Works Cited Page and Citing Books

At the end of your paper, you must provide a Works Cited page that lists all the sources you cited in your paper. Do not include sources that you did not cite in your paper. The MLA format requires that you provide information about the source so that somebody could find it. You must provide this information in a specific format based on the type text annotation indicator and medium of the source.

Format of the Works Cited Page

If you need a reminder of the general MLA format, refer to "Essentials of the MLA Format."

Begin "Works Cited" on a new sheet of paper
Title it Works Cited in the center of the first line
Arrange entries in alphabetical order
Begin each entry at the left margin and indent all additional lines of the entry by a half (1/2) inch. This is called Hanging Indentation.

How To Cite Books

Information you will need about the book:

Author's (or Editors) name: last name, first name (Ex: Jones, Bob)
Title of the part of the book (in quotes)
Title of the book (underlined)
Name of the editor, translator, or compiler
Edition used
Number(s) of volume(s) used
Series name, if any is given
Imprint: city of publication, name of publisher, and year of publication
Page numbers of the selection from the book
Additional information about the source (i.e., total number of volumes in a multi-volume work) and annotation when required

If a source doesn't provide one of these fields, skip it and continue to the next field.

Book Examples:

Article from a Typical Reference Book

Jensen, Albert C. "Animal Rights." Encyclopedia of Social Issues. Ed. John K. Roth. Vol. 1. New York:

Marshall, 1997. 92-99.

A Typical Book

Friedman, Thomas. The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century. New York: Farrar, 2005.

More Examples

See the MLA Guide for more examples.

Activity

Click on the activity below to put citation fields in the correct order.

Ordering Activity indicator

Self Check

Click on the Self Check below to test your knowledge.

Which citation is in the correct format?

a. Ford, Madeline. In Our Own Voices: The Changing Face of Librarianship. "Learning to Be: An African American Experience in Academic Libraianship." Eds. Teresa Y. Neely and Khafre K. Abif. Lanham: Scarecrow, 1996. 104-24.

b. Ford, Madeline. "Learning to Be: An African American Experience in Academic Libraianship." In Our Own Voices: The Changing Face of Librarianship. Eds. Teresa Y. Neely and Khafre K. Abif. Lanham: Scarecrow, 1996. 104-24.

c. Madeline Ford. In Our Own Voices: The Changing Face of Librarianship. "Learning to Be: An African American Experience in Academic Libraianship." Eds. Teresa Y. Neely and Khafre K. Abif. Lanham: Scarecrow, 1996. 104-24.

d. Madeline Ford. "Learning to Be: An African American Experience in Academic Libraianship." In Our Own Voices: The Changing Face of Librarianship. Eds. Teresa Y. Neely and Khafre K. Abif. Lanham: Scarecrow, 1996. 104-24.

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Research 3 Online

MLA: Avoiding Plagiarism and Documenting Sources