MLA Style Guide

General Rules —

Works Cited: Create the works cited page at the end of your paper on a new page. Label this page Works Cited at the top middle of the page. Do not underline, bold, enlarge or use quotes for the words Works Cited. Include only sources from your paper that you have quoted, summarized or paraphrased in your list on this page.

Capitalization: In titles of works, all words are capitalized except articles (a, an, the), prepositions (to, from, between, and so on), coordinating conjunctions (and, but, or, nor, for, so, yet), and the infinitive to (as in How to Knit) — unless these words are the first or last word of the title or subtitle. Titles of periodical articles and other short works, such as brief documents from Web sites, are put in quotation marks; titles of books and other long works, such as entire Web sites, are italicized.

Italics or Quotes: Use italics for titles of larger works (books, journals, entire web site) and quotation marks for titles of shorter works (chapters in books, web pages, articles).

Electronic and online sources: Provide a permalink or DOI (digital object finder) for online sources, if source has one. If not, provide the URL, omitting http://, and beginning with www.

Order/Organization: Arrange entries in alphabetical order by authors' last names (surnames), or by title for sources without authors. Each entry should be listed as follows:

Publication: Do not give the location of publication. Use the full version of publisher's names, except for "Inc." and "Co." Keep terms such as "Books" and "Press." For university publications, shorted to "UP" for "University Press." The name of publishers should be on the title or copyright page of books. Not all websites have publication information; however, double check the "about" page for information.

Page numbers: Use the abbreviation p. before single page numbers (p. 15) and pp. before multiple ranges (pp. 25-26). In addition, page numbers within the same page range over 100 should be abbreviated. For example pages 100-150 should be listed as pp. 100-50.

Indentation: Align the first line of the entry flush with the left margin, and indent all subsequent lines (5 to 7 spaces) to form a "hanging indent." Only first line of each citation begins at the margin, all subsequent lines within a citation must be indented 5 spaces.

Spacing: Double space every line.

Date accessed: Including an access date for an online work may be especially useful if the work lacks a publication date or if you suspect that the work may be altered or removed, which is more common with informal or self-published works.