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Siperstein Library: MLA 8 Cheat Sheet

Margins and Line Spacing

Remember:

  • One inch margins for the paper.
  • Double-space the entire document.
  • 12-pt font.
  • Indent the start of each paragraph five spaces, or by pressing "tab" once.
  • Header:
    • Place in the top, left corner:
    • Name
    • Teacher's name
    • the class
    • Date

Helpful links

Overview

Core Elements

These are the components of every citation you will create. Many sources will not have all nine elements, so you will need to use what you have available. For example, elements four, five, and six will not apply to most books.

  1. Author. (Author, editor, film director, etc.)
  2. Title of source. (Book title, article title, film title, title of TV episode)
  3. Title of container. (Journal title, title of TV show)
  4. Other contributors. (Translators, performers)
  5. Version. (Edition, abridged/unabridged, etc.)
  6. Number. (Volume and issue numbers, season and episode)
  7. Publisher. (Publisher, university press, organization, etc.). For publishers, write out Books and Press (i.e. Penguin Books). Omit words such as Inc. and Co. For university publishers, use U for university and P for press (i.e. Oxford UP = Oxford University Press)
  8. Publication date. (Use the date most relevant to your information. If a full date is given, format as follows: day, month, year)
  9. Location. (Page numbers, web address, DOI, etc.). For websites and online articles, you will include date accessed.

Example Works Cited

Examples

From Purdue Owl

Book with one author

Leroux, Marcel. (AUTHOR) Global Warming: Myth Or Reality?: The Erring Ways of Climatology. (TITLE OF SOURCE) Springer (PUBLISHER),

       2005 (PUBLICATION DATE).

Book with more than one author

Gillespie, Paula (AUTHOR 1), and Neal Lerner (AUTHOR 2). The Allyn and Bacon Guide to Peer Tutoring. (TITLE) Allyn and Bacon,

       (PUBLISHER) 2000.(PUBLICATION DATE)

  • Hint: if there are more than two authors, you can format as follows: Reese, William, et al.

Primary Source within a Book/ Newspaper/ Collection/ Journal/ etc.

Singleton, Henry (AUTHOR), "Abram Truby's Andersonville Prison Record." (TITLE OF PRIMARY SOURCE DOCUMENT). Civil War Records

       from Andersonville Prison: Ohio Regiments. (TITLE OF Book). Ed. John Runt, (EDITOR - First name and Last name), Oxford

       Press (PUBLISHER), 1898 (PUBLICATION DATE), pp. 371-372 (PAGE NUMBERS).

Online article

Dean, Cornelia. (AUTHOR) "Executive on a Mission: Saving the Planet." (TITLE OF SOURCE) The New York

       Times, (TITLE OF CONTAINER/PUBLISHER) 22 May 2007, (PUBLICATION DATE) 

       www.nytimes.com/2007/05/22/science/earth/22ander.html?_r=0. Accessed 12 May 2016.(LOCATION AND DATE ACCESSED)

Journal article

Gowdy, John.(AUTHOR) "Avoiding Self-organized Extinction: Toward a Co-evolutionary Economics of Sustainability."(TITLE OF

       SOURCE) International Journal of Sustainable Development and World Ecology, (TITLE OF CONTAINER) vol. 14, no. 1, 2007, pp. 27-36.

Shulte, Bret.(AUTHOR) "Putting a Price on Pollution."(TITLE OF SOURCE) US News & World Report,(TITLE OF CONTAINER) vol. 142, no. 17,

       (NUMBER) 14 May 2007,(PUBLICATION DATE) p. 37. Ebsco, Access no: 24984616.(LOCATION – in this case, location includes page

       number, database name, and access number)

Film

An Inconvenient Truth.(TITLE OF SOURCE) Directed by Davis Guggenheim, performances by Al Gore and Billy West, (OTHER

       CONTRIBUTORS) Paramount, (PUBLISHER) 2006.(PUBLICATION DATE)