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MLA Documentation Help: Books Printed and Online

This guide provides help with citation and documentation in MLA format

Print Books - Basic Elements

Author’s Last Name, First Name. “Title of Chapter, Article, or Section.” Title of Complete Work. Place of

publication: Publisher, date. Print.

Online Books - Basics Elements

Author or creator. “Title of Book, Chapter, or Segment .” Title of Web Site. Publisher or sponsor of website, date

of publication. Web. Date of access (Date Month Year).

Two or More Works by the Same Author (5.3.4)

Give the author’s name in the first entry. In entries that follow, type three hyphens and a period in place of the name.

Walters, Glenn D. The Criminal Lifestyle: Patterns of Serious Criminal Conduct. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, 1990.

Print.

---. Drugs and Crime in Lifestyle Perspective. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1994. Print.

 

Single Author (5.5.2)

Jones, Barry. Sleepers, Wake! Technology and the Future of Work. New York: Oxford UP, 1995. Print.

Two or More Authors (5.5.4)

Give the authors’ names in the order they appear on the title page.

Smith, George F., Christopher E. Cole, and Bruce Wayne. Criminal Justice in America. Belmont, CA:  Wadsworth Pub. Co.,

1996. Print.

If there are more than three authors, you may name only the first and add et al. ("and others”).

Cashin, James A., et al. Schaum's Outline of Theory and Problems of Intermediate Accounting. 2nd ed. New York:

McGraw‑Hill, 1989. Print.

Selection from an Anthology (5.5.6)

More, Hannah. "The Black Slave Trade: A Poem." British Women Poets of the Romantic Era. Ed. Paula R. Feldman. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1997. 472-82. Print.

Cismaru, Alfred. "Making the Best of It." The New Republic 207.24 (1992): 11-19. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Christopher Giroux. Vol. 85. Detroit: Gale, 1995. 73-4. Print.

Editor as Author (5.5.3)

Feldman, Paula, ed. British Poets of the Romantic Era. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1997. Print.

Book or Part of a Book from the Web (5.6.2.c)

Barsky, Robert F. Noam Chomsky: A Life of Dissent. Cambridge: MIT Pr., 1997. Web. 8 May 1998.

Nesbit, Edith. "Marching Song." Ballads and Lyrics of Socialism. Ed. Perry Willett. London, 1908. Victorian Women Writers

Project. Indiana U. Web. 26 June 2002.

Webster, John. The White Devil. N.p.:n.p., 2004. Project Gutenburg. Web. 2 Nov. 2008.

No Author (5.5.9)

If no author or editor is listed, do not use Anonymous.  Begin the entry with the title.

New York Public Library American History Desk Reference. New York: Macmillan, 1997. Print.

Corporate Author (5.5.5)

National Association for Sport and Physical Education. National Standards for Athletic Coaches.  Dubuque, IA: Kendall Hunt

Publishing, 1995. Print.

Reference Book (5.5.7)

Patti, Nicholas S. "Chinua Achebe." Contemporary Black Biography. Ed. Barbara Carlisle Bigelow. Vol 4. Detroit: Gale, 1994. Print.

"Privacy in Health Care." Encyclopedia of Bioethics. Ed. William T. Reich. Rev. ed. Vol 2. New York: Macmillan-Simon, 1995. Print.

When citing a well-known encyclopedia or dictionary, city and publisher are not necessary. Give only the edition (if stated), year of publication, and medium.

"Mandarin." The Encyclopedia Americana. 2003 ed. Print.

"Noon." Def. 4b. The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed.  1989. Print.

Online Reference Book (6.7.4)

Eisinger, Chester. "Herzog: Overview." Reference Guide to American Literature. 3rd ed. 1994. 78- 92. Literature Resource

Center. Web. 18 May 2000.

 Fischbach, Michael. "Bush, George Walker.” Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and North Africa. Ed. Philip Mattar. 2nd ed. Vol. 1. New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 2004. 549-550. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 2 Oct. 2006.

Edition Other than the First (5.5.13)

Identify the edition as it is listed on the title page (i.e., 2nd. ed., 4th ed., Rev. ed., 2006 ed.)

Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer. Ed. F.W. Robinson. 2nd ed. Boston: Houghton, 1957. Print.

Introduction, Preface, Forward, or Afterward (5.5.8)

Drabble, Margaret. Introduction. Middlemarch. By George Eliot. New York: Bantam, 1985. vii-xvii. Print.

Graphic Novels (5.5.12)

Treat graphic novels as you would other book citations.

Spiegelman, Art. Maus: A Survivor's Tale. 2 vols. New York: Pantheon-Random, 1986-91. Print.

Books: translated editions (5.5.11)

Homer. The Odyssey. Trans. Robert Fagles. New York: Viking, 1996. Print.

Brochure, Pamphlet, Press Release (5.5.19)

Treat a brochure or pamphlet as you would a book.

Washington, DC. Trip Builder, 2000. Print.

Document a press release the same way, but include the day and month of the release, along with the year.

Modern Language Association. Modern Language Association Announces New and Improved MLA Language Map. New

York: MLA, 18 Apr. 2006. Print.

Government Publication (5.5.20)

If no author is given, cite as author the agency that issued the publication.

 United States. Dept. of Labor. Child Care: A Workforce Issue. Washington: GPO, 1998. Print.

Published Conference Proceedings (5.5.21)

Treat published proceedings of a conference like a book, but add pertinent information about the conference (unless it is already included in the book title).

Brady, Brigid, and Patricia Verrone, eds. Proceedings of the Northeast Region Annual Meeting, Conference on Christianity

and Literature: Christ Plays in Ten-Thousand Places: The Christ-Figure in Text and Interpretation. 22 Oct. 2005,

Caldwell Coll. N.p.: Northeast Regional Conference on Christianity and Lit., n.d. Print.

E-book (6.8.18)

E-book downloaded from a service:

Author's last name, first name. Title of Book.  City, State: Publisher, Year. Type of electronic file.

Rowley, Hazel. Franklin and Eleanor: An Extraordinary Marriage. New York: Farrar, 2010. Kindle file.

 E-book accessed from a subscription database:

Author's last name, first name. Title of Book. City, State: Publisher, Year. Title of database. Web.

Date Retrieved.

Martin, Wendy. The Cambridge Introduction to Emily Dickinson. Leiden: Cambridge UP, 2007. Ebook Library.

Web. 23 June 2009.