MLA 8th Edition

Fred Meijer Center for Writing and Michigan Authors

Lake Ontario Hall 120
 What is MLA
• MLA stands for the Modern Language Association. It is the principal
professional organization of language and literature scholars.
• As it focuses on language and literature, MLA is primarily the citation
style of the humanities.
 What’s new in MLA 8th edition
• MLA used to have many different ways of citing different sources, and
many of those citations contained repeated information.
• The purpose of the MLA 8th edition was to streamline the citing process—
instead of someone asking “how do I cite a [video/web
document/article/etc.],” a person just lists a work’s main elements, which
according to MLA are consistent across different media.
• Definitive Source: MLA Handbook, 8th Edition, 2016.
Why Document Sources in MLA Format?
• To give credit where credit is due: avoid plagiarism
• To establish your credibility
• To ensure consistency within a discipline: readers know what to expect
• To give readers access to the sources you cite
 How Documentation Works
• In-text citations refer to a full citation on a Works Cited page
• Works Cited pages give readers bibliographic information to locate
sources themselves
 MLA (8th ed) core elements

1.Author 6.Number
2.Title of Source 7.Publisher
3.Title of Container 8.Publication Date
4.Other Contributors 9.Location
5.Version
 Author
• Previously, coauthors were only omitted if there were four or more
authors for a source.
• However, this now happens with three authors or more—where only the
first author is given followed by “et al.” This is for in-text citations only.

Works Cited:
Burdick, Anne, et al. Digital_Humanities. MIT P, 2012.

In Text Citation:
(Burdick et al. 42)
 Containers
• Containers are just a fancy way of saying whatever is holding your source—
whether that is a website, an anthology, a journal, a book, etc.

Example:
Baron, Naomi S. “Redefining Reading: The Impact of Digital Communication
Media.” The Michigan Review, vol. 128, no.1, Jan. 2013, pp. 193-200.
 Other contributors
• This means anyone else who aided in the creation of the source
• This is where you put “translators” and “editors.”
• Editors, translators, edited by, review of, etc. are no longer abbreviated.

Example:
Chartier, Roger. The Order of Books: Readers, Authors, and Libraries in Europe
between the Fourteenth and Eighteenth Centuries. Translated by Lydia G.
Cochrane, Stanford UP, 1994.
 Number
• Number (or volume in some cases) is pretty straight forward, but it has
changed from the previous edition.
• Instead of putting “64.1,” for example, you’d write out “vol. 64, no. 1.”

Example:
Baron, Naomi S. “Redefining Reading: The Impact of Digital Communication
Media.” The Michigan Review, vol. 128, no.1, Jan. 2013, pp. 193-200.
 Publisher
• Publisher simply means whatever company published the source being
used.
• The main difference from before is that the city of publication is no longer
given.

Example:
Lessig, Lawrence. Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid
Economy. Penguin Press, 2008.
 Publication Date
• When a source does not have a date on it (like many online sources), it is
now okay to just give the date accessed.
• n.d. is no longer used. If a fact from the source is found from some
external place, then it is put in [square brackets]. Otherwise, the n.d. is
omitted.
Example:
Hollmichel, Stefanie. “The Reading Brain: Differences between Digital and
Print.” Atlantic, 25 Apr. 2015, somanybooksblog.com/2015/04/25/the-reading-
brain- differences-between-digital-and-print/.
 Location
• Location is just where to find the source—whether that’s a URL or a page
number.
• Unlike previous MLA, we are back to including the URL
• For page numbers, in the works cited entry, p. or pp. comes before the
page range. This however is not carried over into the in-text citation.
Example:
Baron, Naomi S. “Redefining Reading: The Impact of Digital Communication
Media.” The Michigan Review, vol. 128, no.1, Jan. 2013, pp. 193-200.
 Containers (cont.)
• Some entries will have a “container one” and a “container two.” An
example of this would be a journal article that is in a journal and is found
in a database. The journal is container one, and the database it’s found in
is container two.
• Container two comes AFTER the location in container one.
 In-Text Parenthetical Citations

• Use them to:

• Quote directly
• Summarize material
• Paraphrase material
• Quick Tip: Plagiarism is using someone’s words or ideas without giving
the source proper credit.
Formatting An In-Text parenthetical Citation

• There are two common ways of writing an in-text citation:

• Integrate the author’s name into the sentence itself
• Include the author’s name in a parenthetical citation at the end of the passage in
which you quote, summarize, or paraphrase the work.

In Text Citation examples:

In Run Rabbit Run, Rolo Tamasi argues that “patience is not a
virtue, but a curse” (185).
For some, “patience is not a virtue, but a curse” (Tamasi 185).
 Fred Meijer Center for Writing & Michigan
Authors
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