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ENG 124: Critical Reading & Writing: Multigenre (Pugh)

MLA 8th ed.

Note: The new 8th edition of MLA style was released in March 2016. All examples on this site are for the 8th edition.

MLA with Annotations

Lamott, Anne. Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. Anchor Books, 1995.

Lamott's book offers honest advice on the nature of a writing life, complete with its insecurities and failures. Taking a humorous approach to the realities of being a writer, the chapters in Lamott's book are wry and anecdotal and offer advice on everything from plot development to jealousy, from perfectionism to struggling with one's own internal critic. In the process, Lamott includes writing exercises designed to be both productive and fun.
Lamott offers sane advice for those struggling with the anxieties of writing, but her main project seems to be offering the reader a reality check regarding writing, publishing, and struggling with one's own imperfect humanity in the process. Rather than a practical handbook to producing and/or publishing, this text is indispensable because of its honest perspective, its down-to-earth humor, and its encouraging approach.
Chapters in this text could easily be included in the curriculum for a writing class. Several of the chapters in Part 1 address the writing process and would serve to generate discussion on students' own drafting and revising processes. Some of the writing exercises would also be appropriate for generating classroom writing exercises. Students should find Lamott's style both engaging and enjoyable.

The Basics

Below are some common examples to get you started using MLA style.

Note:

  • For online sources, you should include a location to show readers where you found the source. Many scholarly databases use a DOI (digital object identifier). Use a DOI in your citation if you can; otherwise use a URL. Delete “http://” from URLs. The DOI or URL is usually the last element in a citation and should be followed by a period.
  • All works cited entries end with a period.

Book with one author  

MLA 8th edition 
Hoffman, Frederick John. The Great Gatsby: A Study. Scribner, 1962.

Journal article from an online database

MLA 8th edition 
Briggs, Ward. "Petronius and Virgil in "The Great Gatsby"." International Journal of the Classical Tradition, vol. 6, no. 2, 1999, pp. 226-235. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/30222545.

 E-book

MLA 8th edition 

An e-book—that is, a book that lacks a URL and that you use software to read on a personal device or computer—is considered a version according to the MLA Handbook’s template of core elements:

MLA Handbook. 8th ed., e-book, Modern Language Association of America, 2016.

Newspaper article from online

MLA 8th edition
Revkin, Andrew C. "Clinton on Climate Change." The New York Times, 17 May 2007, www.nytimes.com/video/world/americas/1194817109438/clinton-on-liate-change.html. Accessed 29 July 2016.

Sample Works Cited

(The following is taken directly from: MLA Sample Works Cited Page, https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/12/)

Works Cited

Dean, Cornelia. "Executive on a Mission: Saving the Planet." The New York Times, 22 May 2007, www.nytimes.com/2007/05/22

/science/earth/22ander.html?_r=0. Accessed 12 May 2016.

Ebert, Roger. Review of An Inconvenient Truth, directed by Davis Guggenheim. rogerebert.com, 1 June 2006,

http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/an-inconvenient-truth-2006. Accessed 15 June 2016.

Gowdy, John. "Avoiding Self-organized Extinction: Toward a Co-evolutionary Economics of Sustainability." International Journal of

Sustainable Development and World Ecology, vol. 14, no. 1, 2007, pp. 27-36.

An Inconvenient Truth. Directed by Davis Guggenheim, performances by Al Gore and Billy West, Paramount, 2006.

Leroux, Marcel. Global Warming: Myth Or Reality?: The Erring Ways of Climatology. Springer, 2005.

Milken, Michael, et al. "On Global Warming and Financial Imbalances." New Perspectives Quarterly, vol. 23, no. 4, 2006, p. 63.

Nordhaus, William D. "After Kyoto: Alternative Mechanisms to Control Global Warming." American Economic Review, vol. 96, no. 2,

2006, pp. 31-34.

---. "Global Warming Economics." Science, vol. 294, no. 5545, 9 Nov. 2001, pp. 1283-84, DOI: 10.1126/science.1065007.

Regas, Diane. “Three Key Energy Policies That Can Help Us Turn the Corner on Climate.” Environmental Defense Fund, 1 June

2016, www.edf.org/blog/2016/06/01/3-key-energy-policies-can-help-us-turn-corner-climate. Accessed 19 July 2016.

Revkin, Andrew C. “Clinton on Climate Change.” The New York Times, 17 May 2007, www.nytimes.com/video/world/americas

/1194817109438/clinton-on-climate-change.html. Accessed 29 July 2016.

Shulte, Bret. "Putting a Price on Pollution." US News & World Report, vol. 142, no. 17, 14 May 2007, p. 37. Ebsco, Access no:

24984616.

Uzawa, Hirofumi. Economic Theory and Global Warming. Cambridge UP, 2003.