FIND🔍 LIBRARY
ACCOUNT ASK A
QUESTION BOOK A
LIBRARIAN
Common Sources
BOOK
Last Name, First Name. Title of Book. City of Publication, Publisher, Publication Date, DOI if accessible.
Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. New American Library, 1980.
CHAPTER IN A BOOK
Last Name, First Name. “Chapter Title.” Title of Book. City of Publication, Publisher, Publication Date, pp.xx-xx.
Melville, Herman. “Hark!” Moby Dick or The Whale, illustrated by Rockwell Kent, Modern Library, 1982, pp. 284-85.
E-BOOK
Twain, Mark. Adventures of Tom Sawyer. ElecBook, 2001. Ebrary, site.ebrary.com/lib/wscc/
detail.action?docID=10015112.
MAGAZINE ARTICLE, PRINT
Hiatt, Brian. “The Final Years.” Rolling Stone, no. 1254, 11 Feb. 2016, pp. 46-49.
MAGAZINE ARTICLE, ONLINE DATABASE
Hiatt, Brian. “The Final Years.” Rolling Stone, no. 1254, 11 Feb. 2016, pp. 46-49. Expanded Academic ASAP, ezproxy.western.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsgea&AN=edsgcl.449902544&site=eds-live.
JOURNAL ARTICLE, PRINT
Baron, Naomi S. “Redefining Reading: The Impact of Digital Communication Media.” PMLA, vol. 128, no. 1, Jan. 2013, pp. 193-200.
JOURNAL ARTICLE, ONLINE DATABASE
Valadez, James, and Richard Duran. “Redefining the Digital Divide: Beyond Access to Computers and the Internet.” High School Journal, vol. 90, no. 3, Feb.-Mar. 2007, pp. 31-44. ERIC, ezproxy.western.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ757023&site=eds-live
NEWSPAPER, PRINT
Campoy, Ana. “Cultural Rift Spurs Secession Drive in Colorado.” Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition, vol. 262, no. 50, 28 Aug. 2013, p. A4.
NEWSPAPER, ONLINE
Angier, Natalie. “Eugenia Cheng Makes Math a Piece of Cake.” The New York Times, 2 May 2016, www.nytimes.com/2016/05/03/science/eugenia-cheng-math-how-to-bake-pi.html.
WEBSITE
A&E Television Networks. History.com. 2016, www.history.com/.
PAGE OR ARTICLE ON A WEBSITE
Bradford, Alina. “Wolf Facts: Gray Wolves, Timber Wolves & Red Wolves.” Livescience, 9 June 2014, www.livescience.com/27909-wolves.html.
CITING LEGAL CASES
The MLA handbook doesn’t specifically address legal cases. Taking into account the rules of MLA 8th, we recommend this citation format for a court case:
Format:
Corporate Author Name. Name of Plaintiff v. Name of Defendant. Year of Court Decision. Title of Website or Database, URL.
Example:
United States, Supreme Court. Agostini v. Felton. 1997. LexisNexis Academic, http://www.lexisnexis.com/lnacui2api/api/version1/getDocCui?lni=3S65-HXX0-003B-R16K&csi=6443&hl=t&hv=t&hnsd=f&hns=t&hgn=t&oc=00240&perma=true.
In-Text:
(United States, Supreme Court)
If you have more than one court case from the same court system in your Works Cited, you’ll need to specify between them in the body of your paper. We recommend adding the plaintiff name in italics, like below:
In-Text:
(United States, Supreme Court. Agostini)
The Core Elements
AUTHORS
One Author:
Baron, Naomi S. “Redefining Reading: The Impact of Digital Communication Media.” PMLA, vol. 128, no. 1, Jan. 2013, pp. 193-200.
Two Authors:
Dorris, Michael, and Louise Erdrich. The Crown of Columbus. HarperCollins Publishers, 1999.
Three or More Authors:
Jaimangal-Jones, Dewi, et al. “Exploring Dress, Identity and Performance in Contemporary Dance Music Culture.” Leisure Studies, vol. 34, no. 5, 2015, pp. 603-20. Taylor & Francis Journals, doi: 10.1080/02614367.2014.962580.
Corporate Author:
American Allergy Association. Allergies in Children. Random, 1998.
Corporate Author that is also the Publisher:
United Nations International Study on Firearm Regulation. United Nations, 1998.
Other:
Gellar, Sarah Michelle, and Alyson Hannigan, performers. Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Mutant Enemy, 1997-2003.
Nunberg, Geoffrey, editor. The Future of the Book. U of California P, 1996.
OTHER CONTRIBUTORS
Austen, Jane. Sense and Sensibility. Edited by Claudia Johnson. Norton, 2001.
Chartier, Roger. The Order of Books: Readers, Authors, and Libraries in Europe between the Fourteenth and Eighteenth Centuries. Translated by Lydia G. Cochrane, Stanford UP, 1994.
VERSIONS
The Bible. Authorized King James Version, Oxford UP, 1998.
Newcomb, Horace, editor. Television: The Critical View. 7th ed., Oxford UP, 2007.
NUMBERS
Rampersad, Arnold. The Life of Langston Hughes. 2nd ed., vol. 2, Oxford UP, 2002.
Clowes, Daniel. David Borning. Eightball, no. 19, Fantagraphics, 1998.
PUBLICATION DATES
Months: Use 3-letter abbreviations for months longer than 4 letters. Always include a period after the abbreviation:
Jan.,Feb., Mar., Apr., May, June, July, Aug., Sep., Oct., Nov., Dec.
Days are listed before months:
28 Dec. 2015
9 July 2012
LOCATIONS
Page Numbers: Use pp. for multiple pages and p. for a single page.
Jaimangal-Jones, Dewi, et al. “Exploring Dress, Identity and Performance in Contemporary Dance Music Culture.” Leisure Studies, vol. 34, no. 5, 2015, pp. 603-20. Taylor & Francis Journals, doi: 10.1080/02614367.2014.962580.
Melville, Herman. “The Lamp.” Moby Dick or The Whale, illustrated by Rockwell Kent, Modern Library, 1982, p. 613.
ONLINE WORKS
Include a permanent or stable URL, if available. (website or online database)
Some journal articles are assigned a DOI number. If it is provided, use it instead of the URL. For online databases, include the name of the database.
Bradford, Alina. “Wolf Facts: Gray Wolves, Timber Wolves & Red Wolves.” Livescience, 9 June 2014, www.livescience.com/27909-wolves.html.
Chan, Evans. “Postmodernism and Hong Kong Cinema.” Postmodern Culture, vol. 10, no. 3, May 2000. Project Muse, doi:10.1353/pmc.2000.0021.
Langhamer, Claire. “Love and Courtship in Mid-Twentieth-Century England.” Historical Journal, vol. 50, no. 1, 2007, pp. 173-96. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/4140170.
MLA Handbook by 
Abstract page in database:
Title page & Verso title page (aka Copyright page):
Title page & Verso title page (a.k.a. Copyright page):
Chapter first page:
Database info page:
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