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The MLA style guide is a citation system created by the Modern Language Association and used primarily in the humanities, and specifically in fields that study language and literature. The style guide provides standards for writers to document and cite sources while conducting research in these fields.
Every complete MLA entry consists of two parts:
“Any poet who wished to engage with Britain’s political situation in the first two decades of the nineteenth century inevitably needed to engage with the subject of the Napoleonic Wars, within which Britain was embroiled for much of the period” (Knowles 307).
or
As Knowles underscores, “Any poet who wished to engage . . .” (207).
“Any poet who wished to engage with Britain’s political situation in the first two decades of the nineteenth century inevitably needed to engage with the subject of the Napoleonic Wars, within which Britain was embroiled for much of the period” (Knowles).
“It is not surprising, then, that institutional documents, such as certificates of insanity, admission records, and case histories often tell a different story than the one proffered by patients who were seeking justice, redemption, and/or catharsis” (Hanganu-Bresch and Berkenkotter 13).
Include only the first author’s name followed by “et al.”
“Documents filtered through the criminal justice system and the press also pose challenges in analysing Black women’s experiences and stories” (Ware et al. 638).
“Any poet who wished to engage with Britain’s political situation . . . inevitably needed to engage with the subject of the Napoleonic Wars” ("Female Romantic Poetry”).
Quotations that run for more than four lines still include author name and page but are formatted in a block quote. A block quote:
As Knowles describes Felicia Hemans’ marriage:
in 1812, the young poet Felicia Dorothea Browne fell in love with and married a Captain Hemans who had returned to England in 1811, ‘weakened and scarred from war.’ The marriage was effectively over by 1818, when Captain Hemans left his growing family to return to Italy, never to return: although we can never know for sure, it is quite possible that his experiences in the war, and their ongoing impact on his health, played a role in this decision. (307)
Davis, Angela Y. Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday. Pantheon, 1998.
Dorris, Michael, and Louise Erdrich. The Crown of Columbus. HarperCollins Publishers, 1999.
Charon, Rita, et al. The Principles and Practice of Narrative Medicine. Oxford UP, 2017.
Knowles, Claire. “Female Romantic Poetry, 1798-1819: The Climate of Fear and the Loss of a Radical Generation.” Women’s Writing, vol. 28, no. 3, 2021, pp. 305-19.
Toorn, Penny van, and Daniel Justice. “Aboriginal Writing.” The Cambridge Companion to Canadian Literature, edited by Eva-Marie Kröller, Cambridge UP, 2017, pp. 26-58.
MLA Ad Hoc Committee on Foreign Languages. “Foreign Languages and Higher Education: New Structures for a Changed World.” Profession, 2007, pp. 234-45.
Rushmore. Directed by Wes Anderson, Touchstone Pictures, 1998.
Goldfarb, Laura. “Clear Speech, Clear Mind.” Laurier Writing Centre, 26 April 2019. https://laurierwriting.wordpress.com/2019/04/26/clear-speech-clear-mind/.
For more information, you can consult the Online Writing Lab at Purdue and the MLA website.
Writing Services, Wilfrid Laurier University, CC By-NC 2023
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