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BASIC RULES

BASIC CITATIONS

SAMPLE WORKS CITED

CITING:

EXERCISE
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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