MLA Style Help

Contact Info

jdownie@csusm.edu (Judith Downie) — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 11:08:33 -0800

Judith Downie

MLA Citations for Students

jdownie@csusm.edu (Judith Downie) — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 14:27:25 -0800

As you write your paper, you'll need to cite passages and ideas from the sources you've found. In order to cite your resources properly, you need to follow the style guide used by for this class, the MLA Handbook.

Sites with examples of in-text citations and works cited pages.

As students write their papers, they may find the following sites useful to supplement the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers.

MLA Citation Guide
Examples of how to cite the most-used sources from CSUSM.
Humanities: Documenting Sources
Diana Hacker's site demonstrating in-text and bibliographic formats.
Online! Using MLA to Cite and Document Sources
From BedfordMartins publishing company, lots of examples on citing electronic resources and web pages.
KnightCite
Citation generator--this is updated to the new MLA.

MLA handbook for writers of research papers.
7th ed. New York : Modern Language Association of America, 2009.

Library copies (LB2369 .G53)

Examples

jdownie@csusm.edu (Judith Downie) — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 15:20:30 -0700

MLA Style @ The Online Writing Lab (OWL)
A helpful MLA general format and style guide from Purdue University.

MLA Citation Guide (Scottsdale Community College)

Click on the 7th edition tab. Provides leads to the appropriate section in the print handbook as well as examples.

Diana Hacker's site on Research and Documentation in MLA (note this is still using the prior edition--UPDATE available at 2009 MLA update)

More sites will be added as they get updated. -jd 8.10.09

Citing Government Documents (note, this is using the prior edition of MLA, but much of the basics are still valid)

Contact Info

jdownie@csusm.edu (Judith Downie) — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 11:08:33 -0800

Judith Downie

Contact Info

jdownie@csusm.edu (Judith Downie) — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 11:08:33 -0800

Judith Downie

Citation Generators

jdownie@csusm.edu (Judith Downie) — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 13:25:24 -0700

These sites create your citations, but sometimes there are errors. Always double check your citations with an authoritative style guide.

Citation machine

Citation Builder @ University of North Carolina

Citation Management Software

Zotero: A free, easy-to-use Firefox extension to help you collect, manage, and cite your research sources.

Contact Info

jdownie@csusm.edu (Judith Downie) — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 11:08:33 -0800

Judith Downie

Citing a Reprint (CLC, databases, etc.)

jdownie@csusm.edu (Judith Downie) — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 14:28:22 -0800

What is a Reprint?

The word 'reprint' can be used in several ways, but for citation purposes in literature research, it is a work which has gathered previously-published materials from other sources and published (or digitized) these works in a new work (AKA anthology, collection or database) from a company that is not the original publisher.

None of the examples given here can be considered an original or primary source as the reprinted item may be edited for brevity or to correct a prior printing error. Any changes should be noted in the new work by the editors, but you, as the researcher should also check whether you are using the entire document if possible.

Examples of this type of publication that are found at CSUSM:

Ongoing series such as the various Gale Literary Criticism sets such as Contemporary Literary Criticism (AKA the CLC), Nineteenth Century Literature Criticism (NCLC), Short Story Criticism (SSC). There are many other sets from this publisher and others. These are serial collections, in that they continue to add volumes over time as new material is published or discovered.

Stand-alone anthologies can also contain reprints, generally in collections of short stories or essays. This does NOT refer to volumes that have been re-issued in their entirety, but works gathered from a variety of sources where they were originally published. An example would be The World of the Short Story: A Twentieth Century Collection, which gathers stories previously published in magazines or other sources. Each story or entry will be noted with permission to reprint in the collection you are examining.

Database collections such as JSTOR, Project Muse and Academic Search Premier, provide access to information originally distributed by many other publishers in print form. They may choose to not digitze supplementary material from the original publication and may not be equipped to include charts, graphs and illustrations that supplement or clarify the text. The original publication information will be provided and must be included in your citation with the reprint source information.

How to Cite Reprints (MLA style)

As you write your paper, you'll need to cite passages and ideas from the sources you've found. In order to cite your resources properly, you need to follow the style guide used in Literature & Writing Studies, the MLA Handbook (7th edition). MLA refers to these sources as 'reprinted works'.

New with the 7th edition:

Use italics (where it used to be underlining) in titles.
Provide "medium of publication" with each item. That may be Print, Web, Radio, DVD, PDF file and many more designations.
All journal and magazine entries use volume and issue numbers in the xx.x format.
NO MORE URLS or location of the database! Although a sponsor or publisher is required.

Books and Articles from MLA Handbook Section 5.5.6, "A Work in an Anthology".
The rule here is to cite the original then provide the reprint's information.

Monographic Example: (note the story "The Narrative" was originally published under its own title, so The Complete Works... is the reprint work. Because the "Narrative" is within a larger work, it is placed within double quotes.

Poe, Edgar Allen. "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym." The Complete Works of Edgar Allen Poe. Ed. James A. Harrison. 3. New York: AMS Press, 1965. 5-242. Print.

Serial Example (This example applies to the Gale literature criticism sets. Note the 'Rpt. in' phrase that leads to the collection that reprinted the item. If the reprint is an excerpt of the original published item, replace 'Rpt. in' with 'Excerpt from'.)

Keeley, Edmund. "T. S. Eliot and the Poetry of George Seferis." Comparative Literature 8 (summer 1956): 214-26. Rpt. in Twentieth Century Literary Criticism. Ed. Thomas J. Schoenberg and Lawrence J. Trudeau. vol. 213. Detroit: Gale Cengage, 2009. 251-258. Print.

Online access: use the appropriate format from Section 5.6.2 "A Nonperiodical Publication". The rule is to cite the item, then provide information on the website/database, version, sponsor/publisher and date of publication, medium and date accessed.