Guidelines for the Works Cited Section

1. Separate piece of paper
2. Center the title Works Cited at the top of the page.
3. Begin each entry flush with the left margin. If the entry runs more than one line, indent the second line five spaces.
4. Double-space each entry; also double-space between entries.
5. List each entry alphabetically by the author’s last name. If there is no author, use the first word of the title (disregard A, An, The).
6. Place commas, periods, colons, etc in the proper places.
7. Underlining and italics are the same thing, choose one.

Other Tips:

o Author’s names are inverted (last name first); if a work has more than one author, invert only the first author’s name, follow it with a comma, then continue listing the rest of the authors.

o If no author is given for a particular work, alphabetize by the title of the piece and use a shortened version of the title for parenthetical citations.

o Works Cited Page is always in alphabetical order!

Works Cited

Adeline, Mark. Love in Black and White. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1992.

Benjamin Johnson: Collected Stories. Vol. 2. New York: Library of America, 1992. 5

Vols.

Cartwright, David. “Memories of a Native Son.” People Weekly. 7 July 1996: 67-72.

Johnson, Martin. “Taking Woolf to the Door.” Literature Resource Center. 26 May

1990: 5 pp. Online. 14 March 1996. <http://www.cbrijlintl.edu>.

Lemon, Charles. “The FBI Underfire.” The CQ Researcher. 11 April 1997: 10 pp.

Online. 18 Sept. 2003. <http://www.library.cqpress.com>.

Book Citations

Author’s name (last name, first name). Title of book (underlined). City of publication:

publishing company, copyright date.

EXAMPLE:

Adeline, Mark. Love in Black and White. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1992.

Book or article with no author named

Encyclopedia of India. New York: Somerset, 1993.

Article in an Online Periodical

Author (last name, first name). Title of article (in quotations). Title of Magazine (underlined). Volume number (original publication date): page numbers. Name of database (underlined). Date of access (day month year) <URL within database>.

EXAMPLE:

Johnson, Martin. “Taking Woolf to the Door.” Educause Quarterly 25.2 (2002): 22-28.

Educause. 3 March 2005 <http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf>.

Database Information (to which a library subscribes)

Title of article (in quotations). Title of book/magazine/newspaper (in which it was originally published – underlined) Original publication date (day month year): starting page number. Database name (underlined). Name of service. Library/library system (with a city, a state abbreviation or both). Date of access (day month year) <URL of service’s home page>.

EXAMPLE:

“Cooling Trend in Antarctica.” Time May-June 2002: 15. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Gale Group. Plainfield South High School Media Center. 9 March 2005 <www.infotrac.galegroup.com/menu>.

Website Information

Author (last name, first name). Title of article (in quotations). Title of website

(underlined). Date article was created or last updated (if available): number of

printed pages. On-line. Date you printed up the information. <website

address>.

EXAMPLE:

Henry, Gary. “Story and Silence: Transcendence in the Work of Elie Wiesel.” PBS.

2002: 10 pp. On-line. 19 Oct. 2004.

<http://www.pbs.org/eliewiesel/life/henry.html>.

Reference Book (and other books featuring reprinted articles)

Author (last name, first name). Title of article (in quotations). Title of original publication. Date of original publication. Rpt. In Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Editor’s name. Volume Number. City Published: Research, year. Page number(s) referenced.

EXAMPLE:

Shayon, Robert Lewis. "The Interplanetary Spock." Saturday Review

17 June 1967. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed.

Sharon R. Gunton. Vol. 17. Detroit: Gale Research, 1981. 403-5.

Other things to remember:

*MLA format follows the author-page method of citation. This means that the author’s last name and the page number(s) from which the quotation is taken must appear in the text, and a complete reference should appear on your works-cited page. The author’s name may appear either in the sentence itself or in parenthesis following the quotation, but the page number(s) should always appear in the parenthesis, not in the text of your sentence.

*Remember to double-check the correct way to cite a quotation that is longer than four lines!

*If you add a word or words in a quotation, you should put brackets around the words to indicate that they are not part of the original text.

*If you omit a word or words from a quotation, you should indicate the deleted word or word by using ellipsis marks(…).