, D.C. 186?.  M4013. Andrew J. Russell Photographs of the American Civil War. Special Collections and University Archives, Colgate University Libraries, https://digitalcollections.colgate.edu/object/arussellphotos34

Kraft, Victor. Aaron Copland with Leonard Bernstein. Circa 1940. Library of Congress Digital Collections, https://www.loc.gov/item/copland.phot0013/

Entry on a blog

Mintz, Steven. "Seize the Power of Experiential Learning." Inside Higher Ed, 27 July 2021, https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/higher-ed-gamma/seize-power-experiential-learning. Higher Ed Gamma.

Entry in a wiki

“Honey.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 17 Mar. 2015, www.wikipedia.org/honey.

Twitter

Obama, Barack (@POTUS44).  "Today, progress is on the ballot. Go vote - then make sure your friends, your family, and everyone you know votes too."  Twitter, 8 Nov. 2016, https://twitter.com/POTUS44/status/796018814072672256?s=20

Audio & Visual Resources 

Podcast

"The Future of the Physical Campus." The Key, hosted by Doug Lederman, episode 49, Inside Higher Ed, 16 June 2021, insidehighered.com/audio/2021/06/16/ep-49-future-physical-campus

Musical score

Del Tredici, David. Acrostic Song: From "Final Alice." 1976. Boosey & Hawkes, 1984. 

Sound recording

Beyonce.  "Pray You Catch Me."  Lemonade, Parkwood Entertainment, 2016. Spotify app.

Video uploaded to a sharing site

“Khan Academy: The future of education?” YouTube, uploaded by CBS_News, 11 Mar. 2012, www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkdzy9vkww3.

Film viewed on physical media

Inception. Directed by Christopher Nolan, Warner Home Video, 2010. DVD.

Film viewed through a streaming service

Personal Gold: An Underdog Olympic Women's Cycling Team Story. Hybrid Entertainment, 2016. Kanopy, www.kanopy.com

CD

Beethoven, Ludwig van. Piano trio No. 3 in C Minor. Performance by Suk Trio, Supraphon Music, 2008. CD.

Computer software or video game

Bungie. Halo 2. Microsoft Game Studios, 2004, Xbox.

Radio broadcast

"Gitana: Romani Music and Its Influences." Exploring Music, hosted by Bill McGloughlin, WCNY, 16 Aug. 2021.

Television broadcast

Inside Edition. ABC, 18 Aug. 2021

Live performance

Beckett, Samuel. Waiting for Godot. Directed by Sean Mathias, 26 Oct. 2013, Cort Theatre, New York City. 

Lecture

O’Sullivan, Roison. Lecture. "The Irish Debt Crisis: Origins and Lessons for the Future." Program on Economic Freedom and the Center for Freedom and Western Civilization, 28 Oct. 2015, Colgate University, Hamilton, New York.

Work of art

Monet, Claude. Meadow with Haystacks at Giverny. 1885, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. ARTstor, www.artstor.org/image/9348skkdf923.

Cartoon

Watterson, Bill. “Calvin and Hobbes.” Uticaod.com, 10 Aug. 2021, https://www.uticaod.com/go-comics/?amu=/calvinandhobbes/2021/08/10. Accessed 19 Aug. 2021.

Map, chart, or table

Iceland. U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, 1981, https://www.loc.gov/resource/g6930.ct001395/?r=-1.066,-0.19,3.131,1.459,0. Map.

 "Table 702.10. Percentage of Children Ages 3 to 18 Living in Households with a Computer, by Type of Computer and Selected Child and Family Characteristics: Selected years, 2013 through 2019. Digest of Education Statistics, National Center for Education Statistics, 2020, https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d20/tables/dt20_702.10.asp

Legal

Law

Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003. Pub. L. 108-173. 117 Stat. 2066. 8 Dec. 2003. 

Court Case
First plantiff v. first defendant.  Volume, name, page number of law report.  Court name.  Year of decision.  

Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections. 383 U.S. 663. Supreme Court of the United States. 1966. Supreme Court Collection. Legal Information Inst., Cornell U. Law School, 2012.  

Personal Communications

Email

Olsen, Mary. E-mail to the author. 16 June 2021.

Text message

Sanders, Todd. Text message to the author. 4 May 2019.

Written communication

Barnum, Olivia. Letter to the author. 11 Nov. 2020. Typescript.

 

Other

Government document

United States. National Science and Technology Council. Committee on Environment and Natural Resources. “Scientific Assessment of the Effects of Global Change on the United States.” U.S. Global Change Research Program. National Science and Technology Council, May 2008.

Pamphlet or brochure 

Worldwide Cycling Adventures. Intrepid Travel, 2020, https://www.intrepidtravel.com/sites/intrepid/files/Intrepid_Cycling_2020.pdf. Brochure.

Dissertation 

Bishop, Karen Lynn.  Documenting Institutional Identity: Strategic Writing in the IUPUI Comprehensive Campaign. Purdue University, 2002. UMI, 2004.

Conference proceedings 

Mann, Jill. "Chaucer and the 'Woman Question." This Noble Craft: Proceedings of the Tenth Research Symposium of the Dutch and Belgian University Teachers of Old and Middle English and Historical Linguistics, Utrecht, 19-20 January 1989. Ed. Erik Kooper. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1991. 173-88.

Published interview

Gordimer, Nadine. Interview with Charlie Breed. New York Times, 10 Oct. 1991, C25. 

Personal Interview

Smith, Jane. Personal interview. 23 Oct. 2015.

Published letter 

Wollstonecraft, Mary. Letter to George Blood. 25 August, 1786. Collected Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft. Edited by Ralph M. Wardle, Cornell University Press, 1979, 111-12. 

Personal letter

Phelps, Barnaby. Letter to the author. 1 August 2010. MS.

Manuscript

Nala, A. Teaching vocabulary: Evidence from research in Pig Latin. 1998. TS Brigham Young University.

Items from Colgate's Special Collections and University Archives
General format:  Author (if known).  Title (if known).  Date (if known).  Box #, Folder #.  Collection name.  Name and location of repository.

Dunlap Jr., Orrin E.  "Communications in Space."  1962.  M2001.  Orrin E. Dunlap, Jr. papers.  Special Collections and University Archives, Colgate University Libraries, Hamilton, NY.  

Dataset

Milberger, Sharon. Evaluation of Violence Against Women With Physical Disabilities in Michigan, 2000-2001. ICPSR version. Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research, 2002.