a. "References to the text must clearly point to specific sources in the list of works cited" (Gibaldi 184).

b. Try to use parenthetical documentation as little as possible. For example, when you cite an entire work, it is preferable to include the author's name in the text.

Ex. Terry Otten's The Crime of Innocence in the Fiction of Toni Morrison traces the motif of the biblical fall.

c. The author's last name followed by the page number is usually enough for an accurate identification of the source in the works cited list.

a. Documenting a quotation:

Ex. "The separation from the personal mother is a particularly intense process for a daughter because she has to separate from the one who is the same as herself" (Murdock 17). She may feel abandoned and angry.

Note: The author of The Heroine's Journey is listed under "Works Cited" by the author's name, reversed — Murdock, Maureen. Quoted material is found on page 17 of that book. Parenthetical documentation is after the quotation mark and before the period.

b. Documenting a paraphrase:

Ex. In fairy tales a woman who holds the princess captive or who abandons her often needs to be killed (18).

Note: The second paraphrase is also from Murdock;s book The Heroine;s Journey. It is not, however, necessary to repeat the author;s name if no other documentation interrupts the two.

c. If the works cited page lists more than one work by the same author, include within the parentheses an abbreviated form of the appropriate title.

Ex. Morrison stresses her belief in the power of names when Pilate, another of her strong female characters, says, "I'd know her ribbon color anywhere,but I don't know her name. After she died Papa wouldn't let anybody say it" (Morrison, Song 42).

d. You may, of course, include the title in your sentence, making it unnecessary to add an abbreviated title in the citation.

Ex. In The Song of Solomon, Morrison stresses her belief in the power of names when Pilate, another of her strong female characters, says, "I'd know her ribbon color anywhere, but I don't know her name. After she died Papa wouldn't let anybody say it" (Morrison 42).

a. A Works Cited page lists those works you have cited within the body of your paper. The reader need only refer to it for the necessary information required for further independent research.

b. Bibliography means literally a description of books. Because your research may involve the use of periodicals, films, etc. "Works Cited" is a more precise descriptive term.

c. An Annotated Bibliography or Annotated Works Cited page offers brief descriptions of the works listed.

d. A Works Consulted page lists those works you have used but not cited.

a. The Work Cited page is placed at the end of your paper and numbered consecutively with the body of your paper.

b. Center the title and place it 1 inch from the top of your page. Do not quote or underline the title.

c. Double space the entire page, both within and between entries.

d. The entries are arranged alphabetically by the author's last name or by the title of the article or book being cited. If the title begins with an article (a, an, the) alphabetize by the next word.

e. If you cite two or more works by the same author, list the titles in alphabetical order. Begin every entry after the first with three hyphens followed by a period.

f. All entries begin at the left margin but subsequent lines are indented five spaces.

g. Be sure that each entry cited on the Work Cited page corresponds to a specific citation within your paper.

h. Refer to the the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers (104- 182) for detailed descriptions of Work Cited entries.

i. Below is a Works Cited page that would follow a research paper on Beloved. It illustrates the most commonly cited entries. NOTE: Information in brackets is not included in the final document.

   

---

Writer's last name
[1/2 inch from top of page]

Works Cited
[1 inch from top of page]

[Book with two authors]
 

Gilbert Sandra M., and Susan Gubar.

The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth Century Literary Imagination. New Haven : Yale University Press, 1984.

[Essay within an anthology]
 

Henderson, Mae. "Response" to

"There Is No More Beautiful Way" by Houston A. Baker, Jr. in Afro-American Literary Study in the 1990s. Eds. Houston A Baker, Jr., and Patricia Redmond. Chicago : Chicago University Press, 1989, 155-163.

[Essay on Web site; also see below]
 

Horvitz, Deborah. "Nameless Ghosts: Possession

and Dispossession in Beloved." Studies in American Fiction, Vol. 17, No. 2, Autumn, 1989, pp. 157-67. Republished in Literature Resource Center. Online. Dialog. 1 Jan. 1999.

[Book by one author]
 

Morrison, Toni. Beloved. New York: Knopf, 1987.

[Second entry by above author]
 

---. Song of Solomon. New York: Signet, 1977.

Otten, Terry. The Crime Of Innocence In The

Fiction Of Toni Morrison. A Literary Frontiers Edition # 13. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1989.