MLA Style Sheet
(Short Version)
Do not switch between different systems. As a general rule, the documentation of sources should be in the form of endnotes (at the end of the essay) or footnotes (at the end of each page), which are to be numbered consecutively. In foot- and endnotes the whole paragraph should be spaced in from the regular margin. Book titles and magazine names should be in italics (or underlined). Please make sure that the first note referring to a source provides all the relevant bibliographical details as specified, e.g., in the MLA Handbook 4th edition. In particular, you should indicate the book's publisher and also mention the first and last pages of articles, stories, etc., from collections or magazines before giving the page of your quotation. Please avoid the use of "ibid.", "op.cit." etc. and make sure brackets and punctuation marks are where it is suggested in order to avoid unnecessary confusion. For details see the following MLA Handbook examples.
Spacing in foot- and endnotes
1 Frank McConnell, Storytelling and Mythmaking: Images from Film and Literature (Oxford/New York: Oxford UP, 1979) 32.
First Reference
A book by a single author
2 Frank McConnell. Storytelling and Mythmaking: Images from Film and Literature Oxford UP, 1979.
A book by multiple authors
3 Clyde E. Blocker, Robert H. Plummer, and Richard C. Richardson, Jr., The Two-Year College: A Social Synthesis. Prentice, 1965.
A work in an anthology or a collection of essays
4 Gabriel García Márquez, "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings," "Leave Storm" and Other Stories, trans. Gregory Rabassa (New York: Harper, 1972) 105.
An "edition"
5 Crowley, Sharon, and Debra Hawhee. Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students. 3rd ed., Pearson, 2004.
A republished book
6 E.L. Doctorow, Welcome to Hard Times. 1960. Bantam, 1976.
A book in a series
7 Arnold P. Hinchcliffe, Harold Pinter, rev. ed., Twayne's English Authors Series 51 Twayne, 1981.
An unpublished dissertation
8 Graban, Tarez Samra. "Towards a Feminine Ironic: Understanding Irony in the Oppositional Discourse of Women from the Early Modern and Modern Periods." Dissertation, Purdue University, 2006.
An article in a journal with continuous pagination
9 Karen Spear, "Building Cognitive Skills in Basic Writers," Teaching English in the Two-Year College 9 (1983): 94.
An article in a journal that pages each issue separately
10 Frederick Barthelme, "Architecture," Kansas Quarterly 13.3-4 (1981): 77-78.
An article from a daily newspaper
11 Jane Brody, "Heart Attacks: Turmoil beneath the Calm," New York Times 21 June 1983, late ed.: C1.
An article in a reference book
12 "Ideology." The American Heritage Dictionary. 3rd ed., 1997.
Subsequent References
After a work has been fully identified in a note, it is subsequently cited with the author's last name and the relevant page numbers.
13 Frye 345-347.
14 Barthelme 77.
If two or more authors with identical surnames or two or more works by the same author are cited, use a shortened form of the title in references after the first.
15 Frye, Anatomy 278.
16 Frye, Critical Path 1-10.
17 Barthelme, "Architecture" 77.