Citing Sources & Style Elements of a Research Paper Using The Appropriate Formatting Style. Data Assembled by Ms. Huggins

 MLA stands for the Modern Language Association. Each year they publish two publications, the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers (for high school and undergraduate students) and the MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing (for graduate students, scholars, and professional writers).

 All fields of research agree on the need to document scholarly borrowings  But documentation conventions vary because of the different needs of scholarly disciplines.  MLA style for documentation is widely used in the humanities.  Generally simpler and more concise than other styles, MLA style features brief parenthetical citations in the text keyed to an alphabetical list of works cited that appears at the end of the work.

For purposes of this paper you will need to follow the following stylistic guidelines:  1” margins  12 point Times New Roman font  Your Last Name and page number in the header  ½” indention for each new paragraph  Parenthetical Citation to include author last name and page number (Huggins, 45)  Works Cited Page

 Depending on your teachers preferences you will need one of the following:  Cover Page or a heading on the first page—both would include your name, class subject, teacher’s name, the period you have that Teacher, and the date of the paper.  You will also need a title for your paper that is centered but not bold, not underlined, and not in a larger font than anything else.

Name Teacher Course Date Last Name, Page # Title ½ “ Indent 1” Margins

Go to the Page Layout page to set margins, adjust indents, and remove the built in spacing. You will set the lines setting to double in a later step.

If you need to adjust the header go to Insert tab and then the drop down box for the header.

 Whenever you are using another persons words, ideas, or thoughts you must give them credit. Listing them in the works cited page is important but it is not the only place you need to acknowledge the originator of the material you are using.  Always cite the source, otherwise it is plagiarism which is intellectual property theft.

 Here is an example of parenthetical citation within the paper. How is the citation punctuated?

 Because this particular source came from a database that did not provide page numbers, no page number is listed at the end of the quote and the author has been acknowledged.

 Ellipsis simply means to leave out and can be very effective in getting what you need from a quote without over doing it. See the example below.

 Here is the key element in setting up your work cited page.  Follow these steps when setting up your work cited page in Microsoft Word.

 Here is an example of a source entry on a works cited page. What do you notice about the way it is indented? Does anything else stand out to you?

 There are numerous places of reference on the internet. These include but are not limited to:  Purdue OWL:MLA Formatting and Style Guide  MLA Style Page Format—California State University  EasyBib: Free Bibliography Generator-MLA,APA, …  MLA Citation Style | Cornell University Library  Citation Machine : Format & Generate Citations APA, MLA, …  If you have further questions, see me and I will assist you. Happy writing.