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BASIC RULES FOR FORMATTING
CITATIONS
There are also some basic rules that apply to all
citations or entries in your Works Cited list:
- All information for the Works Cited should
be taken from the title page not the book spine (MLA 3.6, 5.6).
- Underline or italicize titles
or names of books, journals, magazines, newspapers, films,
websites, and databases. Be consistent (MLA 5.6).
- Place “quotation marks” around
article titles. Also use quotation marks for the titles of
short stories, book chapters, poems, and songs (MLA 5.7). For
example:
“Happy
Birthday to You.”
- Capitalize the first letter of each word in
the titles of articles, books, journal/magazine titles, publishers,
and months. Don’t capitalize prepositions (of, for),
conjunctions (and, but), and articles (a, an, the) unless one
is part of the first words of the title or subtitle (MLA 3.6,
5.6). For example:
The
Rain in Spain Stays Mainly
in the Plain:
A Brief History of
Spanish Weather.
- Authors’ names are inverted (last name
first); if a work has more than one author, invert only the
first author’s name, follow it with a comma, then continue
listing the rest of the authors. Spell out authors’ names
as they appear on the title page rather than use initials (MLA
5.6+). For example:
Hyde,
Margaret O., and
Elizabeth Held Forsyth.
Suicide: The Hidden
Epidemic.
Rev.
ed. New York: Watts,
1986.
- If the author’s name is unknown, alphabetize
by the title, ignoring any initial A, An, or The. If no author
is present, use the editor’s name. If no editor is present,
start with the book title or article title (MLA 5.5). For example:
“Dubious
Venture.” Newsweek 3
Jan. 1995: 64-65.
-
Divide an electronic or website address only
at a logical place, such as at a slash (/), period, or hyphen.
The address should be given inside angle brackets (MLA 5.9.1).
For example: <http://www.fbi.gov>
-
Elements of a citation are separated by a period
and one space (MLA 5.6.1+).
-
Abbreviate each month of the year with the
exception of May, June,
and July (MLA 7.2).
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