MLA Color Citation Guide

Follow these color codes:

General Notes and Tips:

When creating a Work Cited List or Bibliography, list the references alphabetically. Your Work Cited List should be typed double spaced. If an entry in your Work Cited List more than one line, indent the next line a half an inch or five spaces. If you are having difficulty, consult the MLA Handbook, which can be found behind the Reference Desk.

Cite Books

A Book

Hausman, Gerald, and Loretta Hausman. The Mythology of Cats. New York: St. Martin's

         Press, 1998. Print.

     

An Edited Book

Turner, Dennis C. and Patrick Bateson, eds. The Domestic Cat: The Biology of its Behavior.

         New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988. Print.

     

A Work in an Anthology

Slesar, Henry. "My Father, the Cat." Supernatural Cats; an Anthology. Ed.

         Claire Necker. Garden City: Doubleday, 1972. 75-82. Print.

     

Dictionaries (A Definition)

"Cat." Def. 1a. The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. 1989. Print.

     

Reference Book: Well Known

Full publication information is not needed when consulting a familiar reference book. Instead, only include edition, if stated, and year.

"Cat." The New Encyclopaedia Britannica: Macropaedia. 15th ed. 2002.

     

Reference Book: Not Well Known

If the Reference Book is not well known, full publication information is required, including the number of volumes and edition (unless it is a first edition).

Toon, Ann, and Stephen Toon. "Cats." Grzimek's animal life encyclopedia. 2nd ed. 17 vols.

         ed. Melissa C. McDade. New York: Gale, 2003. Print.

     

A Translated Book

Zuffi, Stefano. The Cat in Art. Trans. Simon Jones. New York: Abrams, 2007. Print.

     

For more information on citing books in print, please consult MLA 5.5.

     

Cite Print Articles

Journal Article

Crowell-Davis, Sharon, L. "Dispelling the Myth of the Associal Cat." Veterinary Medicine

         101.11 (2006): 712 . Print.

     

Magazine Article

Song, Sora. "Eight Lives Ago." Time 6 Apr. 2006: 21. Print.

     

Newspaper Article

Wade, Nicholas. "Study Traces Cat's Ancestry to Middle East." New York Times 29 June

         2007, late ed.: A8. Print.

     

Newspaper Article - No Author

"Science in Brief; Cloned Cats Glow under UV Rays." Los Angeles Times 15 Dec 2007:

         A20. Print.

   

For more information on citing journals and other serial print sources, please consult MLA 5.4.

Cite Databases

Journal Article retrieved from a Database

Note that articles from databases require that you include the name of the database the article was retrieved from and the date you retrieved the article

O'Brien, Stephen J., et al. "The Feline Genome Project." Annual Review of Genetics 36.1

         (2002): 657-661. Academic Search Premier. Web. 16

         November 2007.

     

Gale Virtual Reference

Toon, Ann, and Stephen B. Toon. "Cats (Felidae)." Grzimek's Animal Life Encyclopedia.

         Eds. Michael Hutchins, Dennis A. Thoney, and Melissa C. McDade. Vol. 14: Mammals

         III. 2nd ed. Detroit: Gale, 2004. 369-392. 17 vols. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web.

          19 Dec. 2007.

         

For more information on citing from databases, please consult section 5.6.4 in the MLA Handbook.

Cite Websites

Please note that when citing websites, the following information in this order:

Author. Name of Site. Sponser/Corporation/Organization if applicable, Date of publishing/last revision. Web. Date you accessed the site. <electronic address>.

You may not find all information readily available, or available at all. For example, websites run by institutions do not always have individual author(s) of the webpage listed. Dates of posting/revision are often difficult to find or simply not available. In these cases, it is appropriate to simply not list the unknown information.

The seventh edition of the MLA handbooks states that web addresses are no longer needed, unless the site is difficult to find by a simple websearch.

A Website

Garza, Mario. Stuff On My Cat: Stuff + Cats = Awesome. Web. 4 Feb 2008.

         

A Page on a Website

"The Purrrfect Candidate For President." All Things Considered. National Public Radio. 12 Oct. 2008.

         Web. 29 June 2009.

         

Google Book

Please note that web addresses are not included when citing Google book search. Publishers are not included for books published before 1900.

Stables, William Gordon. The Domestic Cat. London, 1876. Google Book Search. Web. 29 June 2009.

         

Cite Media

Note: When citing a work of art that is housed in a museum or art collection, be sure it include information on they museum or art collection as well as the website. If the date of an artwork is unknown, type N.d. instead of a date.

Image - from Artstor

Beals, Jessie Tarbox. Cat Reclined on Top of a Stool, And "Dressed-Up" With a Teardrop

         Necklace. N.d. The Schlesinger History of Women in America Collection, Harvard University.

         ARTstor. Web. 20 Dec. 2007.

         

Image - From the Internet

Da Vinci, Leonardo. Study of Cat Movements and Positions. 1515. Windsor Castle, England:

         The Royal Library. Mark Harden's Artchive. Web. 4 Feb 2008.

         

Music - Whole Album or CD

Squeeze. Cool for Cats. A&M, 1979. LP.

         

Music - Specific Song

Stray Cats, "Stray Cat Strut." Stray Cats. Ariola German, 1989.CD.

         

Film or Movie

Dr. Seuss' The Cat in the Hat. Dir. Bo Welch. Perf. Mike Myers, Dokota Fanning, and Spencer Breslin.

          Universal Pictures, 2003. Film.