What Should You Do to Titles of a Book Series in MLA Format Papers?

Modern Language Association (MLA) style is the standard format for humanities courses and works. The paper has 1-inch margins on all sides, 12-point Times New Roman font and is left-justified. Page numbers are listed in the upper right-hand corner of every page, and instead of a bibliography, you insert a "Works Cited" page at the end of your work to cite your references. The citations are standard, but books in a series require additional information.
  1. In-Text and Parenthetical

    • Every time you insert a direct quote or restate a point you gathered from a book, you must cite it in the text of your paper. You can use the author's name in the text, such as, "Mr. Jones illustrates..." in which case you need to insert the page numbers in parenthesis after the quote and before the period. If you do not use the author's name in the text, you must insert the author's last name and the page number without a comma in parenthesis -- before the period at the end of the sentence. If you have an author that wrote more than one book, include the name of the book after the author's name and then add the page number.

    In-Text With More Than One Author

    • If there are three or fewer authors, and you want their names in the text, your sentence will look like this, "Fitzpatric, Jones, and Walton state...," and you will follow the statement with the page number in parenthesis followed by a period. If there are more than three authors, the sentence looks like this: "Fitzpatric, et. al...." with the page number in parenthesis. For two authors, insert "and" between the author's last names in both in-text and parenthetical citations. If you are not inserting the names in the text, and you have three authors or less, include each author in the parenthesis with a comma between each and a space between the last author and the page number. It will look like this, (Fitzpatric, Jones, and Walton 200). If there are more than three authors, the citation will have the last name of the first author, "et al." and the page number. It will look like this, (Fitzpatric, et al. 200). Everything is inserted before the period at the end of the sentence.

    Works Cited Series

    • On your works cited page, you list all your references in alphabetical order by last name. If you are using the entire series as a reference, your reference will have the author's last name, first name and middle initial, followed by a period. Insert the name of the series and end it with a period. City of publication: publisher, date of publication are entered last. If there is more than one author, you will list the authors back to back. If there are three or fewer authors, then separate them by a comma. If there are more than three authors, you will add only the first author's name and follow it by a comma and "et al."

    Works Cited Books

    • If you are only using one book or one article in the series, the works cited citation includes the name of the book or series. Insert the author's last name, first name and middle initial. Add the name of the book or article and underline it, or put it in italics and follow it with a period. Insert the name of the series followed by a period. State the city of publication a colon and the publisher. Add a comma and then enter the date of publication, followed by a period. If you are using more than one book, they must be listed separately.

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