This guide comes from the website nutsandboltsguide

This guide comes from the website nutsandboltsguide.com (The Nuts and Bolts of College Writing)

1. Basic book format

Citation

(Garner and Sprengnether)

Reference

Garner, Shirley Nelson and Madelon Sprengnether, eds. Shakespearean Tragedy and Gender. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana UP, 1996.

2. Basic article format

Citation

(Lupton, 15)

Reference

Lupton, Julia Reinhard. "Creature Caliban." Shakespeare Quarterly 51.1 (2000): 1-23.

3. A magazine article

Some periodicals (such as The Economist) routinely use different titles for articles on the contents page and at the beginning of the article itself. In such cases, use the title from the contents page.

Citation. As usual.

Reference

Thomas, Evan and Bill Turque. "Gore: The Precarious Prince." Newsweek. 21 Aug. 2000. 38-41.

4. A newspaper article

Citation. As usual.

Reference

Hoagland, Jim. "The Concord and the Kursk." Washington Post 20 Aug 2000. B7.

5. An unsigned editorial

Citation. Identify by a short title.

Reference

"A Right to Discriminate?" Editorial. Washington Post 20 Aug. 2000. B6.

6. An anonymous work

Citation. Don't use "Anonymous." Cite a short version of the title, making sure that it will direct your reader to the right reference in the alphabetized list.

(Geneva Bible xv).

Reference

The Geneva Bible: A facsimile of the 1560 edition. Introd. Lloyd E. Berry. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1969.

7. A work by two or three authors

Citation. Give the last name of each author: (Wildavsky and Drake 44).

Reference. The second and third names are formatted first-name first.

Wildavsky, Aaron and Karl Drake. "Theories of Risk Perception: Who Fears What and Why?" Daedalus 119 (1990): 41-60.

Lenz, Carolyn Ruth Swift, Gayle Greene, and Carol Thomas Neely, eds. The Woman's Part: Feminist Criticism of Shakespeare. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1980.

8. A work by more than three authors

Citation. Either give the first author's last name followed by et al. (for et alii or alia, "and others"), or give all the last names.

(Quirk et al. 198).

Reference. You may give all the names, or just the first followed by et al.

Quirk, Randolph, et al. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London and New York: Longman, 1985.

Websites!!

Many citations of online sources in your papers are inadequate. Here's an all-too-common example: www.hoovers.com.

What's missing? Lots—information about the type of online resource, a specific URL to a particular document, and data on author, title, when online material was posted, and when you retrieved it (that means when you downloaded or printed the information, not when you wrote it into your paper). It's important to provide dates because the web is a dynamic medium, with content and web sites constantly changing.

References to online documents follow the same basic format as other MLA references: alphabetization by author, a title, and publication information. One difference: references to online documents typically have two dates, the date the material was posted or updated, and the date it was retrieved. Since the web is a dynamic medium with content and web sites constantly changing, it's helpful to your reader to note posting and retrieval dates.

1. Private or personal web site

Citation. As usual.

Reference

Cunningham, Leah. "My Mahir Shrine!!" Personal web page. N.d. 17 July 2000 <http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Film/9787/>

2. Organizational or corporate web site

Citation. Cite by author or short title.

Reference

APSANET. The American Political Science Association Online. American Political Science Association. 2000. 1 Aug. 2000 <http://apsanet.org/>.

Ford Motor Company. 23 Aug. 2000. Ford Motor Company. 23 Aug. 2000 <http://www.ford.com/>.

Hoover's Online. 23 Aug. 2000. Hoover's, Inc. 23 Aug. 2000 <http://www.hoovers.com/>.

As noted earlier, don't be too quick to give a corporate web site as the URL for specific documents. If you cite several documents or pages emanating from an organization's web site, it's almost always more useful and workable to provide a reference for each separate text.

3. Article in an online journal or magazine

Citation. As usual.

Reference

Edelstein, David. "Pols on Film." Slate Magazine. 18 Aug. 2000. 20 Aug. 2000 <http://slate.msn.com/MovieReview/00-08-18/MovieReview.asp>.

4. Newspaper article

Citation. As usual.

Reference

Dowd, Maureen. "Stop That Canoodling!" New York Times on the Web 20 Aug. 2000. 20 Aug. 2000 <http://www.nytimes.com/library/opinion/dowd/082000dowd.html>.

Other types of texts—editorials, letters to the editor, reviews, and so on, parallel the traditional citation with the inclusion of online information (most importantly retrieval date and URL) instead of page information.