Michael Schwartz Library
Michael Schwartz Library
216.687.2478
MLA Handbook by Basic Format
Author's last name, first name. Title of book. City of publication: Publisher, year of publication. Medium of publication.
Example - One Author
Franke, Damon. Modernist Heresies: British Literary History, 1883-1924. Columbus: Ohio State UP, 2008. Print.
Example - Work an Anthology or Collection
Eno, Will. Tragedy: A Tragedy. New Downtown Now: An Anthology of New Theater from Downtown New York. Ed. Mac Wellman and Young Jean Lee. Introd. Jeffrey M. Jones. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 2006. 49-71. Print.
More, Hannah. "The Black Slave Trade: A Poem." British Women Poets of the Romantic Era. Ed. Paula R. Feldman. Baltimore: John Hopkins UP, 1997. 472-82. Print.
Basic Format
Author last name, First name. "Title of Article." Title of Journal. Volume.Issue (Year): pages. Medium of publication.
Example - Print Scholarly Article
Piper, Andrew. "Rethinking the Print Object: Goethe and the Book of Everything." PMLA 121.1 (2006): 124-138. Print.
Example - Article from an Online Database (Scholarly)
France, Anatole. "Pour la Paix, pour la Liberté." New Age 5 Sept. 1907: 297-98. The Modernist Journals Project. Web. 5 June 2008.
Tolson, Nancy. "Making Books Available: The Role of Early Libraries, Librarians, and Booksellers in the Promotion of African American Children's Literature." African American Review 32:1 (1998): 9-16. JSTOR. Web. 5 June 2008.
Remember to use n.p. if no publisher name is available and n.d. if no publishing date is given.
Basic Format
Editor, author, or compiler name (if available). Name of Site. Version number. Name of institution/organization affiliated with the site (sponsor or publisher), date of resource creation (if available). Medium of publication. Date of access.
Example - Entire Website
The Purdue OWL Family of Sites. The Writing Lab and OWL at Purdue and Purdue U, 2008. Web. 23 Apr. 2008.
Example - Image Found Online
Goya, Francisco. The Family of Charles IV. 1800. Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid. Museo National del Prado. Web. 22 May 2006.
Rule of thumb: The briefer the better. Try to incorporate most information into the text.
Basic Forms:
According to Gullans in his book Poetic Form, the importance of structure...(23).
(Page number only when author/work cited is evident from context)
...In the book Poetic Form, importance of structure... (Gullans 23).
(Author and page when author work needs to be identified)
…importance of structure... (Gullans, Poetic Form 23).
(Author, title, and page when work is not identified in text)
(Box adapted from LMU/LA Library MLA Guide)