Correct Forms for Selected Bibliography or Works Cited

A book by one author:

Lobdell, Jare. England and Always: Tolkien's World of the Rings. Grand Rapids: Erdmans,

     1981.

A book by two or more authors.

Give the names in the order they appear on the title page.

Berry, Jason, Jonathan Foose, and Tad Jones. Up from the Cradle of Jazz: New Music

     Since World War II. Athens: U of Georgia P, 1986.

An article from an encyclopedia such as European Authors:

Mowry, George E. "The Progressive Party, 1912 and 1924." History of U.S. Political Parties.

     Gen. ed. Arthur M. Schlesinger. Vol. 3. New York: Chelsea, 1973, 2541-669. 4 vols.

Check to see if your book is an edition or translation since they require special forms as well.

An article from a magazine:

Prince, Dinah. "Marriage in the '80s." New York 1 June 1987: 30-38.

(note to students: New York is the name of a magazine)

An article from a scholarly journal:

Cope, Jackson I. "Bernini and Roman Commedie Ridicolose. PMLA 102 (1987): 177-86.

Internet

More and more research is on the web. In the same way you have a "basic" format for a book, a "basic" for a web also exists.

You should provide the following information:

Name of author

Title of document

Publication date (if available)

URL (in angle brackets) or path followed to locate the site; slashes separate menu choices

Date of access (in parentheses)

Author’s name. "Title of the Document." Information about print publication. Information about

     electronic publication. Access information.

Begin with the title of the document if no author’s name appears on the site. The author’s name may be at the beginning or the end. Look at your website and click on a link that may say "About us" in order to find the author or authors.

Example:

Jensen, Sven. "The Art of Denmark." Artists Today. 5 March 2007:46-94. Art and Experience.

     2007. Danish Association of Art and Culture. 18 April 2008

<http://www.danishmag.org/art_today>

If the web site includes an author, the author comes first (last name, first name) just as in the example from the magazine.

The MLA system of documentation uses in-text documentation. Place the documentation in a parenthesis at the end of the sentence, after quotes (if it is a quotation), and before the period. Include the author's last name followed by the page number(s) (Gibaldi and Achtert 137). If you are using information from several consecutive pages, it is acceptable to hold off on documentation until you have exhausted those pages and then include them (137-140). Gibaldi and Achtert state that if you introduce the author of your source in the sentence, you need not include the name in your parenthesis (137-138). If you do not use the name, it must occur in the parenthesis (Gilbaldi and Achtert 138). If you have two or more sources by the same author, you need to include an abbreviation of the work after the last name of the author. If you have two authors from two different sources, use a semi-colon to separate (Hansen 45; Hoagland 60). Basically, you document when you change page numbers, change paragraphs, or change sources.

Don’t forget to use attributive tags when you are paraphrasing. The following is an example of a paraphrased sentence as opposed to a direct quotation).

Mr. Hoagland mentioned that, in many ways, British imperialism from the time period we are studying parallels many modern issues (class notes).

Here’s what it would look like if I had captured his exact words:

Mr. Hoagland asserts, "Many issues today parallel the age of imperialism, especially as you look at the British empire during that time" (class notes).

 

 

Works Cited

Gibaldi, Joseph. Ed. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. 6th ed. New York: The

     Modern Language Association of America, 2003.