English Language and Its Uses 2

The Academic Essay: Works Cited

in MLA Style, 9th ed. 2021

Prof. Carolina Núñez Puente

 How to Write a Research Essay. By Laura Turner
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-OJlywFP-A

1. Choose a very specific topic—neither “China” nor

“The Olympics in Beijing, 2008.” Pare it down (i.e. reduce
it), e.g.: “Ladies’ gymnastics in the Olympics in Beijing,
2008”
 2. Gather research about your topic (this means looking
for and reading articles, book chapters, books, etc.)

3. Start by writing freely about your topic

4. Format your information into paragraphs

5. Write a good introductory paragraph which has the

essay’s topic [ladies’ gymnastics], the structure (i.e.
subtopics: rhythmic gymnastics with a ribbon, a hoop and
clubs) and the thesis statement

6. [Add a body, a conclusion and a list of works cited]

-------

i.e.: id est (that is)

e.g.: exempli gratia (for example)
 What Are Footnotes and Endnotes?

Footnotes are at the bottom of the page; endnotes

appear at the end of the work. In both cases, they are
numbered within the text and also before the notes
themselves. They must be written in a font 2 times
smaller than the one used for the main text (in our case,
TNR size 10). In MLA style footnotes are preferred over
endnotes.

Footnotes are used to add something extra to your

argument. This means that, if the reader skips the
footnote, s/he will still be able to understand the writer’s
point(s). If the reader reads the footnote, s/he will be
more enlightened on what is discussed in the paper.
Finally, a short essay must have very few footnotes
or none at all.
 When and Why to Cite Other Peoples’ Work
in an ACADEMIC ESSAY

You must not cite other people excessively or include very

long quotations; besides, you must not quote for the sake of it or
in a vacuum. When you quote other people’s work, you mainly
do it for two reasons:

1) to support, strengthen, and illuminate your argument, AND/OR

2) to contradict what is said by other people in order to argue
something different or new.
 In-text Citations:
How to Deal with References “in” the Main Text of your Paper

If the quotation is shorter than 4 lines, you need to include it

within the main text between inverted commas.

You can mention the person you are quoting before the quotation
itself. When doing this, you only need to add the page number from
where you took the quotation, e.g.: According to Gillian Roberts:
“Blah, blah, blah” (13).

If you don’t mention the person’s last-name at the beginning, you

must write it in brackets right before the page number where the
quotation is, i.e.: “…” (Roberts 13). Remember that you may cite
other people’s words in order to criticize them, instead of agreeing
with them.
 If you quote from the same author repeatedly, you only
need to mention her/his name once, and then add just the
page numbers—unless you are not intertwining that author’s
name with others. E.g.:

As Dale Bauer says “………………” (18), which adds

evidence to my argument. She continues that “……………”
(29). Lynne Pearce agrees that “……………….” (181), which I
consider …………. However, I must add that “……………”
(Bauer 233), something which I will comment upon below.
 OTHER CASES

If you use quotations from two books written by the

same author, shorten their titles after the author’s
surname, e.g.: (Moore “Ugly” 213); (Moore Birds 58).

If you use a quotation that was already cited by another

author in his/her work, write qtd. in (i.e. “quoted in”) plus the
author’s last name and the page number: (qtd. in Brown 95)

Quoting from an audiovisual text requires that you

provide the hour and minute (or the minute and second)
when the particular quotation starts, e.g.: (12:37). Citing a
fragment from an unpaginated article, for instance one from
the internet, requires providing only the author’s last name,
e.g.: (Lanser).
 If the quotation is longer than 4 lines, you need to isolate it
into a separate paragraph without quotation marks. In the last
case, you should also reduce the font size (from 12 to 11) and
widen the margins. See the following example from a book of
mine:
 Nevertheless, Conrad Shumaker explains the problematic of the writer-
reformer as follows:

There is a tension between the feminist writer’s role as realist

and her role as reformer. As a practitioner of realism as defined
by [William Dean] Howells (that is, someone who proposes to
show us “life as it is” in order to show why it must be changed),
the writer must respect the conventions that make up a large
part of what the audience will accept as “reality.” Yet if
women’s role is what the writer wants to reform, then those
very conventions must be attacked. (87)

I will try to prove that Gilman is both using established conventions (e.g. realism,
the gothic) and parodying them. I consider this play with genres an intentional
attack on patriarchal norms of gender.

If you add a comment after a quotation with indentation, do

not use first-line indentation when starting to insert your
comment

Finally, left alignment is more popular than justified

alignment right now
 Plagiarism is a theft
Etch these words on your memory

You must always name other critics and put their words between
inverted commas. Even if you don’t quote the exact words but you only
paraphrase, you STILL have to add the author’s name, the page
numbers (but not the inverted commas), and the source where you took
that information from (in the list of Works Cited).
In the Faculty of Arts & Letters (UDC), the assignments containing
plagiarism are given 0 credits.
Read more about plagiarism in the MLA document provided on
Moodle.
Some academic sites to look for scholarly, and
thus reliable, articles are JSTOR (UDC), LION
(UDC), Google Scholar, and academia.edu. The
system is now changing and, in the near future,
you will only have to type one or more words in
the search box and the computer will do the
search for you. Just in case, I am including the
steps of how to use JSTOR below.
Searching for Electronic Articles through JSTOR at the UDC

-Go to the library webpage: www.udc.es/biblioteca

-Go to the top and click on Recursos de información

-Click on Revistas Electrónicas

-Click on J to find JSTOR - Artes y Ciencias I, II y III

-Search for an article by entering a topic, an author’s name, etc. You

will see a list of articles. Choose the ones that seem more useful for
your paper. Download them or read them online

*If you access from outside the university, you’ll have to click on
Acceder desde fuera and enter your username and password
 How to Write Your List of “Works Cited” in MLA Style, 9th ed. 2021

ITALICS are only used for titles of BIG DOCUMENTS such as

BOOKS, MAGAZINES, JOURNALS, MOVIES, WEBSITES, ETC. The
titles of SMALL DOCUMENTS (articles, songs, poems, etc.) go between
“INVERTED COMMAS”

Book
Okuda, Michael, and Denise Okuda. Star Trek Chronology: The History
of the Future. Pocket, 2021.

Journal Article
Wilcox, Rhonda V. "Shifting Roles and Synthetic Women in Star Trek:
The Next Generation." Studies in Popular Culture, vol. 13, no. 2,
Spring 2020, pp. 53-65.

The above abbreviations refer to Volume (13) and Issue number (2) respectively
Chapter/Essay in an Anthology

James, Nancy E. “Two Sides of Paradise: The Eden

Myth According to Kirk and Spock.” Spectrum of the
Fantastic, edited by Donald Palumbo, Greenwood,
2022, pp. 12-19.

*Note on book chapters:

Last name, Name. “Title of chapter.” Title of the book

where that chapter is included, editor’s first and last
name(s), editorial press, year, page where chapter
starts-page where chapter ends.
*IMPORTANT: If you cite two chapters/essays from the
same book/anthology, follow these example—remember to
include the details of the anthology in a separate entry but
always in alphabetical order. E.g.:

L'Eplattenier, Barbara. “Finding Ourselves in the Past: Re-

watching Star Trek.” Rose and Weiser, pp. 131-40.

Peeples, Tim. “More Sunshine and Less Star Trek.” Rose

and Weiser, pp. 153-67.

Rose, Shirley K., and Irwin Weiser, editors. Star Trek

Returns. Heinemann, 2018.
An Entire Website
Editor’s, author’s, or compiler’s name (if available). Name of
Site. Name of institution/organization affiliated with the site
(sponsor or publisher), date of resource creation (if
available; if unavailable write n.d.), URL (without https//).
Date of access.

Article on an Online Database

Byrd, Patricia. “Star Trek Lives: Trekker Slang.” American
Speech, vol. 53, no. 1, Spring 1978, pp. 52-58. JSTOR,
www.jstor.org.accedys.udc.es/stable/pdf/455340.pdf.
Accessed 10 Sep. 2022.

*Notes on databases: write the name of the database in

italics.
 IMPORTANT Notes for all the Bibliographical Entries

1. Arrange the items on your reference list alphabetically if

possible by author, interfiling books, articles, etc.

2. If you list more than one item by the same author/s, put ___.
before writing the second entry; also list the titles alphabetically.

3. If no author is given, start with the title.

4. Double space all lines and use hanging indentation (sangría

francesa)

5. Abbreviate the names of all months except May, June, and

July.
 Two websites to help you learn how to write a
research essay and create a list of works cited in
MLA (and other) style(s) are

The Purdue OWL (Online Writing Lab at Purdue University)

https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/mla_style
/mla_formatting_and_style_guide/mla_formatting_and_styl
e_guide.html

The Modern Language Association

https://style.mla.org/works-cited/works-cited-a-quick-guide/