Sociology 101 (SOC 101): General Sociology: MLA

Principles:

• When you borrow the ideas of others you must document them in a Works Cited list and in text, both to avoid plagiarism and to allow someone else to look up your sources.
• Any source can be documented using all or some of nine Core Elements (see more about Core Elements below).
• You, as the researcher, and in consultation with your professor's requirements and guidelines, are in charge of deciding how many of the Core Elements are needed to fully document each of your sources.

There are two different citations you need to make when you use a source. The first is a short in text citation, shown below. The second is the full citation in your Works Cited list (example in the box below). 

In Text Citations

These go in the body of the paper you are writing.  The MLA 9th edition requires that you include enough information so a reader could find the source in your list of works cited, plus the specific page numbers referenced.  Usually that will mean you use an author's last name, since that is the first thing listed in your Works Cited.  For example, if you were writing a paper on the history of comics in America and wanted to quote an author, it could look like this:

      Picking up on the counter-cultural undercurrents that were pervasive in both youth culture and the nascent civil rights movement, comics as a medium changed profoundly to accommodate new tastes, and new social outlooks.  One author notes "one telling example was Marvel's Iron Man: a staunch anticommunist since his origin, the character experienced (or rather, was made to experience) an ideological about-face in 1971 following the growing number of fan letters criticizing his politics" (Gabilliet 74).

You would also use a parenthetical citation when paraphrasing an author. For example:

In Jean-Paul Gabilliet's book Of Comics and Men: A Cultural History of American Comic Books, the author makes the case that sequential art (comics) has a uniquely interconnected mechanism of production that is not necessarily present in other art forms.  In Gabilliet's view,  the decline of print periodicals has caused comics to take on a more mature tone that will eventually allow comics to be taken more seriously by critics (310).

Note that the citations in parentheses always come after the final quotation mark and before the period at the end of a sentence.

For more on in text citations, see Ch. 6, "Citing Sources in the Text" pages 227-286 in the MLA Handbook 9th ed., available at the Hillsboro library circulation desk.

For help with writing your research paper, consult Jefferson College's Online Writing Lab. 

For help with research and citations, consult a Librarian. 

Features:

• Formatting (Ch. 1)
• Basic Writing Mechanics (ex: punctuation) (Ch. 2)
• Using Inclusive Language (Ch. 3)
• Avoiding Plagiarism (Ch. 4)

And, of course, citing works in the MLA style.

Giordano, Paolo. How Contagion Works : Science, Awareness, and Community in Times of Global Crises. Translated by Alex Valente, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2020.

This citation for a book includes five of the nine Core Elements: Author, Title of Source, Other contributors, Publisher, and Publication Date.  To find out exactly how to cite your particular book, refer to Ch. 5, "The List of Works Cited" pages 105-226, in the 9th edition MLA Handbook, available at the Hillsboro library circulation desk.

Garielson, Tenna. "Woman-Thought, Social Capital, and the Generative State: Mary Austin and the Integrative Civic Ideal in Progressive Thought." American Journal of Political Science, vol 50. no 3, 2006, pp.650-663.

Notice that you no longer need to indicate whether you located the source in web or print.  You simply need to provide enough information so that someone could find this article. 

This citation includes six of the nine Core Elements: Author, Title of source, Title of container, Number, Publication Date, and Location.  You could provide additional optional information, such as date of access, but you are not required to.  To find out exactly how to cite your particular book, refer to Ch. 5, "The List of Works Cited" pages 105-226, in the 9th edition MLA Handbook, available at the Hillsboro library circulation desk.

For complete guidance, refer to Ch. 5, "The List of Works Cited" pages 105-226, in the 9th edition MLA Handbook, available at the Hillsboro library circulation desk.

Webpage

Shute, Nancy. "Title." NPR, 26 Aug. 2014, http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014

            /08/26/343382661/health-organizations-call-for-a-ban-on-e-cigarettes-indoors.

Interview

Mandela, Nelson. Nightline. Interview by Ted Koppel, ABC, 15 Feb. 1990.

Work of Art

Utagawa, Kuniyoshi. Mitsikuni Defying the Skeleton Ghost. Woodblock Print, 1845, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Movie

Forrest Gump. Directed by Robert Zemeckis, performance by Tom Hanks, Paramount, 1994, disc 1.

After citing another work, you need to use the full citation in your Works Cited page at the end of your paper.  The works cited page is a collection of all your sources, cited in official MLA style, and listed alphabetically--generally by the author's last name.  The beginning of a works cited page might look like this:

Works Cited

Gabilliet, Jean-Paul. Of Comics and Men: A Cultural History of American Comic Books.

          Translated by Bart Beaty and Nick Nguyen, University Press of Mississippi, 2009.

Gabrielson, Teena. "Woman-Thought, Social Capital, and the Generative State: Mary Austin

          and the Integrative Civic Ideal in Progressive Thought." American Journal of Political

          Science, vol. 50, no. 3, 2006, pp. 650-663.