Essay Writting
The MLA Style
In this system (also known as the author / page style), sources are indicated in the body of the essay by “in-text citation” (a short reference in parenthesis: usually the author’s surname and page number), and then fully identified in a list of “Works Cited” (or bibliography) at the end. The following guidelines, based on the MLA rules, should enable you to refer in a professional way to most sources that you are likely to use in preparing your essays.
IN-TEXT CITATION
Whenever you quote directly from someone else’s work, paraphrase someone else’s opinion, or use information that you found in a particular place, you need to identify your source by in-text citation. If the source is a book or an article in a book or journal, this is normally done by giving the author’s surname and the page number in parenthesis. For example. If you have quoted or taken information or ideas from page 161 of Julia Briggs’s book This Stage-play World, you should indicated this as follows:
The audiences of the public theatres represented “a social range that took in ambassadors and apprentices, peers, pickpockets and prostitutes” (Briggs 161).
Note that the in-text citation comes before the final punctuation mark, but after the close of the inverted commas. If the author is already named in your text, then the page number alone is sufficient. For example:
According to Julia Briggs, the location of the theatres outside the walls of London made them difficult for the city authorities to control (161).
If you have references to more than one work by the same author, you obviously need to distinguish them in your in-text citations. This is usually done by giving a keyword from the title. For example:
Some have argued that this diverse public was an essential precondition for the achievements of Shakespeare (Briggs, Stage-play 161)
If you have references to works by more than one author with the same surname, you should distinguish them in in-text citations by
In this system (also known as the author / page style), sources are indicated in the body of the essay by “in-text citation” (a short reference in parenthesis: usually the author’s surname and page number), and then fully identified in a list of “Works Cited” (or bibliography) at the end. The following guidelines, based on the MLA rules, should enable you to refer in a professional way to most sources that you are likely to use in preparing your essays.
IN-TEXT CITATION
Whenever you quote directly from someone else’s work, paraphrase someone else’s opinion, or use information that you found in a particular place, you need to identify your source by in-text citation. If the source is a book or an article in a book or journal, this is normally done by giving the author’s surname and the page number in parenthesis. For example. If you have quoted or taken information or ideas from page 161 of Julia Briggs’s book This Stage-play World, you should indicated this as follows:
The audiences of the public theatres represented “a social range that took in ambassadors and apprentices, peers, pickpockets and prostitutes” (Briggs 161).
Note that the in-text citation comes before the final punctuation mark, but after the close of the inverted commas. If the author is already named in your text, then the page number alone is sufficient. For example:
According to Julia Briggs, the location of the theatres outside the walls of London made them difficult for the city authorities to control (161).
If you have references to more than one work by the same author, you obviously need to distinguish them in your in-text citations. This is usually done by giving a keyword from the title. For example:
Some have argued that this diverse public was an essential precondition for the achievements of Shakespeare (Briggs, Stage-play 161)
If you have references to works by more than one author with the same surname, you should distinguish them in in-text citations by