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Cite It Right! Workshop

For use during a Cite It Right workshop - Fall 2021

What is an MLA Citation?

What is an MLA Citation?

MLA is a style guide for citations from the Modern Language Association (MLA). 

Citation style guides show you what information to include in each citation and how to organize your list of citations.

MLA citation style is primarily used for research papers in English classes although some instructors in other subject areas also use MLA.

MLA requires as much of the following information as possible:
      Author's name
      Title of the work
      Title of the website
      Name of the website sponsor
      Date published or the date of the most recent update  
      Date of access (or the date you looked at the website use if there is no publication or upload date)

What do MLA Citations Look Like?

Two essential ways to use citations in your paper are shown below.

Information from an article from the Opposing Viewpoints database on the topic of universal basic income needs to be cited

1) in the text

AND

2) on the Works Cited page.

An in-text citation in your paper with a quote or a paraphrase

"The Chicago City Council is poised to vote this week on what would be one of the nation's largest basic income programs, giving 5,000 low-income households $500 per month." (Guarino)

A complete citation for the same article will be included on the Works Cited page at the end of your paper.

Guarino, Mark. "Chicago poised to create one of the nation's largest 'guaranteed basic income' programs." Washingtonpost.com, 25 Oct. 2021, Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A680194390/OVIC?u=uiuc_oak&sid=bookmark-OVIC&xid=0b1b47bb.

Here's a link to the article if you want to see more.

https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A680194390/OVIC?u=uiuc_oak&sid=bookmark-OVIC&xid=0b1b47bb

Your List of Sources and Citations - the MLA Works Cited Page

When you are finishing your research paper, it's important to gather up all of your sources and make a list of complete citations for each source.

That list has a specific name in each citation style.

  • MLA - Works Cited

Citation lists use the following rules:

  • Start your list of citations on a new page
  • Center the title of your citation list
  • Arrange the citations in alphabetical order by the last name of the author
  •         or, if there is no author, by the first major word in the title.
  • Double space the information in the list
  • Use a hanging indent for each entry
  • Do not number items in the list of citations