{"id":2675,"date":"2015-06-01T17:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-06-02T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kibin.com\/blog\/?post_type=essay-writing-blog&p=2675"},"modified":"2019-04-21T19:23:09","modified_gmt":"2019-04-22T02:23:09","slug":"how-to-write-mla-citations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kibin.com\/essay-writing-blog\/how-to-write-mla-citations\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Write MLA 7 Citations Without Going Crazy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cYou\u2019re bound to get idears if you go thinkin\u2019 about stuff.\u201d — Tom Joad in John Steinbeck\u2019s The Grapes of Wrath<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So you have to write a paper for your English class, and your teacher has asked you to include MLA citations for your sources. And maybe that freaks you out just a little (….or a lot<\/i>).<\/p>\n

Well then<\/i>, you think. I just won\u2019t use <\/i>any <\/i><\/b>sources and will instead rely on my <\/i>own <\/i><\/b>idears!<\/i><\/p>\n

So you start thinkin\u2019 about stuff, and you do <\/b>have some great ideas. Then, you start to quote the book as support, and…oh. OH. You have to cite the book even if you don\u2019t consult any other sources?<\/p>\n

Yup. Sorry, Charlie!<\/p>\n

And if you have to cite the book (or essay, or poem, or almost any other piece of literature you\u2019re analyzing) anyway<\/b>, what are three or four or fourteen more sources? Drawing on the expertise of other writers to support your ideas will only improve your odds of writing a killer paper (and getting a killer grade).<\/p>\n

But you have <\/b>to cite those sources.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t let citation intimidation keep you from thinkin\u2019 about stuff<\/i> and giving the Joads (or any other subject) the treatment they deserve. Let me teach you how to write MLA citations (and your Works Cited, too!) in just four easy steps.<\/p>\n

What are MLA Citations, and Who Uses Them?<\/h2>\n

A citation, at its heart, is like an address. Just as a postal address helps someone find a specific location, a proper citation helps a reader find a specific source.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
\n
Just as a postal address helps you find a location, a citation helps you find a source.<\/a><\/div>\n

Click To Tweet<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

So I can just paste the web address or title of a book in my paper, right? <\/i>you might think.<\/p>\n

Nope! You’ve got to be more specific. Pasting a book title or web address in your paper is like texting your friends a years-old picture of the trees and grass around you and expecting them to find the park where you\u2019re waiting.<\/p>\n

They might stumble upon you eventually, or they might show up to the wrong park altogether.<\/p>\n

If you give your friends the address <\/b>of the park, though, Siri or Google or the CIA can help them pinpoint your location in seconds.<\/p>\n

Citations work the same way. If you give your readers the \u2018address\u2019 of the source, they can locate it quickly. Even more importantly, they can locate the right edition or version of the source to make sure page numbers match up, translations are the same, and so forth.<\/p>\n

Just as the pieces of a postal address are arranged in a specific way, the pieces of a citation are, too. And just as every country has a slightly different format for postal addresses (see for yourself!<\/a>), most disciplines — or subjects — have slightly different formats for citations.<\/p>\n

So let\u2019s talk about MLA citations, specifically, including who uses them and what \u201cMLA\u201d means, anyway.<\/p>\n

MLA stands for \u201cModern Language Association,\u201d which is a professional organization for teachers and scholars of language, literature, and the humanities.<\/p>\n

This organization publishes its own handbook<\/a> for formatting papers and — relevant to your interests — citing sources.<\/p>\n

Many students first encounter MLA style in their high-school or college English classes, although students (and professionals) in other language, literature, and (some) humanities disciplines also use MLA.<\/p>\n

Every MLA citation has two parts:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. the in-text citation<\/strong>, which appears after a sentence containing information from another source, and<\/li>\n
  2. the Works Cited entry<\/strong>, which appears in the list of resources at the end of your paper (known as — spoiler alert — the Works Cited).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Why two parts?<\/p>\n

    The in-text citation is a form of shorthand that helps the reader find the longer entry (that contains much more information) in the Works Cited.<\/p>\n

    Going back to the directions analogy, it\u2019s kind of like saying \u201cthe park on 4th and Main\u201d so that your friends can find it on a map of your city. The in-text citation is more informal than a full address and includes less information, but it gives the reader enough context to find the entry in the Works Cited.<\/p>\n

    Now that you know what MLA citations are and why you need to use them, check out these four easy steps for writing your own citations.<\/p>\n

    Four Easy Steps for Writing MLA Citations<\/h2>\n

    The process of citing your sources is much <\/b>easier when you write both the in-text citation and the Works Cited entry at the same time. This way, you build your source list as you go, and you ensure that you don\u2019t accidentally include in-text citations without associated entries in the Works Cited (which is a pretty frequent issue I encounter during editing).<\/p>\n

    With that in mind, you can knock out both parts of an MLA citation in just four easy steps.<\/p>\n

    Step 1. Decide what type of source you\u2019re dealing with<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    When you\u2019re writing a literary analysis <\/a>or another type of research paper or essay, you might consult a pretty wide range of resources: books, articles in scholarly journals, web pages, and more.<\/p>\n

    In order to construct your citation, you need to determine exactly what kind of source you have. This is important because citing the Bible, for instance, is a little different from citing any other book, and citing a CD is a little different from citing an MP3.<\/p>\n

    Step 2. Find the appropriate structure\/plug in information<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    Once you know what type of source you are citing, you should locate the correct structure for the Works Cited entry. There are loads of great places to look, including<\/p>\n

    1. The Purdue OWL\u2019s Works Cited resources<\/a><\/p>\n

    2. The Bedford\/St. Martin\u2019s Research and Documentation online handbook<\/a><\/p>\n

    3. If you\u2019re totally stuck on a hard-to-cite source, see if your library has a physical copy of or online subscription to the official MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers<\/i><\/a>, which is the most comprehensive MLA resource available.<\/p>\n

    4. Sometimes our ways of accessing information change more quickly than the handbook is updated. For instance, the MLA doesn’t yet have guidelines for citing mobile apps, but Hans Mundahl at Ed Social Media has written a great blog post with 7 tips for citing apps using existing MLA guidelines<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    To save you a little time, I\u2019ll also share the structures for the most common sources you\u2019re likely to encounter in your research.<\/p>\n

    Book<\/b><\/p>\n

    Last Name, First Name. Title of Book<\/i>. Publishing location: Publisher, Year of Publication.        Medium of publication.<\/p>\n

    Journal article<\/b><\/p>\n

    Last Name, First Name. \u201cTitle of Article in Title Case.\u201d Title of Journal <\/em>Volume.Issue                (Year): Pages. Medium of publication.<\/p>\n

    Web page<\/b><\/p>\n

    Last Name, First Name. \u201cTitle of Web Page.\u201d Title of Web Site. <\/i>Name of publisher\/sponsor      of site, Date site was created. Medium of publication. Date of access.<\/p>\n

    After finding the right structure, you simply plug in the information from your source. It\u2019s not so different from plugging in the different parts of an address, if you think about it.<\/p>\n

    Step 3. Add entry to Works Cited<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    Once you\u2019ve plugged in your information, you\u2019re ready to add the entry to your Works Cited page.<\/p>\n

    To give you an idea of what your Works Cited should look like as it comes together, I put together an example Works Cited that includes a book, a journal article, and a web page entry. I also added some handy-dandy annotations with tips for formatting your page.<\/p>\n

    Step 4. Write in-text citation<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    After you\u2019ve added the entry to your Works Cited, all that\u2019s left to do is write your in-text citation. Compared to the rest of these steps — which really weren\u2019t so bad, were they? — this part is gravy.<\/p>\n

    First, remember that you need an in-text citation any time you quote, summarize, or paraphrase information from another source. (Not sure of the difference? Check out the Purdue OWL\u2019s explanation<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

    The in-text citation follows the quotation or paraphrased information immediately, before you even stick a period at the end of a sentence.<\/p>\n

    A basic in-text citation contains the author\u2019s last name and the page number on which you found the information, which applies only if your source — a journal article, a book — has <\/b>page numbers.<\/p>\n

    Let\u2019s take a peek at a few examples.<\/p>\n

    Say you\u2019re citing a line from The Grapes of Wrath<\/i> by John Steinbeck, which you\u2019ve already added to your Works Cited, of course. The in-text citation would come right after the quotation, and the ending punctuation comes after the citation<\/b>:<\/p>\n

    \u201cTheir eyes were inward and quiet, and their eyes, too, were lucent in the evening, lucent in dusty faces\u201d (Steinbeck 135)<\/span>.<\/p>\n

    Daaaang. That was <\/b>easy!<\/p>\n

    Now, let\u2019s pretend you\u2019re paraphrasing from Jackson Benson\u2019s journal article cited above:<\/p>\n

    Scholar Jackson Benson<\/span> felt that the latter half of the novel\u2019s dedication, \u201cTo Tom, who lived it,\u201d made the novel seem more exciting as he assumed it was a reference to Tom Joad (151)<\/span>.<\/p>\n

    Hey, wait a minute<\/i>, you might be thinking. Why are the name and page number separate?<\/i><\/p>\n

    This just gives you one more way to cite your information. In this case, identifying the author in the text of the sentence makes sense. And since we did so, you can include just <\/b>the page number in the parenthetical citation. Neat, huh?<\/p>\n

    There\u2019s one more important consideration: what about those sources without named authors, like the web page in the example Works Cited? In cases like these, your parenthetical citation starts with the first element of the Works Cited entry. In most cases, this will be the title of the source:<\/p>\n

    \u201cThe novel has an unusual structure: chapters that present historical and social information that led to the present situation (\u2018intercalary chapters\u2019) are interspersed with chapters of narration that focus on specific characters and develop the plot\u201d (\u201c1939, The Grapes of Wrath<\/i>\u201d)<\/span>.<\/p>\n

    Notice that the citation not only lacks an author, but it also doesn’t include a page number; this is just fine since the web page doesn’t have them.<\/p>\n

    Additional Resources<\/h2>\n

    It\u2019s important to know how to write MLA citations and find their structures on your own, and with the tutorial above, you should be well on your way.<\/p>\n

    But while you\u2019re learning the ropes (or just citing a ton of sources), there are a few handy automated citation builders that can make the process of writing citations faster and easier. You can even use them to verify that you\u2019re on the right track as you create your own.<\/p>\n

    Bibme <\/a>is one great citation generator — and it\u2019s free! It has an easy-to-use interface that allows you to create a citation based on a search, or you can enter your information manually. If you\u2019re citing a source with many different editions and publishers, such as a 75-year-old novel, it\u2019s best to use the manual entry mode.<\/p>\n

    Citefast <\/a>is another free citation generator. You select your source type, enter\/search for your source information, view your generated citations and then export or copy\/paste them into your Works Cited. Like Bibme, Citefast provides the option to search for your source or enter the information manually.<\/p>\n

    As you can see in the screen grabs above, both of these generators also generate in-text citations for you, too; you have to add the page number, though!<\/p>\n

    Last but not least, you can test your smarts by playing ten rounds of MLA Master Blaster<\/a>, a fun citation game from Williams College Libraries.<\/p>\n

    I hope you\u2019re feeling pretty confident in your ability to write MLA citations. Don\u2019t forget to have a Kibin editor<\/a> check your work and help you put the final polish on your paper.<\/p>\n

    Happy writing!
    \n<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    \u201cYou\u2019re bound to get idears if you go thinkin\u2019 about stuff.\u201d — Tom Joad in John Steinbeck\u2019s The Grapes of Wrath So you have to write a paper for your English class, and your teacher has asked you to include MLA citations for your sources. And maybe that freaks you out just a little (….or … <\/p>\n

    Read more<\/b> “How to Write MLA 7 Citations Without Going Crazy”<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":8638,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[76],"yoast_head":"\nHow to Write MLA Citations Without Going Crazy<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"You have to write a paper, and your teacher has asked you to include MLA citations for your sources. Don't freak out! 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