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Name Course Date Appropriate Title The essay should be typed in a common non-italic twelve-point font such as Times New Roman, Courier or Comic Sans. The essay should have approximately one-inch margins all around. It should be double-spaced throughout. Do not skip spaces between paragraphs. Paragraphs should be indented ten to twelve spaces. The easiest way to indent is to hit the tab button. Be sure to follow MLA conventions. Titles of poems, articles, short stories or chapter titles are quoted. Titles of books, full-length plays, epic poems, visual art works, journals, magazines and newspapers are underlined or italicized. Numbers that can be written out in two words or less should be, unless they are addresses, times or dates. When first referring to a person, use his/her first and last name. In subsequent referrals, use the person’s last name. Never refer to an author by his/her first name only. Avoid using the second person “you.” In academic writing use the third person, unless the assignment calls for the first person. Review rules for apostrophe usage. Do NOT use apostrophes to form the plurals of nouns. Do use apostrophes to form the possessives of nouns. Do not use apostrophes to form the possessives of pronouns (his, hers, its, theirs, ours, etc.).
Jones 2 In writing papers that require research, secondary sources need to be cited in the text of the essay as well as on the Works Cited page. The Works Cited page should list all the sources that are referred to in the essay, including the primary source: the story, poem, play or novel that is being addressed. Any quote or borrowed information must be cited (see Citing Sources: MLA Style). Typically, the information is cited like this: "Their word was to be my law" (Douglass 437). The quote comes from The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, so the author's name is in parentheses. The quote is on page 437 of the text, as indicated next to the author's name. If the quote is introduced with a signal phrase including the author's name -- Douglass describes his torment when he mentions that his captors' "word was to be my law" (437) -- then the author's name need not be put in parentheses. Note that MLA format does not include the word "page" or the abbreviations "p." or "pg." On the Works Cited page, Douglass's text is included as well as the anthology that contains it. Whenever an author's name is mentioned in the text of an essay or in parentheses, the name must match the first word of the Works Cited citation. If a work is cited that does not have an author, the title of the work is substituted for the author's name: When Time magazine asked Alberto Gonzalez which Supreme Court Justice he most admired, he responded, "I'm not going to answer that question" ("10 Questions" 8). Please note: while encyclopedia sources, both text and online (such as Wikipedia), can be very useful for your own background information, they are NOT considered authoritative academic sources. You should NOT cite an encyclopedia article in an academic essay, unless your instructor specifically gives you permission to do so. For
further help in writing see the TOOLS FOR WRITING AND RESEARCH page on the website: http://faculty.mccfl.edu/jonesj/Tools/tools.html
. Jones 3 Works Cited “10 Questions for Alberto Gonzalez.” Time 10 Oct. 2005: 8. Douglass, Frederick. The
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. Gates and McKay Gates, Henry Louis
and Nellie Y. McKay, eds. The Norton Anthology of African
This is the general format for Works Cited citations. The title Works Cited should be centered. The citations are listed alphabetically. The first line of each citation is at the left margin. Subsequent lines are indented. The list should be double-spaced throughout. For further information see: http://faculty.mccfl.edu/jonesj/JanesPPT/ENC1101/CitingSources.ppt
X, Author. “Title
of Article.” Name of Journal. XV.2 (Summer 2003): inclusive pages. Y, Author. “Title
of Article.” Title of Book. Ed. Name of Editor. City: Publisher, year. Z, Author. "Name of Webpage." Name of Website. date posted. date accessed. < http: www.url >.
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