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.
MacLure, Maggie. Discourse in Educational and Social Research. Buckingham: Open University, 2003. Print.
Torney, John A., and Robert D. Clayton. Teaching Aquatics. Minneapolis, MN: Burgess, 1981. Print.
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.
Great Animal Drawings and Prints. Ed. Carol Belanger Grafton. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2006. Print.
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.
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 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.
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.