MLA 7 Style Sheet

List of Works Cited:

Dispite the first line, indent the following lines ½ inch or 1.25cm

Book with One Author:

Last name, First Name. Title of Book. Place of Publication: Publisher, Year of Publication.
Medium.

Franke, Damon. Modernist Heresis: British Literary History, 1883-1924. Columbus: Ohio
State UP, 2008. Print.

Two or More Works by the Same Author(s):

Works listed under the same name are alphabetised by title.

Borroff, Marie. Language and the Poet: Verbal Artistry in Frost, Stevens and Moore.
Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1979. Print
---, trans. Pearl. New York: Norton, 1977. Print.

Book with Two Authors:

Author 1, and Author 2. Title of Book. Place of Publication: Publisher, Year of Publication.
Medium.

Broer, Lawrence R., and Gloria Holland. Hemingway and Women: Female Critics and the
Female Voice. Tuscaloosa: U of Alabama P, 2002. Print.

Book with More Than Three Authors:

Either give all authors in the order they are named on the cover page or reference as follows:

Author 1, et al. Title of Book. Place of Publication: Publisher, Year of Publication. Medium.

Plag, Ingo, et al. Introduction to English Linguistics. Berlin: Mouton, 2007. Print.

Book in a Series:
The series name is usually added after all the usual information.

Neruda, Pablo. Canto General. Trans. Jack Schmitt. Berkeley: U of California P, 1991. Print.
Latin Amer. Lit. and Culture 7.

Article from a Reference Rook:

If the article is unsigned/ name of the author is unknown, give the title first. If the reference
book is widely known and published in several editions, condense the usual information.

“Ginsburg, Ruth Bader.” Who’s Who in America. 62nd ed. 2008. Print.

In case of a rare and specific reference book or one that appeared in only one edition, give a
full-length entry, excluding page numbers.
Allen, Anita L. “Privacy Health Care.” Encyclopedia of Bioethics. Ed. Stephen G. Post. 3rd
ed. Vol. 4. New York: Macmillan-Thompson, 2004. Print.

Introduction, Foreword, Preface, etc.:

Author. Section. Title of the Publication. By Publication’s Author. Editor’s Name(s). Place:
Publisher, Year. Page Numbers. Medium.

Borges, Jorge Luis. Forword. Selected Poems, 1923-1967. By Borges. Ed. Norman Thomas
Di Giovanni. New York: Delta-Dell, 1973. xv-xvi. Print.

A Work in an Anthology:
Author. “Title of Work.” Editor’s Name(s). Title of Collection. Edition. Place of Publication:
Publisher, Year of Publication, Pages. Medium.

Bordo, Susan. “The Moral Content of Nabokov’s Lolita.” Aesthetic Subjects. Ed. Pamela R.
Matthews and David McWhirter. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 2003. 125-52. Print.

An Anthology:
Editor’s Name, Role. Title of Anthology. Place of Publication: Publisher, Year of Publication.
Medium.

Kepner, Susan Fulop, ed. and trans. The Lioness in Bloom: Modern Thai Fiction about
Women. Berkeley: U of California P, 1996. Print.

Magazine Article:
Author. “Title of Article.” Title of Publication Day Month Year: Pages. Medium.

McEvoy, Dermot. “Little Books, Big Success.” Publishers Weekly 30 Oct. 2006: 26-28. Print.

Newspaper Article:
If an edition is named on the masthead, add a comma after the date and specify the edition.
For sections labelled with letters and paginated separately, the section letter is sometimes part
of each page number

Leave out the publications’ articles if they are national ones. Keep them in international
publications.

If the article starts on one page and then skips to another, indicate only the page number in
which the article begins and add a “plus”, +.

Author. “Title of Article.” Title of Publication Day Month Year, Edition: Pages. Medium.

Jeromack, Paul. “This Once, a David of the Art World Does Goliath Favor.” New York Times
13 July 2002, late ed.: B7+. Print.

Article in a scholarly journal:

Author. “Title of Article.” Title of Journal Volume.Issue (Year): Pages. Medium.

Piper, Andrew. “Rethinking the Print Object: Goethe and the Book of Everything.” PMLA
121.1 (2006): 124-38. Print.
Book or Article with no Author Named:
Encyclopedia of Virginia. New York: Somerset, 1998. Print.

“It Barks! It Kicks! It Scores!” Newsweek 30 July 2001: 12. Print.

Interview:
Name of Person Interviewed. “Title of Interview.” Publication. Interviewer (if available). The
remaining info as according to the medium.

Blanchett, Cate. “In Character with: Cate Blanchett.” Notes on a Scandal. Dir. Richard Eyre.
Fox Searchlight, 2006. DVD.

For a personal interview:

Reed, Ishmael. Telephone Interview. 10 Dec. 1997.

ELECTRONIC SOURCES:
For web sources: MLA 7 requires the URL only if a site cannot be located otherwise. It is
then added as the last information, in <...>.

If a web publication is also available in print, it is legitimate to include the print data, hinting
at the end towards the web source and the date accessed.

Child, L. Maria, ed. The Freedmen’s Book. Boston, 1866. Google Book Search. Web. 15 May
2008.

Film or Video Recording:

Title. Director. Screenwriter. Producer. Performer. Distributor, Year. Medium.

Like Water for Chocolate [Como agua para chocolate]. Screenplay by Laura Esquivel. Dir.
Alfonso Arau. Perf. Lumi Cavazos, Marco Lombardi, and Regina Torne. Miramax,
1993. Film.

Article in Online Journal or Magazine:

Author. “Title of Article.” Title of Journal. Volume.Issue (Year): Page. Medium. Date of
Access.

Ouellette, Marc. “Theories, Memories, Bodies, and Artists.” Reconstruction 7.4 (2007): n.pag.
Web. 5 June 2008.

A Periodical Publication in an Online Database

Author. “Title of Article.” Title of Journal. Volume.Issue (Year): Pages/Paragraphs/Sections.
Name of Database. Medium. Date of Access.

France, Anatole. “Pour la Paix, pour la Liberté.” New Age 5 Sept. 1907: 297-98. The
Modernist Journals Project. Web. 5 June 2008.

Professional or Business Web Site:

Sometimes, the date of the site publication tends to be the date of the last update.
Site Title. Date of Site Publication. Name of Sponsoring Business/Institution. Medium. Date
of Access.

American Verse Project. 16 May 2001. U of Michigan Humanities Text Initiative. Web. 21
July 2005.

Common Abbreviations:
In the list of works cited, try to abbreviate as much as possible. Else, abbreviations are not
that common in your research text (possibly in parenthetical references). Particularly time
designations, geographic names and literary classics*, e.g. by Shakespeare, Chaucer, Voltaire,
Cervantes etc, are usually abbreviated. The most common field, however, are the publisher’s
names.

* An extensive list of abbreviations can be found in the latest edition of the MLA (7 th) in
chapter 7.

Publisher’s Names:
Omit articles (A, An, The), business abbreviations (Co., Corp., Inc., Ltd.), and descriptive
words (Books, House, Press, Publishers). When citing a university press, however, always
add the abbreviation P (Ohio State UP) because the university itself may publish
independently of its press (Ohio State U).
If the publisher’s name includes the name of one person, cite the surname alone. With more
than two names of people, use only the first one.
If the publisher’s name is a common abbreviation that is likely to be known by your readers,
use the abbreviation.

Here are common abbreviations of publishing houses:

ACLS American Council of Learned Societies

ALA American Library Association
Cambridge UP Cambridge University Press
Feminist The Feminist Press at the City University of New York
Gale Gale Research, Inc.
Gerig Gerig Verlag
GPO Government Printing Office
Harper Harper and Row, Publishers, Inc.; HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.
Houghton Houghton Mifflin Co.
Macmillan Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc.
MIT P The MIT Press
MLA The Modern Language Association of America
NEA The National Education Association
Norton W.W. Norton and Co., Inc.
PUF Press Universitaires de France
Random Random House, Inc.
Scribner’s Charles Scribner’s Sons
Simon Simon and Schuster, Inc.
State U of New York P State University of New York Press
St. Martin’s St. Martin’s Press, Inc.
U of Chicago P University of Chicago Press
UP of Mississippi University Press of Mississippi
no place = N.P.: U of Gotham P, 2008.
no publisher = New York: n.p., 2008.
no date = New York: U of Gotham P, n.d.
no pagination = New York: U of Gotham P, 2008. N. pag.

Parenthetical Documentation for in-text Citation:

In MLA style, the author’s last name and the page number(s) from which the quotation or
paraphrase is taken must appear in the text. A complete reference should appear in your works
cited list. The author’s name may appear either in the sentence or in parentheses following the
quotation or paraphrase, but the page number(s) should always appear in the parentheses, not
in the text of your sentence.

Ellipsis are indicated through three spaced periods.

Ellipsis in the Middle of a Quotation:

“Medical thinking . . . stressed air as the communicator of disease, ignoring sanitation or
visible carriers” (Tuchman 101-02).

Ellipses coincides with the End of a Sentence:

Here, use four periods of which the very last indicates the end of the sentence; the first on eis
not preceded by an empty space.

“Medical thinking, trapped in the theory of astral influences, stressed air as the
communicator of disease. . . .”

Should the ellipses be followed by a parenthetical documentation, use three spaced periods
and finish the sentence with a period after the parenthesis.

“Medical thinking, trapped in the theory of astral influences, stressed air as the
communicator of disease . . .” (Tuchman 101-02).

Direct Quotation:
It may be true that “in the appreciation of medieval art the attitude of the observer is of
primary importance...” (Robertson 136).

It may be true, as Robertson maintains, that “in the appreciation of medieval art the attitude
is of primary importance...” (136).

Paraphrase:
In his Autobiography, Benjamin Franklin states that he prepared a list of thirteen values
(135-37).

In-Text Citation of an Internet Source by an Unknown Author (use a shortened version

of the title followed by the page or paragraph number):
While riding the metro in Ireland, “passengers should take care of their personal
belongings, both in the Stations and whilst traveling on the trains” (Irish Rail par. 4).
Two or More Direct Citations in One Paragraph:
If you borrow more than once from the same source within a single paragraph and no
borrowing from another source intervenes, you may give a single parenthetical reference after
the last borrowing.

Citing a Work Listed by Title:

In a parenthetical reference to a work alphabetised by title in the list of works cited, the full
title (if brief) or a shortened version precedes the page, paragraph, section, or reference
number or numbers (if any). Abbreviate from the beginning of the title so as the reader will
look up the full citation in the list of works cited.

The nine grades of mandarins were “distinguished by the colour of the button on the hats
of office” (“Mandarin”).

Citing Two or More Works by the Same Author:

In a parenthetical reference to one of two or more works by the same author, put a comma
after the author’s last name and add the title of the work (if brief) or a shortened version and
the relevant page reference.

Shakespeare’s King Lear has been called a “comedy of the grotesque” (Frye, Anatomy
237).

For Northrop Frye one’s death is not a unique experience, for “every moment we have
lived through we have also died out of into another order” (Double Vision 85).

In the same manner, dependent publication (i.e. essays, articles etc.) are shortened in
quotation marks.

(Moulthrop, “Traveling” 56)

(Moulthrop, “You Say” par. 19)

Citing indirect sources:

Sometimes, only an indirect source might be available for your citation. If what you quote or
paraphrase is itself a quotation, put the abbreviation qtd. In (“quoted in”) before the indirect
source you cite in your parenthetical reference.

Samuel Johnson admitted that Edmund Burke was an “extraordinary man” (qtd. in Boswell
2:450).