MLA and APA Overview

General Rules

Basic Formatting

• Use a legible, 12-pt. font, such as Times New Roman.
• Maintain double spacing throughout, even on the Works Cited page.
• Set the margins to 1" on all sides.
• Create a header in the upper right-hand corner that numbers all pages consecutively. Put your last name before the page number. TIP: Insert the page number function first before writing your last name, otherwise your last name will be deleted when you insert the page number (Word is cranky like that sometimes!).
• If you have any Endnotes, put them on a separate page before your Works Cited page.
• Print your work on standard 8.5 x 11-inch paper.

General Rules

Basic Formatting

• Use a clear and readable font, such as 12 pt. Times New Roman.
• Maintain double spacing throughout, even on the References page.
• Set the margins to 1" on all sides.
• Include a page header (also known as a "running head") at the top of every page. This header will contain the title of your paper in all caps (flush left) and page numbers (flush right). Your cover page will include the words "Running head" before your title.
• The four major paper sections include: the title page, abstract, main body, and references.
• Each section will begin on a new page.
• Print your work on standard 8.5 x 11-inch paper.

Citing Print Sources

For print sources (e.g., books, articles, magazines) with a known author:

Cite the author's last name and page number.

Ex. Wordsworth stated that Romantic poetry was marked by a "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" (263).

Ex. Romantic poetry is characterized by the "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" (Wordsworth 263).

For print sources by a corporate author:

It is okay to use the name of the corporation, along with the page number, in the in-text citation.

For print sources with no known author:

Use a shortened version of the title of the work in place of the author's name.

For authors with the same last names:

Provide each author's first initial to differentiate between them.

For works with multiple authors:

List the authors' last names in either the signal phrase or the parenthetical citation. If there are more than three authors, however, list only the first author's name and replace the other names with et al. (Latin for "and others").

Citing Print Sources cont'd

For multiple works by the same author:

Use a shortened title of the work you are citing in order to distinguish it from the author's other works.

For indirect sources:

These are situations in which a source is cited in another source. Use "qtd. in" to indicate that the source appears in another source.

Ex. Ravitch argues that high schools are pressured to act as "social service centers, and they don't do that well" (qtd. in Weisman 259).

A note on sources with no author:

This might seem like common sense, but the information you provide in your in-text citation must correspond to the information you have on your Works Cited page. Think of that in-text information as a handle that leads your readers to the entry in your Works Cited. In other words, whatever appears as the first bit of information in the source's Works Cited entry will be what is in its in-text citation.

Citing Electronic Sources

As the Purdue OWL explains, sometimes writers panic because there are no page numbers present in most electronic sources. But if your electronic, film, or Internet source doesn't have page numbers, that's perfectly okay. Here are a few general rules for electronic in-text citations as laid out by the Purdue OWL:

• Include in the text the first item that appears in the Work Cited entry that corresponds to the citation (e.g. author name, article name, website name, film name).
• You do not need to give paragraph numbers or page numbers based on your Web browser’s print preview function.
• Unless you must list the Web site name in the signal phrase in order to get the reader to the appropriate entry, do not include URLs in-text. Only provide partial URLs such as when the name of the site includes, for example, a domain name, like CNN.com or Forbes.com as opposed to writing out http://www.cnn.com or http://www.forbes.com.

For All Sources

• Use author, date format.
• If there is no author, use the title of the work (i.e. whatever is the first bit of information for the entry on the References page).
• If there is no date, use the abbreviation "n.d."
• If you are directly quoting from a work and it has page numbers, use the abbreviation "p.", followed by the page number(s), for further reference.
• Example of citation with author named in signal phrase: According to Jones (1998), "Students often had difficulty using APA style, especially when it was their first time" (p. 199).
• Example of citation with author not named in signal phrase: She stated, "Students often had difficulty using APA style" (Jones, 1998, p. 199), but she did not offer an explanation as to why.

General Formatting

• Begin your Works Cited page on a separate sheet at the end of your paper.
• Title the page Works Cited, centered at the top; do not bold, underline, or italicize.
• Maintain double spacing.
• Do not add an extra space after each entry.
• Create a hanging indent (this is when all but the first line of each entry is indented by 0.5 in.).
• Alphabetize entries.

Core Elements & Containers

As the MLA Style Center explains, "Each entry in the list of works cited is composed of facts common to most works—the MLA core elements. They are assembled in a specific order" ("Works Cited: Quick Guide").

The eighth edition of MLA style, which was released in 2016, emphasizes the concept of containers. The MLA Style Center describes this content as such: "When the source being documented forms part of a larger whole, the larger whole can be thought of as a container that holds the source" ("Works Cited: Quick Guide").

Print Sources

One Author:

O'Connor, Flannery. Wise Blood. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1962.

Two Authors:

Three or More Authors:

Green, John, et al. Let It Snow. Penguin, 2008.

Organization or Corporate Author:

No Author:

Begin with title of work:

Encyclopedia of Indiana. Somerset, 1993.

Works in an Anthology, Reference, or Collection

Last name, First name. "Title of Essay." Title of Collection, edited by Editor's Name(s), Publisher, Year, Page range of entry.

Periodicals

Author. Title. Title of container (self contained if book), Other contributors (translators or editors), Version (edition), Number (vol. and/or no.), Publisher, Publisher Date, Location (pp.).

Electronic Sources

For scholarly articles:

• Author/editor name(s)
• Article name in quotation marks
• Title of the larger "work" (e.g. overall website) in italics
• Any version numbers available
• Publisher and publishing date
• Any page numbers or paragraph numbers
• URL (w/o "https://") or DOI
• Date accessed (not required but highly recommended)

Cite online databases (e.g. LexisNexis, ProQuest, JSTOR, ScienceDirect) and other subscription services as containers. Thus, provide the title of the database italicized before the DOI or URL. If a DOI is not provided, use the URL instead. Provide the date of access if you wish.

Other Common Sources

A Personal Interview:

Henning, Michelle. Personal Interview. 1 Feb. 2018.

A Published Interview:

A Lecture, Speech, or Oral Presentation:

Films or Movies:

List films by their title. Include the name of the director, the film studio or distributor, and the release year. If relevant, list performer names after the director's name.

If you want to emphasize a specific performer or director, begin your citation with their name:

Lucas, George, director. Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. Twentieth Century Fox, 1977.

Basic Formatting

• General APA style formatting applies.
• All entries should be indented a half inch after the first line (hanging indent).
• Author's or authors' last names are fully spelled out, but use only the initial of their first and middle (if applicaple) names.
• Alphabetize entries.
• Start with the first bit of information you have for the source.
• Do not add an extra space between entries
• Maintain the punctuation and capitalization that is used by the journal in its title, and italicize.
• Use sentence case (only first word is capitalized) when referring to books, chapters, articles, or webpages. Do not use quotation marks.

Author Rules (Print and Electronic)

When there is no DOI for an online scholarly source, use the URL of the journal homepage and the words "Retrieved from":

One author:

Two authors:

Three to Seven Authors:

More than Seven Authors:

Organization as Author:

Other Common Sources

Not all of your electronic sources will have all of the information that the examples to the left have; that said, try your best to find as much information as you can. Sometimes it takes a bit of "treasure hunting."

Nonperiodical web document or report:

Online lecture notes and presentation slides:

YouTube video or video blog entry:

Audio podcast: