Works Cited page, constructed from the student library review
[PLEASE NOTE: this works cited page was done with the previous version of the MLA. The new version is slightly different. We will only be using the new version.]
Works Cited
Adams, Samuel. “Mini-barge fleet piles area rivers.” The Sunday [Ashland KY]
Independent. 30 Jan. 1994: 1A. [See Note 1 below].
Boyne, Walter J. Beyond the Horizons: The Lockheed Story. NY: Thomas Dune, 1998. [See note 2 below.]
Congressional Quarterly Index 1991 to199. Washington: GPO, 1996. [Note: GPO stands for Government Printing Office.]
Ferguson, Rosalind. The Penguin Rhyming Dictionary. London: Penguin, 1985.
James, Mike. “Bryan pleaded guilty to reckless homicide.” The [Ashland, KY] Independent, 31 May 2000. 1A.
King, Peter. “Facing the Music.” Sports Illustrated. Dec. 1998: 82, 84, 86. [See Note 3 below.]
Langlely, Paul. "It's Bush's War." Slate 12 Feb. 2004. 23 June 2005 <http://slate.msn.com/id/221136>. [See Note 5 below.]
Munson, Kenneth. Aircraft of World War Two. London: I. Allan, 1962.
Natkiel, Richard. Atlas of American Wars. Greenwich, CT: Bison, 1986.[See note 4 below.]
Rice, Otis K.
West Virginia: A History. Lexington, KY:, UP of Kentucky, 1985.
Stearns, Leroy D. The 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing in Desert Shield and Desert Storm.
Washington D.C.: U.S. Marine Corps, 1999.
“West Virginia.” Van Nostrand’s Scientific Encyclopedia Sixth Edition. 1983 ed. [See note 4 below.]
Please note, general observations: Punctuation is very important. Book, magazine, and newspaper titles are underlined or in italics. There are periods used after the author’s name, after the titles (and inside the quotation marks), and at the end of the entry.
The author’s last name comes first. If there are more than one author (but less than three), the second and third authors’ names do not come in reverse order. If there are more than three authors, use the et al abbreviation (meaning: "and others").
Notice that the works cited is order by the authors’ last names. If there is no author indicated for your citation, you use the next entry, the title of the article or book.
Notice that you must indent all but the first lines of the entries.
And, finally, this is just a model that covers only a small number of the possible citations. For a complete illustration, you should look at one of the many standard MLA handbooks or search online. Here are two good online sources for constructing the works cited page:
a source for electronic citations
and a source for other MLA citations
Please note, specific observations:
1) If the title of the newspaper is ambiguous, you must supply the needed information to make it clear. For instance, for The Daily Independent it is not enough to supply in brackets that it is the Ashland paper; since there are several Ashlands in the U.S., you must indicate that it is the Ashland, Kentucky newspaper.
2) You should know the basic book form since all of the others are variations of this form. Here it is:
Last name, first name. Title of the book. City of publication: publisher, year published. [Notice the punctuation: a comma between the last name and the first name, a period after the first name, the title of the book either underlined or put into italics, a colon after the city of publication or sometimes, if the city is not well known, the city and the state or country, a comma after the publisher of the book, and a period after the year of publication.
3) Notice that all of the pages on which this article appears are listed: 82, 84, 86. This means that on pages 83 and 85 the article does not appear. There are probably advertisements on these pages.
4) What is a reference work and what is not? For encyclopedias and dictionaries, you do not have to list anything but the title and date. But if in doubt, treat the work as a standard book and list the place and publisher as well.
5) Online sources must always include the http address and must include the date that you accessed the site. In the above examples, that date is 23 June 2005. If the cite is dated, that too must be included. You should always use a guide for works cited items, but it's especially important for online sources.