Using MLA

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As an academic writer, you will be required to use documentation to support your ideas and your point-of-view.  Knowing the standard way to cite sources and to document them is imperative.  The one that we will use in class in MLA (Modern Language Association.)

Two separate issues of documentation are involved when writing the academic paper:   embedding quotations and citing those citations.

Embedding Quotations:

Whether you paraphrase, summarize or quote directly, you must acknowledge that you did so.  The two most common ways to do so are

  1. Introduce the author, title and source in the sentence:

J. Brown, in her article, "The Raven's Call," published in Time, states, "Nature mimics life" (33).

bullet Note that the article's title is in quotation marks--the magazine's title is in italics.
bullet The direct quotation starts and ends with a quotation mark, followed by the page number in parenthesis.
bullet The end punctuation follows the entire quotation.

2. Where the quotation is more pertinent than the author and the source:

Many times we don't understand how "nature mimics life," so we don't pay attention to what happens to us (Brown 33).

bullet Here we use the quotation as part of our sentence; however, we have acknowledge that we borrowed the idea from another by enclosing it in quotation marks.
bullet We end the sentence with the citation which includes the last name and the page number--please note there is no punctuation or p. in front of the page number.
bullet The end punctuation follows the parenthesis.

To read more about embedding quotations, please read the handout which addresses that issue.

The Works Cited Page

The second part to documentation is the Works Cited page.   Traits   include:

bullet the phrase,  Works Cited, centered at the top of the final page of the document
bullet alphabetical listing of all sources USED in the paper
bullet author, title, and source  of all works listed in the paper

This seems pretty simple; however, it really isn't when you think of the numerous types of media that we use in our papers. Thus, you must use you handbook or the handouts I have created for you to help with this.  Please review the two handouts I have provided for you to help:  Electronic Sources and Traditional Sources.

Take the MLA Quiz. Good luck!

 

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Last revised: November 19, 2009 by Jan Strever -- jstrever@scc.spokane.edu
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