The Wadsworth Guide to MLA Documentation

1. WHY DO I HAVE TO WRITE A RESEARCH PAPER? 2. USING MLA AND OTHER STYLES OF DOCUMENTATION. Modern Language Association (MLA) Style. American Psychological Association (APA) Style. Chicago Manual of Style (Chicago/CMS) Style. American Political Science Association (APSA) Style. Linguistic Society of America (LSA) Style. Council of Biology Editors (CBE) Style. American Chemical Society (ACS) Style. American Mathematical Society (AMS) Style. 3. CHOOSING A TOPIC AND FINDING SOURCES. Choosing an Appropriate Research Strategy. Choosing a Topic. Narrowing Your Topic. Creating a Working Outline to Guide Your Research. Creating a Working Bibliography. Finding Sources in the Library. Searching for Sources on the Internet. Evaluating Research Sources. Taking Notes. 4. WRITING AND REVISING YOUR PAPER. Writing the Paper. Preparing a Final Outline for Your Paper. Preparing Your Works-Cited Page. Revising Your Paper. 5. FORMATTING YOUR PAPER. 6. SAMPLE GENERAL TOPIC RESEARCH PAPER. "The Story of Sarah Good: Guilty or Innocent?" 7. SAMPLE LITERARY ANALYSIS RESEARCH PAPER. "An Analysis of the Character Biff Loman in Death of a Salesman." 8. PREPARING YOUR BIBLIOGRAPHY. General Guidelines for Preparing Your Bibliography. Spacing of Punctuation Marks. Shortening Numbers. Preparing an Annotated Bibliography. Citing Titles Correctly in a Works-Cited List. Converting All Titles to MLA-Style. Italicizing Titles in a Works-Cited List. Using Quotations Marks around a Title in a Works-Cited List. Titles Not Italicized or in Quotation Marks in the Text of a Paper. Italicizing Titles of Published Editions of Sacred Works. Formatting the Names of Parts of a Work in the Text of a Paper. Formatting the Names of Parts of a Work in a Works-Cited List. Formatting First Lines of Poems as Titles in a Works-Cited List. Formatting Titles Containing Quotations. Formatting Titles Falling inside Other Titles. 9. CITING BOOKS AND PARTS OF BOOKS. Citing Books. Citing Parts of Books. Citing Anthologies and Works in Anthologies. Citing Essays. Citing Reprinted Essays, Articles, and Excerpts. 10. CITING PERIODICALS. What Is a Periodical? Citing Scholarly Journal Articles. Citing Popular Magazines. Citing Newspaper Articles. Citing Reviews from Journals, Magazines, and Newspapers. 11. CITING MISCELLANEOUS OTHER SOURCES. A Pamphlet with an Author Given. A Pamphlet with a Corporation or Organization Listed as an Author. A Government Publication. An Unpublished Dissertation. An Unpublished Master's Thesis. A Published Dissertation. An Abstract from Dissertation Abstracts International . A Film. A Videocassette or Digital Videodisc (DVD). A Television Program. A Television Interview. A Transcript of a Television Interview. A Radio Program. A Recording of a Classical Piece of Music. A Popular Song. Song Lyrics from an LP Liner or Compact Disc Booklet. Liner Notes or Booklet Essay from a Record or Compact Disc. A Music Video. A Map. An Advertisement in a Popular Monthly or Bimonthly Magazine. An Advertisement in a Popular Weekly or Biweekly Magazine. A Television Advertisement. A Cartoon. A Comic Strip. A Poster. A Poster Published in a Monthly Magazine. A Speech, Lecture, or Presentation. A Published Interview. A Personal Interview. A Telephone Interview. An E-Mail Interview. A Published Letter. An Unpublished Letter. A Memo. 12. CITING INTERNET AND CD-ROM SOURCES. General Guidelines for Citing Internet Sources. Citing Online Scholarly Journals. Citing Online Popular Magazines. Citing Online Newspaper Articles. Citing Other Miscellaneous Internet Sources. Citing Materials from a CD-ROM. 13. CITING MATERIALS FROM REFERENCE DATABASES. Citing Personal Subscription Databases. Citing Online Library Subscription Databases. Citing Abstracts of Articles. Citing Free Online Reference Databases. Citing Online Encyclopedias and Dictionaries. Citing Articles from Print Reference Books. Citing a De'nition from a Dictionary. Citing an Article from SIRS (Social Issues Resources Series) (Print Version). Citing Microform Databases. Citing CD-ROM Databases. 14. PARENTHETICAL CITATIONS. Author's Name Not Given in Your Sentence. Author's Name Given in Your Sentence. Author's Name Not Given in Source. Quotation Taken from Two Consecutive Pages. Two or More Works by the Same Author. Two Authors Not Named in Your Sentence. Three Authors Not Named in Your Sentence. Four or More Authors Not Named in Your Sentence. Works by Two Authors with the Same Last Name. Works by Two Authors with the Same Initial and Last Name. Citing Several Volumes of a Multivolume Work. Citing Paragraphs, Articles, Screen, Grids, or Items. Citing Several Works: A Work with an Organization as an Author. An Entire Work. Non-Print Sources. A Quotation from a Literary Work. Available in Many Editions. A Quotation from a Short Poem. A Quotation from a Long Poem. A Quotation from a Shakespearean or Other Classic Verse Play. A Quotation from the Bible. An Online Source. Quoting/Paraphrasing/Summarizing from an Indirect Source. General Knowledge of a Subject: No Parenthetical Citation Needed. Punctuating Parenthetical Citations: Short Quotations. Punctuating Parenthetical Citations: Long, Block Quotations. 15. ENDNOTES AND FOOTNOTES. 16. QUOTATIONS. Short Quotations. Long, Block Quotations. Indenting Paragraphs in a Block Quotation. Quoting Dialogue from a Novel or Short Story: Short Quotations. Quoting Dialogue from a Play: Short Quotations. Quoting Dialogue from a Play: Long Quotations. Quoting Poetry: Short Quotations. Quoting Poetry: Long Quotations. Parenthetical Citation for a Short Poetry Quotation. Parenthetical Citation for a Long, Block Poetry Quotation. Using an Ellipsis to Omit Lines of Poetry. 17. USING SQUARE BRACKETS IN QUOTATIONS. Use Brackets to Explain Something That Might Be Unclear to Your Reader or to Give Additional Information. Use Brackets to Clarify a Pronoun. Use Brackets to Change Verb Tenses. Use Brackets to Change a Capital Letter to a Lowercase Letter. Use Brackets to Change a Lowercase Letter to a Capital Letter. Use [sic] to Indicate an Error in Your Source. Do Not Use [sic] after Intentional Errors such as Dialect Spellings. 18. USING AN ELLIPSIS TO OMIT WORDS. No Ellipsis Is Needed with Quoted Phrases. Omitting Words from the Beginning of a Quoted Sentence. Ellipsis Used to Omit Words in the Middle of a Sentence in a Short Quotation. Ellipsis Used to Omit Words at the End of a Sentence in a Short Quotation. Ellipsis Used to Omit Words at the End of a Sentence in a Short Quotation. Ellipsis Used to Omit One or Several Sentences from the Middle of a Block Quotation. Ellipsis Used to Omit Material from the Middle of One Sentence to the End of Another in a Block Quotation. Ellipsis Used to Omit Material from the Middle of One Sentence to the Middle of Another Sentence in a Block Quotation. Ellipsis Used to Omit Material from the End of a Block Quotation. Using a Bracketed Ellipsis. Bracketed Ellipsis Used to Omit Material from a Quotation Already Containing an Ellipsis. Bracketed Ellipsis Used to Omit Materials from a Critical Analysis Containing an Indirect Quotation Already Containing an Ellipsis. Ellipsis Used to Omit One or More Lines from a Block Poetry Quotation. Ellipsis Used to Omit Material from the End of a Block Poetry Quotation. 19. PUNCTUATING QUOTATIONS. Using Single Quotation Marks Inside Double Quotation Marks. Altering End Punctuation. Placing Commas and Periods Inside Ending Quotation Marks. Placing Commas and Periods Inside Single and Double Ending Quotation Marks. Placing Semicolons and Colons Outside Ending Quotation Marks. Placing Question Marks and Exclamation Points When Used with Ending Quotation Marks. Punctuating a Short Quotation Ending in a Question Mark or an Exclamation Point. Punctuating Quotation Lead-Ins. 20. PARAPHRASING AND SUMMARIZING. Paraphrasing. Summarizing. Choosing What to Paraphrase or Summarize. 21. AVOIDING PLAGIARISM. Plagiarizing Papers from the Internet. 22. MLA-RECOMMENDED ABBREVIATIONS. General Guidelines. 23. SHORTENING THE NAMES OF PUBLISHERS. Works Consulted.