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Citation Guide: Books-Print

A guide to citing your sources

Basic Format p.148-180

The first-given author’s name or a book with a single author's name appears in last name, first name format. The basic form for a book citation is:

Lastname, Firstname. Title of Book. Place of Publication: Publisher, Year of

  Publication. Medium of Publication.

Books with One Author p.148

MacLure, Maggie. Discourse in Educational and Social Research. Buckingham: Open University, 2003. Print.

Books with Two Authors p.154

Torney, John A., and Robert D. Clayton. Teaching Aquatics. Minneapolis, MN: Burgess, 1981. Print.

Books with Three (or more) Authors p.154-56

If there are more than three authors, you may name only the first and add et al., or you may give all names in full in the order in which they appear on the title page.

Mood, Dale, Frank F. Musker, and Judith E. Rink. Sports and Recreational Activities. St. Louis: Mosby, 1995. Print.

Mood, Dale, et al. Sports and Recreational Activities. St. Louis: Mosby, 1995. Print.

 

Books with an Editor p.157

Great Animal Drawings and Prints. Ed. Carol Belanger Grafton. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2006. Print.

Works from an Anthology or Collection p.157

Basic Format

Lastname, First name. "Title of Essay." Title of Collection. Ed. Editor's Name(s). Place of Publication: Publisher, Year.     Page range of entry. Medium of Publication.

Essays

Buntin, Simmons B., "Letter from Charles Darwin to His Sister, Catherine." Writing the Future: Progress and Evolution.     Ed. David Rothenberg and Wandee J. Pryor. Cambridge, MA: MIT P, 2004. 19-26. Print.

Leclair, Carol, and Sandi Warren, "Portals and Potlach." Information Technology and Indigenous People. Hershey, PA:     Information Science, 2007. 1-13. Print.

Short Stories

Shelley, Mary. "Mortal Immortal." Nineteenth-Century Short Stories by Women: A Routledge Anthology. Ed. Harriet Devine     Jump. New York: Routledge, 1998. 73-82. Print.

Platonov, Andrie. "Homecoming." Between the Lines: International Short Stories of War. Ed. Pauletta Otis and Steven H.     Kaplan. Niwot, CO: UP of Colorado, 1994. 158-180. Print.

Plays

Ibsen, Henrik. "Wild Duck." Four Great Plays. Trans. R. Farquharson Sharp. Toronto: Bantam, 1981. 217-305. Print.

Yamauchi, Wakako. "Music Lesson." Unbroken Thread: An Anthology of Plays by Asian American Women. Ed. Roberta Uno.     Amherst: U of Massachusetts P, 1993. 53-104. Print.

Poems

Scott, Sir Walter. "Coronach." Poems of Sir Walter Scott. Hoboken, NJ: BiblioBytes, 1828. 3. Print.

Dressler, Muriel Miller, "Appalachia." Wild Sweet Notes: Fifty Years of West Virginia Poetry 1950-1999. Eds. Barbara     Smith and Kirk Judd. Huntington, WV: Publishers Place, 2000. 105-106. Print.  

Biographical Entry

Davidson, Adenike Marie, "Martin Robinson Delaney (1812-1885)." African American Authors, 1745-1945: Bio-bibliographical     Critical Sourcebook. Westport, CN: Greenwood Press, 2000. Print.

Reference p.160

Cite these pieces as you would any other work in a collection, but do not include publisher information. If the reference book is organized alphabetically, then do not list the volume or the page number of the article or item.

Dictionary

"Fight–flight." Dictionary of Personal Development. 2002. Print.

Encyclopedia

"Mach's Principle." Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. 2006. Print.

Conference Proceedings p.177

Conference Title with Date and Location

Falk, Daniel K., Florentino García Martínez, and Eileen M. Schuller. Ed. Sapiential, Liturgical, and Poetical Texts from     Qumran: Proceedings of the Third Meeting of the International Organization for Qumran Studies, Oslo, 1998: Published     in Memory of Maurice Baillet. Boston: Brill, 2000. Print.

Conference Title without Date and Location

Dyson, Anne Haas. ed. Collaboration Through Writing and Reading: Exploring Possibilities. 14-16 Feb. 1986. Berkeley, CA.     Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English, 1989. Print.

Presentation from a Published Conference Proceeding

Haney, Kathleen, "Is Truth Defunct?" How Far is America From Here?: Selected Proceedings of the First World Congress of     the International American Studies Association, 22-24 May 2003. Ed. Theo D'haen, et al. New York: Rodopi, 2005.
    175-185. Print.

* Note: Hanging indents

All MLA citations should be formatted with the first line of an entry flush left and successive lines indented 1/2 ". Use a hanging indent. Do not go by the spacing in the examples we're providing in this guide, as your screen's display format may be different.

If you are using Word follow the steps below. You can select options on the Indents and Spacing tab.

  1. On the Page Layout tab, click the Paragraph Dialog Box Launcher, and then click the Indents and Spacing tab.
  2. In the Special list under Indentation, click Hanging, and then in the By box, set the amount of space that you want for the hanging indent. (0.5" = 1/2 inch)