MLA CONVENTIONS

What, Why, and How?

General Formatting Titles & AuthorsIn-Text CitationsWorks CitedBrief MLA Citation Guide

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MLA stands for Modern Language Association, which is a professional association in the United States for scholars of language and literature.

MLA style is the style recommended by the Modern Language Association for preparing and writing scholarly manuscripts and student research papers. It concerns itself with the mechanics of writing, such as punctuation, quotation, and documentation of sources. MLA style has been widely used by schools, academic departments, and instructors for nearly half a century. MLA style provides writers with a system for cross-referencing their sources from their parenthetical references to their "works cited" page.

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, especially in writing on language and literature. 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.

WHAT IS MLA?

WHY USE MLA? Using MLA Style properly makes it easier for readers to navigate and comprehend a text by providing familiar cues when referring to sources and borrowed information. Editors and instructors also encourage everyone to use the same format so there is consistency of style within a given field. Following MLA's standards as a writer will allow you to:

- Provide your readers with cues they can use to follow your ideas more efficiently and to locate information of interest to them. - Allow readers to focus more on your ideas by not distracting them with unfamiliar or complicated formatting. - Establish your credibility or ethos in the field by demonstrating an awareness of your audience and their needs as fellow researchers (particularly concerning the citing of references).

There are several steps in your essay writing process where you will need to use MLA, including:WHEN DO I USE MLA?

(1) General Formatting

(2) Titles & Authors

(3) In-Text Citations

(4) Works Cited

In this chapter, we’ll show you how to use MLA for each of these 4 areas…

HOW DO I USE MLA?

The following explanations and examples will help familiarize you with the basic formatting requirements of MLA Style and the different standards for notation that MLA writers are expected to use. Pay attention to even the small details from basic paper layout to abbreviations to punctuation and spacing.

A well formatted essay sends a positive message to the reader that the writer has invested care, time, and attention into crafting the essay.

(2) Titles & Authors

PRACTICEPRACTICE

Find the TEN FORMATTING ERRORS in the first page of the following essay:

(Pause)

ANSWERS

(1) The font is too large at size 16

(6) When the novel is introduced, it needs to also list the author

(8) The main character is referred to by different informal nicknames not used in the text and one is misspelled. Always be accurate and consistent with character and author names and be sure they are spelled correctly.

(9) There is an extra space after the first paragraph and the second paragraph needs to be indented

(10) The margins are not one inch on each side

(5) The title “Revision of Essay #1” is generic, not creative and does not draw in reader interest

(3) In essay information in the top left, the class title is left out

(4) The page numbering in the top right has the professor’s last name, not the student’s

(7) The title of the novel is in quotes when it should be italicized

(2) The font is unconventional

The formatting errors have been corrected in the version here

ANSWERS

(3) In-Text Citations

#1

#2

(3) In-Text Citations—Continued

You can use Skyline’s Library page or other online sources to find the proper citation information to include based on the type of source you are citing, but in the Rhetoric there is also a brief guide for the most commonly types of sources cited.

The brief MLA guide in the Rhetoric includes:

Citation Format for Books:

Books with a single author

Books with two, three or more authors

Books with editor(s) rather than author(s)

Essay, article, story, poem or chapter in a book with an editor (if the book is an anthology of works by multiple writers)

Citation Format for eBooks

Citation Format for Articles from Periodicals (Magazines, Journals & Newspapers)

Citation Format for World Wide Web Pages

that concludes

MLA CONVENTIONS55