Citation Information - Notes on MLA Citations

As you know, for ENG 112, the citation style you’ll be using is the MLA (Modern Language Association) style. Your textbook has a lot of good information about using MLA citations, but there have been some updates on the use of MLA since the textbook was printed. My recommendation would be to break down and buy the official MLA handbook, if you haven’t already. At the very least, you’ll need it for this course, as well as ENG 113. Depending on how far you’re planning to go with your college education, you may need it in even more future courses. No single website I’ve found has addressed each prospective citation issue you will encounter, so having the official handbook really does come in handy, especially in a course like this one where citations play such a big role in your ultimate grade.

Okay, now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, here is a quick run-down of some of the most common citations you’ll use. For the sake of this entry, I am creating two fictional authors: Allen and Seaver. I’ll use their name in the citations so that you can see how different things are formatted!

The biggest change has been in the way you format titles in citations. In the textbook, it says that you underline book, publication, and/or database title. In the new revision, though, these items are now italicized.

If you want to cite the same information from more than one source, the in-text citation would look like this: (Allen 98; Seaver 62). Allen and Seaver are the two individual sources; the following numbers are the page numbers the information is located on. If the source doesn’t have page--for instance, if it’s a webpage--you wouldn’t include page numbers. I personally found that many sources offered the same recommendations. However, if you cite too many sources in one place, it can be distracting, so probably attribute information to no more than two or three sources. You need at least 6 separate sources for your paper, so if two articles contain the same information, but the first article has a lot of good information and the second only has one or two good points, cite the second article. Cite the first article (with more information) to back up a different point.

If an author of an article is quoting someone else, and you want to use the quote, you would use this: (qtd. by Seaver 2). Seaver is the author of the article that you read; you may want to include the name of the original source within your essay ("Allen said…").

The last thing I’ll include here is how to cite media formats. Okay, so this isn't quite as commonly used, but it could be helpful. Sometimes it's enjoyable to include a little variety in your paper. It can demonstrate the relevance of your topic, and it may help your audience (and you, for that matter) relate to it a little more. So here are two different common media formats that you may find helpful. (For these, I'm going to use real titles, just to make it easy.)

If you’d like to cite a movie, you would use this format: Movie Title. Director. Lead Performers. Distributor, year of release. Media format.

It should look something like this:
Twilight. Dir. Catherine Hardwicke. Perf. Robert Pattison and Kristin Stewart. Summit, 2008. Film.

For a CD, you would use the format: Artist or group. Title. Additional performers. Manufacturer, year of release. Type of media.

So your finished entry should look like this:
Timberlake, Justin. Justified. Jive, 2002. CD.

If there are additional performers on the CD in addition to the "headlining" artist or group, you would add them as "Perf." after the CD title.

For parenthetical citations for either of these formats, I usually use whatever the first word of the citation is. (For example, Twilight.) That way, when looking at the alphabetical "Works Cited" list, my reader can immediately find that entry. However, please ask your professor. I was unable to find any conclusive information for parenthetical citations of media, so the way I do it may not be correct!

Keep in mind that you’ll want to cite anything that you refer to in your paper. So even if you fleetingly reference Slumdog Millionaire (as I did once), it needs to be cited. I haven't referenced movies very frequently, but movies can be used to demonstrate cultural stereotypes or pop culture status, as can music.