Journal
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One author
Entry in reference list
Author (Surname, Forename). "Title of Article." Journal Name, vol., no., Publication Date, page(s).
For example - reference list
Gorman, G. E. "The Plague of Plagiarism in an Online World." Online Information Review, vol. 32, no. 4, 2008, pp. 297-301.
For example - in text citation
…was argued (Gorman 297). OR Gorman (297) argues that …
Style notes
- When a work is published without an author's name, do not list the author as "Anonymous". Instead, skip the author element and begin the entry with the title.
- Initials used within the names of persons include a full stop followed by a space e.g. J. R. R. Tolkien (1.6)
- The names of months that are longer than four letters are abbreviated to three letters (e.g. Jan.) except September (Sept.). (1.6.1)
- Elements of citation:
- Author
- Title of the article (in quotation marks)
- Name of the periodical (italicised)
- Volume number (vol.)
- Issue number if available (no.)
- Date of publication
- Page number(s) (p., pp.)
See Handbook 27-28
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Two authors
Entry in reference list
Author 1 (Surname, Forename), and Author 2 (Forename Surname). "Title of Article." Journal Name, vol., no., Publication Date, page(s).
For example - reference list
Buljung, Brianna, and Catherine Johnson. "Up against the Clock: Migrating to Libguides V2 on a Tight Timeline." Information Technology & Libraries, vol. 36, no. 2, June 2017, pp. 68-86.
For example - in text citation
Using migration teams can spread the workload (Buljung and Johnson 75)
Style notes
- Elements of citation:
- Authors' names (see note below)
- Title of the article (in quotation marks)
- Name of the periodical (italicised)
- Volume number (vol.)
- Issue number if available (no.)
- Date of publication
- Page number(s) (p., pp.)
- When a source has two authors, list the authors in the same order they are presented in the work.
- In the reference list, invert the name of the first author only.
- For acceptable abbreviations, see 1.6 of the Handbook, (95).
See Handbook 21.
- Elements of citation:
-
Three or more authors
Entry in reference list
Author 1, et al. "Title of Article." Journal Name, vol., no., Publication Date, page(s).
For example - reference list
Fukao, S., et al. "1st VHF radar observation of midlatitude F-region field-aligned irregularities." Geophysical Research Letters, vol. 15, no. 3, 1988, pp. 768-770.
For example - in text citation
In a major study, (Fukao et al. 769) found that …
Fukao et al. (769) have argued that …
Style notes
- For works with three or more authors, invert the first author's name, and follow it with a comma followed by et al. (and others)
- Elements of citation:
- First author's name (inverted, followed by et al.)
- Title of the article (in quotation marks)
- Name of the periodical (italicised)
- Volume number (vol.)
- Issue number if available (no.)
- Date of publication
- Page numbers (p., pp.)
See Handbook 22.
-
Electronic source: online journal article from a database
Entry in reference list
Author. "Title of Article". Journal Name, vol., no., Publication Date, page number(s). Name of Database, doi.
For example - reference list
Ciccia, Angela Hein, et al. "Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Developments." Topics in Language Disorders, vol. 29, no. 3, 2009, pp. 249-65. Academic OneFile, doi: 10.1097/TLD.0b013e3181b53211.
For example - In text citation
…adolescence is an important time for intervention (Ciccia et al. 3)
Style notes
- When possible, cite a DOI (preceded by doi:) instead of a URL.
- Elements of citation:
- Author Name
- Title of article (in quotation marks)
- Journal Name (italicised)
- Volume (vol.)
- Issue Number if available (no.)
- Date of Publication
- Page Numbers (p., pp.)
- Title of the database (italicised)
- DOI (preceded by doi) where possible
For example, see Handbook (32).
For information on DOIs, see p. 110.
For information on three or more authors, see Handbook (22).
For page numbers, see Handbook (46).
MLA guides
This guide is based on the MLA Handbook. 8th ed., Modern Language Association of America, 2016. Copies are available from the University of Melbourne Library.
Additional information is taken from the MLA website: "What's new in the Eighth edition." MLA, www.mla.org/MLA-Style/What-s-New-in-the-Eighth-Edition and MLA Style Center, style.mla.org.
These online resources provide more detailed advice on how to cite in the MLA style:
- Blog: "Behind the Style." MLA Style Center, style.mla.org/category/behind-the-style.
- FAQs: "Ask the MLA." MLA Style Center, style.mla.org/category/ask-the-mla.
- MLA's The Source newsletters: "The Source Archive." MLA Style Center, style.mla.org/the-source-archive.
- Blog post: Rappaport, Jennifer. "Styling titles of online works." MLA Style Center, 18 December 2017, style.mla.org/styling-online-works.
MLA's Interactive Practice Template is a tool for learning MLA style, although it is not a citation generator.
Introduction to MLA
The MLA citation style uses parenthetical (in text) citations to identify an alphabetical list of references (Works Cited list) that appears at the end of the paper.
In text citations
MLA format follows the author-page method of in text citation. The author's last name and the page number(s) from which the quotation or paraphrase is taken must appear in the text, and a complete reference should appear in your Works Cited list.
The author's name may appear either in the sentence itself or in parentheses following the quotation or paraphrase, but the page number(s) should always appear in the parentheses.
Works Cited list
References in the list of works cited at the end of the paper are to be arranged as follows (2.7):
- Begin each entry flush with the left margin.
- For entries that run for more than one line, indent the subsequent line or lines by half an inch from the left margin. This format is sometimes called hanging indentation.
- References are listed alphabetically by the author's last name.
- If there is no author, alphabetise by the title.
- References in the text must clearly point to specific sources in the list of works cited.
In the 8th edition of the MLA Handbook, 2016, the work’s publication format is not considered. The MLA now recommends a set of guidelines that can be applied to any source. Instead of asking “How do I cite a book [or DVD or Web page]?”, the writer asks “Who is the author? What is the title?” and so forth—regardless of the nature of the source. The writer then 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 order in which they should appear; each element is followed by the punctuation mark shown unless it is the final element, which should end with a period (20).
- Author.
- Title of source.
- Title of container,
- Other contributors,
- Version,
- Number,
- Publisher,
- Publication date,
- Location.
An element should be omitted from the entry if it is not relevant to the work being documented.
New in the 8th Edition:
Abbreviations
Common terms in the works-cited list like editor, edited by, translator, and review of are no longer abbreviated. The 8th edition provides a list of recommended abbreviations (95–101).
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).
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 city of publication is no longer given, except in special situations (51).
Capitalization of Department Names
See the Ask the MLA article Should department names be capitalized in MLA style? for details.
Journals
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.
For further guidance on styling titles of online works, see this blog post:
- Rappaport, Jennifer. "Styling titles of online works." MLA Style Center, 18 December 2017, style.mla.org/styling-online-works/.
Publisher
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).
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.
Source is part of a larger work - Container
When the source being documented forms part of a larger whole, the larger whole can be thought of as a container that holds the source. The container is crucial to the identification of the source. The title of the container is usually italicised and followed by a comma.
The container may be a book that is a collection of essays, stories, poems, or other kinds of works (30).
Miscellaneous
The medium of publication is no longer stated, except when it is needed for clarity (52).
In-text citations
No punctuation is used in a basic parenthetical citation. It consists of an author's last name and a page number. When parenthetical citations are more complex, they must be punctuated for clarity. For example: citations of multiple sources, multiple works by the same author (126).
In the new 8th edition, the principles behind in-text citations in MLA style are unchanged. A few details have been added or clarified:
- 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).
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