MLA Format and Citations All of the information comes from Purdue OWL Let’s do this!

Basic Format 12 point font Times New Roman Double Spaced 1” margins Last Name and Page # in Header Proper Heading

When You Don’t Need Citations Use common sense! No sources are necessary for: – Familiar proverbs – Well-known quotations – Common knowledge Remember your audience. – I don’t know everything, y’know.

Even if you are paraphrasing…. ….YOU STILL NEED TO CITE YOUR SOURCE. So, what do you do? – Type your sentences as you normally would. Maybe you have two or three sentences that you are paraphrasing. To avoid having to cite all of them, just cite at the very end, like this (Jensen 24). ALSO, periods and commas always go inside quotation marks.

In-Text Citations Author-page method – 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, not in the text of your sentence. For instance: – Example: Wordsworth stated that Romantic poetry was marked by a "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" (263). – Example: Romantic poetry is characterized by the "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" (Wordsworth 263).

In-Text Citations Continued Do not just use a quote from the book as a sentence. – It shows carelessness and is not scholarly. Incorporate the quote in a sentence. Only use the important words, if necessary. – If you are adding or formatting the quote, “remember to [use brackets like this] to help. Ellipses … are useful too” (Jensen 3).

Use Long Quotes Sparingly. If I find that you’re using lots of quotes to cushion your paper, then your grade will suffer. If one of your quotes goes over four lines of prose or more than three lines of verse, then you do this: – place quotations in a free-standing block of text and omit quotation marks, like this 

LONG QUOTE Nelly Dean treats Heathcliff poorly and dehumanizes him throughout her narration: – They entirely refused to have it in bed with them, or even in their room, and I had no more sense, so, I put it on the landing of the stairs, hoping it would be gone on the morrow. By chance, or else attracted by hearing his voice, it crept to Mr. Earnshaw's door, and there he found it on quitting his chamber. Inquiries were made as to how it got there; I was obliged to confess, and in recompense for my cowardice and inhumanity was sent out of the house. (Bronte 78) Continue your paragraph like normal.

Citing the Bible In your first in-text citation, tell which Bible you are using (and underline or italicize the title), as each version varies in its translation, followed by book (do not italicize or underline), chapter and verse. For example: Ex. Ezekiel saw "what seemed to be four living creatures," each with faces of a man, a lion, an ox, and an eagle (New Jerusalem Bible, Ezek ). List only the book, chapter, and verse in any other parenthetical citation.

Quoting Verse (Shakespeare) NO page numbers Your in-text citation has the act, scene, and line numbers separated by periods. – Ex. Twelfth Night ( –76). Ex. In 3.1, Hamlet delivers his most famous soliloquy. – Do not say: “In Act III, scene i, Hamlet delivers his most famous soliloquy.” Use / to separate lines of verse.

Electronic and Internet Sources Include in the text the first item that appears in the Work Cited entry that corresponds to the citation (e.g. author name, article name, website name, film name). Do not include URLs in-text; only provide partial URLs. – Ex. According to CNN.com…..

Work(s) Cited Work(s) Cited Page ABC order Double Spaced If one entry is more than one line, it should look like this: Author’s Name jflkdjflkdjflkdsjflsdjkfldkjfldksjflsdkjflkjsdfkjdlfkjs fdfdfdfdfsdljflsdkjflkjdlfjsldfkjldjflsdjflsdjfldkjfdf

Citing Your Book Free E-Book online: – Last Name, First. Title in Italics. Publishing City: Publisher, Year Published. Project Gutenberg. Web. 8 May Actual Print Copy – Last Name, First. Title in Italics. Publishing City: Publisher, Year Published. Print.

More Help with Citing Google Purdue OWL MLA for more specifics If you’re feeling lazy, and I know you are, use Son of Citation Machine. It’s so much better than EasyBib, which is not always right. – – Even is good.