MLA Documentation Style
Different academic disciplines use different systems of documentation. The Modern Language
Association (MLA) style, presented in the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, is
widely used throughout the humanities.
A. Parenthetical References
B. Content and Bibliographical Notes
C. List of Works Cited
D. MLA-Style Sample Essay
A. Parenthetical References
In MLA style, a parenthetical reference identifies a source and refers readers to the full citation
of the source in the list of works cited. Following are some sample MLA-style parenthetical
references.
Author and page (short quotation)
Prose quotations that run no more than four lines in your essay are integrated into the text and
enclosed in double quotation marks. The author's name need not appear in the parenthetical
reference if it is included in the signal or introductory phrase, as in the first example:
Mark Kingwell defines happiness as "the possession of virtuous character and the
performance of virtuous action" (327).
The search for J.D. Salinger, the New Hampshire recluse whom one reviewer called "the
Greta Garbo of American letters" (Swados 119), became something of a minor national
obsession in the early 1960s.
Author and page (long quotation)
Prose quotations that run more than four lines are set off from the text by indenting ten spaces
from the left margin. Block quotations are not enclosed in quotation marks.
Swift's ironic "A Modest Proposal" paints a devastating portrait of Ireland's poor:
Some persons of a desponding spirit are in great concern about that vast number of poor
people, who are aged, diseased, or maimed, and I have been desired to employ my
thoughts what course may be taken to ease the nation of so grievous an encumbrance. But
I am not in the least pain upon that matter, because it is very well known that...