LEO: Literacy Education Online MLA Works Cited: General Guidelines

The reference page in MLA is called the works cited page, and it includes complete publication information for only those sources used in a document. Here are some general guidelines and samples for the works cited:

• Entries are double-spaced.
• Entries are alphabetized according to authors' last names.
• Abbreviations (p., pp.) are not used before page numbers.
• Titles of books, pamphlets and brochures, reports, journals, and magazines are underlined. (Underlining is a remnant of typewriter technology; in current practice, it is replaced by italics. Illustrations shown here, however, use underlining.)
• Titles of articles and book chapters appear in quotations.
• If email addresses or URLs for web pages will not fit on one line, break the line after a mark of punctuation (that is, after a period or slash) so that the address break is logical for readers.

For examples of specific reference entries, please refer to the entries found under "How do I document . . ." on the LEO's MLA Documentation. Also see the Modern Language Association's Frequently Asked Questions about MLA Style: http://www.mla.org/style_faq. These guidelines are taken from two books by Joseph Gibaldi: The MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers (Sixth Edition, New York: Modern Language Association, 2003) and the MLA Style Guide to Scholarly Publishing (Second Edition, New York: Modern Language Association, 1998).

This page was written by Judith Kilborn for the Write Place, St. Cloud State University, St. Cloud, MN, and may be copied for educational purposes only. If you copy this document, please include our copyright notice and the name of the writer; if you revise it, please add your name to the list of writers.