Ms. Effie’s
Standard MLA Bibliography Format

This is general information to help you make sure that you collect the information needed for a correct bibliography. Realistically, you will probably use a citation site like EasyBib or Citation Machine, but any generator works better if you have all the information you need for such a site. Also, seeing what a bibligraphy should look like will help you check the results generated on such a site.

An entry in a list of works cited characteristically has three main divisions--author, title, and publication information--each followed by a period and two spaces.

Notice that your indentions are the exact opposite of a paragraph—flush left for the first line,
spacerbut indent any following lines if the entry runs over. That way you can alphabetie easily and
spacersomeone can skim your bibliography looking for the last name of your soures. This makes
spacerchecking your citations easier.

If you are missing some piece of information anywhere along the way, move on to whatever piece you have. For example, if a work’s author is unknown, move on to the title.

Structure for Citing Books
Last Name, First Name. Title of the Work. Place:
Publisher, 20??, 0-00.
Samples
Lobdell, Jared. England and Always: Tolkien’s World of the Rings. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1991, 6-18.
Berry, Jason, Jonathan Foose, and Tad Jones. Up from the Cradle of Jazz. Athens: U of Georgia
Press, 2006.
Edens, Walter, et al., eds. Teaching Shakespeare. Princeton: Princeton U Press, 2017.

Structure for Citing Magazines (Periodicals)
Last Name, First Name. “Title of the Article.”
Title of the Magazine 00 Month 20??: 0-00.
Samples

Wheeler, David L. “Artificial-Intelligence Researchers Develop Electronic ‘Tutors’ to Aid
Learning Process.” Chronicle of Higher Education 20 May 2007: 6-8.
Zimmerman, Jerry L. “Why Vultures Make Good Neighbors.” National Wildlife June-July
2017: 16-20.

The goal of any citation is to allow you to retrieve information. Keep this in mind. Make sure that the information you provide will allow a repeat of your work. Punctuation and capitalization, especially in the “electronic address” of the resource, must appear just as it is used online. An entry for an online reference has the same three main divisions--author, title, and location information. The location information is just a bit more complicated.

Structure for Citing Online Sources
Last, First. “Title of the Work.” Title of Complete
Work/Site. protocol and address/path, date of
message or visit.

Online Services (aol, prodigy, compuserve, delphi)
Jones, Jerry. “Congresssional Investigations of the Waco Incident.” America Online: Newstand,
The New York Times, 8 May 2015.
Vince. James. “Suggestions for promoting collaborative writing in college composition.”
America Online: NCTE Forum/current topics/bulletin posting, 12 March 1996.

World Wide Web (www)
DiStefano, Vince. “Guidelines for Better Writing.” Inkspot. http://www.usa.net/
~vinced/home/better-writing.html, 9 January 2006.
Yule, James. “The Cold War Revisited: A Splintered Germany.” http://usa.coldwar.
server.gov/index/cold.war/Germany/germany.html, 5 March 2006.

Electronic Mail (email)
Robert, Eric. “Nile Research Project results.” email: student1@smallvillehigh.edu
3 February 2016.
Taylor, Barry. “My Oscar List.” email: taylor8072@aol.com, 23 January 2015.

Gopher
Chalmers, Andrea. Bosnia: A Country in Transition. gopher: nywer.net, Today’s News/
World News/Bosnia-Herzegovina, 5 February 2006.

File Transfer Protocol (ftp)
Hess, Hanna. Networking in the Information Age. ftp: 194.335.23.10, pub/research/
internet/network.txt, 5 February 2006.

Telnet
Brady, Larry E. Map of Iraqi Troop Movements for 1/9/96. telnet: fedworld.gov, Government
Information/CIA/Maps/Latest Maps/Iraq, 10 January 1996.

Usenet Newsgroups
Brown, David. Educational Insights 2005. usenet: k12.ed.research, 27 December 2005.

Internet Relay Chat (irc)
McBane, Lisa. IRC: telnet world.sensemedia.net:6677, #egypt, 8 March 2006.

Other Kinds of Sources

A Television or Radio Program
“Salute to Black and White.” Siskel & Ebert. Syndicated. WKY, Oklahoma City OK,
14 April 1992.

A Film
Dead Poets Society. Dir. Peter Weir. 128 min. Touchstone Pictures in assoc. with Silver
Screen Partners IV, 1989.

A CD-ROM
Cinemania 96. “Maltin’s 10 Favorite Movies.” Mac CD-ROM. Microsoft Corporation, 1995.

Interview
Williamson, Danny. Personal interview. 8 January 2007.

More about Citing Sources

Purdue University Online Writing Lab (OWL) includes specific directions for citing research, paraphrasing, quoting appropriately, and avoiding plagiarism. Linked to its own online tutorial. Offers both American Psychological Association (APA) format used in social sciences and Modern Language Association (MLA) format used in language arts and humanities.

Purdue Owl for Annotated Bibliographies

 

Updated 10 February 2017.

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