MLA FORMAT
(adapted from the WOU English Department's "Style Directions") FOR PROFESSOR DALE CANNON'S CLASSES
GENERAL FORMAT OF PAPER
1. "The paper consists of the text and a [bibliography or] works cited page. The paper should be neatly typed, on one side of the page, on good quality bond paper of standard size--8 1/2 x 11. Do not use onion-skin or erasable bond. . . . Do not justify right hand margins." (Material in quotation marks, except for bracketed interpolations, are from the WOU English Department "Style Directions.")
MARGINS
2. "Use one inch margins all around (top, bottom, and sides)."
TITLE PAGE
3. There should be a title page. "[P]lace the title, centered, about 1/3 down from the top of the page. . . . [P]ut your name, instructor, class and date in the lower right hand corner. . . . [T]he title is repeated on the first page, 1 inch from the top, with the text beginning two spaces below the title."
PARAGRAPHING
4. "Use normal paragraphing throughout the paper--that is, indent five spaces for the start of each new paragraph. Do not add spaces between paragraphs."
DOUBLE-SPACING
5. "Double-space the entire text, including inset quotations . . ."
PAGE NUMBERING
6. "Number pages consecutively in the upper right-hand corner of the paper, 1/2 inch from the top. Include your last name, a space, then the page number (e.g., Smith 2)."
PROOFREADING
7. "Give the paper a ruthless proofreading before submitting it. You will be given 'credit' for any mistakes. Corrections are [to be] made in black ink. White out is allowed. Do not rely on a spellchecker [alone] to proof your paper [for anything other than spelling--and even they are no help with uncommon or foreign words]. They are syntactically illiterate."
PUNCTUATION
8. "[C]ommas and periods go inside quotation marks when necessary (MLA's parenthetical documentation has eliminated much of this problem). Question marks go inside the quotation marks if they are in the original, outside otherwise. Ellipses (for omissions in a direct quotation) consist of three spaced periods . . . like so. For interpolations (additions to a quotation) use square brackets [thus], not parentheses. If your machine does not have square brackets, draw them in neatly in black ink. Hyphenate words at the end of a sentence on a syllable break, not just anywhere. To make a dash, use two hyphens with no spaces--like this."
QUOTATIONS
9. "Integrate . . . [fewer] than four lines into your text. More than four lines are inset 10 spaces from the left, normal right. Inset quotations are double spaced but do not use quotation marks. The period for an inset quotation comes before the parentheses."
"[T]o handle quotation marks with[in] quotation marks[:] The rule is, no double quotation marks within double quotation marks." In other words, if there are double quotation marks in the original, leave them in if the quotation is inset. If the quotation is integrated into your text, put quotation marks around the quotation and change the marks within the original to single quotation marks (same as the apostrophe).
FOREIGN TERMS
A good rule to follow is to italicize the term (especially when transliterated [i.e., an attempted reproduction in English of the sound the word has in its original language]), unless the term has come to be used commonly in English. Thus for example, halakah would be italicized, but Torah would not.
Notice that the same terms are sometimes transliterated in different ways by different authors. Try to use what is the most authentic transliteration. If in doubt, use the transliteration used in my R204 Lecture Notes and Glossary. But in any case be consistent: do not use different transliterations in different parts of your paper, except where unavoidable in quotations (and then you should make clear by explanation or interpolation in square brackets the equivalence with your usage elsewhere).
DOCUMENTATION
10. "[D]ocumentation is the process by which credit is given to the appropriate source for every borrowed idea used in a paper. Such ideas may be in the form of direct quotation, summary or paraphrase. Regardless of form, proper credit must be given in a specific conventional style that allows the reader to trace your sources. For literature courses [and religious studies courses taught by me] that style is MLA, which uses parenthetical documentation where references are placed in parentheses within the text itself. This eliminates the need for foot notes or end notes. The parenthetical note refers the reader to a works cited entry which includes complete publication information for the source."
"For example, in the text a reference to a work by Gargano could be cited in one of two ways:
Gargano argues that 'The Black Cat' is 'Poe's most profoundly moral tale' (231).
or
'The Black Cat' is the most moral of all Poe's tales (Gargano 231).
The first example is a direct quotation with the auathor identified in the text; thus the parenthetical reference contains only the page number. The second example is a paraphrase and does not identify the author; thus both author and page number are included in the parentheses."
"Note: there is no punctuation between the author's name and the page number, nor is there any abbreviation for page (p). The period at the end of the sentence comes after the parentheses. Where no author is identified, use a clear form (shortened if possible or necessary) of the title. Multivolume works need reference to author, volume number, and page: Other historians disagree (Durant 2:25)."
Beware of the exception here of encyclopedias and other encyclopedia-like reference works. MLA parenthetical citations from an encyclopedia, such as the Encyclopedia of Religion, or any other collection of essays should be to the author of the article or essay (not to the editor of the collection). An author's name is usually given at the end of an encyclopedia article (sometimes as initials which must then be looked up elsewhere for the full name). In your Bibliography or Works Cited, each article or essay referenced should be listed separately by the author's name and the title of the article or essay. Encyclopedia of Religion references should look like this: e.g.,
Cragg, Kenneth. "Muslim Worship." Encyclopedia of Religion. 1987 ed.
The reference in the text of your paper should look like this: (Cragg xx), where xx is the page number of the reference. If there is more than one source reference by Cragg, then it should look like this: (Cragg, "Worship" xx), or some other abbreviated version of the article title.
Where more than one source is by the same author, the parenthetical note will have a comma after the name, followed by an easily identified abbreviation of the particular source, which will then be followed by the page number -- e.g., (Cannon, Six Ways 42).
"The idea is simple. The reference in the text needs to be identified as to who said it and on what page. The [Bibliography] or Works Cited page then gives the full publication information of the source."
BIBLIOGRAPHY OR WORKS CITED PAGE
11. "The Works Cited page is ordered alphabetically according to the author's last name. Where no author is identified, alphabetize by the first significant word of the title (i.e., 'The Black Cat' would be alphabetized by 'Black.' Do not invert the title to 'Black Cat, The'). Give the author's name exactly as it appears on the title page of the source. James W. Gargano cannot be shortened to Gargano, J. W. or Gargano, James. It must be Gargano, James W. Three hyphens followed by a period replace the name of repeated authors. In such a case, list the works alphabetically by title."
Generally, there are no specific page numbers to a quotation reference in your Works Cited. However, in the case of an essay in a book, a chapter, a journal article, or an encyclopedia article, the page numbers for the first and last pages of the article (or the one page number if the article is entirely on one page) are given.
"The title, "Works Cited" [or "Bibliography"], is centered, one inch from the top of the page. Double space throughout. Indent the second and any subsequent lines of an entry five spaces (hanging indentation). [L]ist all sources you consulted even if you did not use them in the paper."
SPECIAL REFERENCES IN R204
(Note: The underlined capitalized phrases are for identification of type of reference here only. They do not belong on your "Works Cited" page.)
CLASS LECTURES
Cannon, Dale. R204: Western Religions Lecture. Monmouth, OR: Western Oregon University,
October 24, 1997 [I.e., date(s) of lecture in question].PUBLISHED CLASS LECTURES
Cannon, Dale. R204 Lectures (1996) and Religious Studies Essays. Monmouth, OR: Western
Oregon University, 1997.PUBLISHED CLASS ESSAY
Cannon, Dale. "Handout on Judaism." R204 Lectures (1998) and Religious Studies Essays.
Monmouth, OR: Western Oregon University, 1998.SUPPLEMENTARY TEXTBOOK
de Lange, Nicholas. "What Is Judaism?" The Ways of Religion: An Introduction to the Major
Traditions. 2nd ed. Ed. by Roger Eastman. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.
263-268.Ludwig, Theodore. The Sacred Paths: Understanding the Religions of the World. 2nd ed. Saddle
River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1996.UNPUBLISHED ESSAY
Simeon. "Why I Am an Eastern Orthodox Christian." Monmouth, OR: unpublished essay, 1991.
INTERVIEW
Alexander, James. Personal Interview. Monmouth, OR: October 14, 1997.
Simington, Paula. Telephone Interview. Monmouth, OR: October 28, 1997.
VIDEOTAPE
"Christian Mysticism and the Monastic Life." Hartley Videos videotape, 1980.
OTHER SAMPLE REFERENCES
BOOK
Hoffman, Lawrence A. Beyond the Text: A Holistic Approach to Liturgy. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University
CHAPTER OR SECTION IN A BOOK
Goodman, Felicitas. "The Glossolalia Utterance." Speaking in Tongues: A Cross-Cultural Study of Glossolalia.
ARTICLE IN A WELL KNOWN ENCYCLOPEDIA
Marcus, R. A. "Augustine, St." The Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 1967ed.
ARTICLE IN A LESSER KNOWN ENCYCLOPEDIA
Werblowsky, R. J. Zwi. "Judaism, or the Religion of Israel." The Concise Encyclopedia of Living Faiths. Ed. by
READERS AND ANTHOLOGIES
Davies, Douglas. "Christianity." Worship. Ed. by Jean Holm with John Bowker. London: Pinter Publishers, 1994.
JOURNAL ARTICLE
Lang, Karen Christina. "Images of Women in Early Buddhism and Christian Gnosticism." Buddhist-Christian
MONTHLY MAGAZINE
Cox, Harvey. "Eastern Cults and Western Culture: Why Young Americans Are Buying Oriental
For a full explanation of MLA documentation, consult chapters 4 and 5 of Joseph Gibaldi, MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 4th ed., on reserve for R204.
For an Internet source on MLA documentation, click here.
For an Internet source on MLA documentation of sources off of the Internet, click here. Return to Syllabus.
Western
Oregon University
Direct suggestions, comments, and questions about this page to Dale Cannon.
Last Modified 9/20/98