MLA

The Modern Language Association (just like the American Psychological Association and others) have come up with a standardized system for your documentation to avoid confusion and…well, I assume that’s why they did it. As to whether it worked or not, well, you decide.

Citations are used for three important purposes:

• To give credit to whoever wrote the information. Failure to do so (unless the information belongs in the common domain—if it’s something everybody knows and no one person deserves credit for it) is theft, called plagiarism, and is perhaps the most serious academic crime.
• By citing your references, interested readers can more easily find them and review them for greater depth.
• Citations show that you have done your homework, that you haven’t made everything up yourself, that some "expert" agrees with your views, and that you are a responsible writer. They make your paper more credible. Remember that the quality of your sources also matters—Newsweek is not as reliable on many matters as professional journals or books.

The main thing to remember as you write and revise your paper is to keep track of all the publishing information that you will need for your final draft. Many professors ask you to keep your notes on 3x5 cards. Sounds like busy work to me, so I’ll let you do it however you like, but do it! Otherwise you’ll spend a lot of time looking up your sources twice to get it right. Read on to figure out just what information you’ll need to collect.

MLA is generally used in the humanities, while APA is used for most sciences. I don’t expect you to memorize MLA standards, but I do expect you to do it correctly on your paper and to be familiar with the most basic aspects of it. For your convenience, I’ve listed some of the basics here:

In Text Documentation:

• First off, you don’t need a title page. Just put your name, your prof’s name (mine’s spelled with a u), the class name (English 1010, College Writing 1, or Nature & The Writing Spectrum will all do the trick), and the date, all in the upper left hand corner of the first page. Like this:

Your Name

Shaun Roundy

College Writing 2

7 January 1998

• Center your title.
• Use one-inch margins.
• Use a running head (look for the word "header" on your computer program, likely under the "insert" or maybe the "view" menu) in the top right corner of each page with your last name and the page number.
• Notice the punctuation of the following instances of in-text documentation:

• Parenthetical references only include the author’s last name and page number where you found your information.
• Leave out any redundant information that you already said and is somewhere else in your paper to avoid repetition.
• The sentences’ period comes after the parentheses.
• Quotes end before the parentheses.
• If there are no parentheses, the period belongs inside the quotes.

Now for a few exceptions:

…"blah blah blah" (Doe, Article 23).

…"blah blah blah?" (Doe 45).

…"blah blah blah" (Doe 45), but Jones argued that "blah blah blah…" (19).

…"blah blah blah" (Smith and Flintstone 31).

Notice that:

• If one author has two publications referenced in your paper, include a short section of each book’s title to differentiate them.
• If a quotation includes an end mark that contains meaning (such as a question or exclamation mark), then leave it inside the quotations. Add another period after the parentheses. This is the only instance I know of in English where two end marks may be used in a single sentence. For example: "I love you," she said. and "I love you!" she shouted. are both correct. One end mark for the first, two for the second.
• You can put your parentheses within a sentence if it’s necessary to avoid confusion about what part of your sentence was quoted or paraphrased.
• If you have two authors of one book, include both of their names. If you have three or more, you may choose to include only the first name listed and then write et al., meaning basically "and the rest of the gang" for the other names.

Works Cited Page:

Here’s an example of how your works cited page will look:

Works Cited

Appleby, Ben C. "Please Pass the Lobster." The Joy of Honey-Mustard Sauce. Boston: Harper Sisters, 1997.

Cardon, Kerolann. "Azlan and the Masons: Utah Lake Overview." Orem Herald 17 July 1997, metropolitan ed.: B12.

"Winter Travel Safety Tips." Orem Herald 29 November 1997, final ed.: A2+.

Jensen, Annalisa. "Long Time No See." E-mail to Shaun Roundy. 19 Oct. 1997.

Leathead, Amy. "Independence." Encyclopedia Canadia. 1993 ed.

Milligan, Laura. "Beta @ a Glance." Inside Project: Journal of the Climbing and Mountaineering Project. 1 (1994): 2.

Roundy, Shaun B. "Anchor to the Rock." The New Era. September 1996: 38-44.

---. "Hi, I’m a Pig." Starting Over in China. Logan, UT: University of Life Press, 1994.

---. Writing Center ’98. CD-ROM. Orem, UT: University of Life Press, 1998.

Tragedy on Everest. By Mark Metolious. Narr. Sam Chuoinard. Dir. Liz Petzoldt. PBS. WKRP, Cincinnati. 11 May, 1996.

Vogel, Charles. Personal Interview. 16 November 1997.

Wagenman, Ben, and Shaun Roundy. "The Unadventurous Life is not Worth Living." 1998. On-line. Internet. Available: http://www.geocities.com/yosemite/1695.

That ought to be enough examples to keep you happy. The general order of things for books is:

• Author’s name (last name first for alphabetical organization, other authors—don’t reverse their names, separate with commas. If no author, use editor, translator, or compiler, followed by ed(s). or preceded by trans. or comp.)
• Title of article or part of book (in quotations, period inside quotes).
• Book or periodical title (underlined, period not underlined).
• Name(s) of editor, translator, or compiler, followed by their abbreviation (ed., eds. or preceded by trans. or comp.).
• Edition used (series number or name for periodicals).
• Number of volume used.
• Name of series (issue number for periodicals).
• Place of publication (skip this for periodicals).
• Name of publisher (skip this, too).
• Date of publication.
• Page numbers.
• Additional bibliographic information.
• Annotation (a few sentences telling what it’s about).

Also note:

• Never hit a hard carriage return—let the text wrap. Indent after the first line by using a hanging indent (find it under the format/paragraph thing probably).
• Use a triple dash (---) to show that it’s the same author twice in a row. Don’t use this if a combination of authors is any different.
• The + on A2+ of the newspaper item means "continues on non-linear pages." Or however you want to say that. It skips from A2 to maybe D12. Get it?

Notice that different media sometimes follow different rules. Don’t put a period after the newspaper’s name, for example, and put TV program names before the author.

Annotated Bibliography

Your Annotated Bibliography should be attached to your paper between the Works Cited page and your Justification Sheet. Use the same information from your Works Cited page, but add sources until your total reaches fifteen, then add a sentence or two immediately after each reference telling a little about what that reference is about. You can see examples of this at the end of some example papers.