MLA Rules for a Bibliography

Standard Rules

• According to Purdue University's Online Writing Lab (OWL), your MLA Works Cited page should start on a separate page at the end of your paper. It should follow the same format--1-inch margins and last name/page number header--as the text of your paper. While you should center the words "Works Cited" at the top of the page, MLA advises not to italcize or put these words in quotes, according to Purdue's OWL.

  Citations listed in your Works Cited page correspond with in-text citations that appear throughout your paper. MLA mandates that you double space your citations. MLA also requires that you use a 5-space indent for the second and all subsequent lines of each citation, creating a hanging indent. Purdue's OWL explains that page numbers should be condensed. For instance, you should refer to pages 240 to 270 in a journal article as "240-70."

Author Names

• Typically, each citation in your MLA Works Cited page begins with the last name of your source's author. (For special cases and complete MLA style details, refer to the latest editions of the "MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers" and the "MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing"). According to Purdue's OWL website, author's names are arranged in alphabetical order with the last name listed first. The first name follows before middle names or initials.

  When you cite more than one source from the same author, use three hyphens in place of the author's name and order the entries alphabetically by title. In the case of sources that do not have an author, arrange them in alphabetical order by their title.

Examples

• While you will need to consult one of the MLA-produced publications for rules governing all situations, Purdue's OWL website provides examples for the most common sources included in most MLA Works Cited pages. For instance, the following example shows how to cite a book in MLA style. Note that MLA requires you to italicize titles and, as of 2009, provide the medium for your source at the end of the citation. In most cases, books will be listed as "Print" mediums:

  Lastname, Firstname. Title of Book. Place of Publication: Publisher, Year of

  Publication. Medium of Publication.

  For journal and magazine articles, the title of the article goes in quotes. MLA requires you to italicize the title of the publication. See the example below from the Purdue OWL website:

  Author(s). "Title of Article." Title of Periodical Day Month Year: pages. Medium of

  publication.

  Since they change frequently, MLA--as of April 2010--no longer requires full URLs when citing electronic sources. The association, according to Purdue's OWL website, contends that most readers can easily locate your electronic source with the assistance of common search engines. While the documentation of electronic sources varies considerably from type to type, the following example is common on most MLA Works Cited pages:

  The Purdue OWL Family of Sites. The Writing Lab and OWL at Purdue and

  Purdue U, 2008. Web. 23 April 2008.

  In the above example, you should italicize the source's title--The Purdue OWL Family of Sites. The name of the site follows. Next, you include the date the source was created, if available, the medium of publication and the date you accessed it.