MLA Style

• Modern Language Association• most commonly used within the liberal arts and humanities

What is MLA StyleSpecifications for essays and reports

Layout of paper

Citing of resources (embedded and Citation List)

Why Cite Academic honesty Give credit to those who earned it Give credibility to your paper If you don’t cite, you are plagiarising Plagiarising is cheating

Plagiarism is: Copying all or part of another person's work

Paying another person to write your essay or report

Having another person write your essay or report

Failing to cite another person's ideas

Rewording, summarizing or paraphrasing another's ideas without giving credit

Stealing another person's essay or report

Copying all or part of another source, such as information found in a website, without citing the source

Glenforest's Plagiarism Policy Zero for the paper Plagiarism Workshop completion Parents are informed Note put in student record Repeated offenses:

Meeting with Principal Suspension Loss of Credit

You don’t need to cite…

• Your own ideas or analysis

• Primary research (e.g. surveys you conducted)

• Commonly known information (i.e.: the earth is round, we breathe oxygen, Canada has 10 provinces, the prime minister of Canada)

You DO need to cite…

Quotations Images, art, maps, photographs, charts Paraphrased information (Note: changing one or

two words is NOT paraphrasing!) Summarized information Cartoons Advertisements Audio Visual Materials (music, radio, DVD, MP3

files, broadcast etc.) Statistics

A Typical Paper

• No title page

• Header on all pages

• 1"/2.5cm margins

• double spaced

• 12 point font

• Times New Roman

• every paragraph is indented 1”/2.5 cm

1st Step for Citing• New page

• Title is "Works Cited"

• Entry for every resource cited in the paper

• Double spaced

• Hanging indent

• Very specific rules for each resource (check Source It!)

• Alphabetical order by first item in the list

2nd Step for Citing Place embedded

citations throughout your essay wherever you use someone else's work (direct quote or paraphrasing)

refers to an item listed in your Works Cited page

For a quotation of five lines or more, introduce the passage in your own words, then indent the block of quoted text one inch from the left margin.

Embedded Citations place citation in brackets, at the end of the quote

or piece of information being cited

provide the first piece of info from the Works Cited page (For long titles, the first 2 or 3 words is fine.)

provide the page number, if available

Sample essay

(Bliss 12) (14) When author is mentioned in the lead-up, or subsequent citations for author already cited (“Biography for…")

The Tricky Part: formatting the citations

Citations are different for every type of resource Follow the formats and examples for the types

of materials you are using Use Source It online to find out the formatting

(found under the Library tab, clikc on Bibliographies and Plagiarism page, scroll down to MLA)

Use the citation tools within the databases Use http://www.bibme.org,

www.citationmachine.net or www.easybib.com or other citation tools on the web to help you

Works Cited: Guiding Principles

Give as much information as possible Make sure your teacher can acquire the

resource If something is missing, leave it out Cite every resource you use DO NOT cite wikis or search engines

(e.g. Google, Wikipedia, Yahoo)

Use reliable sources only

For your convenience, this PowerPoint and a video on “How to set up your MLA paper”, have been

posted on the Bibliographies and Plagiarism page on the website under Library.

The library staff at Glenforest S. S.Your teacher for caring enough to bring you here

Source It!

With thanks to….