Citation Styles: MLA Core Elements of Works Cited

Note:

-Titles are given in full in the way they appear in the source

-Add a colon between the title and the subtitle

-A title is italicised if it is an independent source (for eg. Books)

-A title is placed in quotation marks if the work is part of a larger work.(for eg. an article in a website)

What is a container? If the source forms part of a larger whole, the larger whole is seen as the container.

Examples of a container: i) A book is a container if it is a collection of essays, short stories, etc.

                                            ii) A periodical (journal, magazine, newspaper) is a container as it is a collection of journal articles

iii) A database such as JSTOR can be a second level of container as it contains a collection of resources such as periodicals. (article>journal>database)

iv) A website which is a collection of articles, postings, etc.

Italicise the title of container, follow by a comma, since the information that follows describes the container.

-Name the other contributors if their involvement is important for the identification of the work.

 -Precede the name with a description of the role.

Some examples are:

• adapted by
• edited by
• illustrated by
• translated by

A work may be released in more than one form or version.

Identify the version in your entry (Books: revised edition, Updated edition, numbered editions (second edition, etc))

Use abbreviation “ed.” to express edition.

The work may be a numbered sequence.

 A book may be published in various volumes, a journal published in regular intervals may have volume and issue numbers.

-Organisation that produce the source or responsible for making it available to the public

-For websites that are published by organizations, include the name of the publisher (usually found at the copyright notice or site information).

-A blog network may be considered as the publisher of the blogs it hosts.

-The publisher’s name may be omitted for the following publications:

• A Periodical (journal, magazine, newspaper)
• A Work published by its author/editor
• A website with a title that is the same as the name of the publisher
• A website that does not produce the works it hosts (for eg., Youtube, Proquest, for which they are named as a container instead of a publisher)

-Omit business words like Company (Co.), Corporation (Corp.), Incorporated (Inc.), and Limited (Ltd.).

-For Academic presses, replace University Press with UP, or if they appear separately, replace them as ‘U” or “P”: U of Chicago, MIT Press (please see abbreviations)

Sources, especially online sources which are also available in print, may involve more than 1 publication date. (for e.g., date available online vs print published date)

Cite the date which is more meaningful to you. If you only consult only the online resource, ignore the publication date of the print resource. Likewise, if you only consult the print resource, ignore the date the resource is available online.

-Write the date as you find on the source.  Occasionally, you may decide to include a more/less detailed date according to the type of source. Please see below for more details:

For books:

• If there is no date on the title page, check the copyright’s page. (select the more recent date if there is more than one date)
• If the book has several editions, cite the date of edition you consulted.
• Do not take the publication dates from outside sources (such as online catalogues or booksellers) as the information found may not be accurate.

Depends on the format of publication: