The Works Cited List (MLA Style)



Name______________________________________

Mrs. Malone

How To Write A Works Cited Page

References cited in the text of a research paper must appear at the end of the paper in a Works Cited list or bibliography. This list provides the information necessary to identify and retrieve each source that specifically supports your research. (The bibliography page lists documents or sources read during research but not used in the text of your paper. A bibliography page follows the same format as that of the Works Cited page.)

General rules

• The Works Cited page is double spaced throughout, even between lines in the same entry. Just format your page to double space and leave it alone. (The indentations are what visually separate the entries on the page.)

• If your Works Cited page appears at the end of a scholarly work but is begun on a new page. Since it is still in the text of your research paper, the page number heading should be continued from the previous page.

• Title this page “Works Cited.” Center this title at the top of the page-do not underline or use quotation marks on the title.

• DO NOT number entries. All references are placed in ALPHABETICAL ORDER by the last name of the author; if the author is unknown, entries are alphabetized by the first word in their titles (Note: drop A, An, or The).

• Indentation: Align the first line of the entry flush with the left margin; if a citation is more than one line long, its succeeding lines are indented five spaces. The entire list is double-spaced, both within and between citations.

• Pagination: Do not use the abbreviations p. or pp. to designate page numbers.

• Each item in the entry should be separated by a period followed by one space.

NOTE: In citing more than one work by the same author, give the author's name in the first entry only. Alphabetize the works according to the title. In place of the name of the author in all but the first entry, type three hyphens and a period, skip two spaces, and state title.

Don’t forget:

• Underlining vs. Italics: In printed material submitted for grading or editing, words that would be italicized in a publication are usually underlined to avoid ambiguity. If you wish to use italics rather than underlining, just be consistent.

• Use quotation marks around titles of short works such as a poem, article, or short story.

• Capitalize the first word and all other principle words of the titles and subtitles of cited works listed. (Do not capitalize articles, prepositions, coordinating conjunctions, or the "to" in infinitives.)

• Use the conjunction "and," not an ampersand [&], when listing multiple authors of a single work.

** See the separate handout for an example of a Works Cited page. **

There are many websites, such as the Citation Machine, that will help you write your Works Cited page correctly. Try: (Citation Machine) or (follow the links to Noodlebib express).

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