Profs.Thoreen/Ady

Research Guides: English Majors

Brief Guide to Parenthetical MLA (Modern Language Association) Documentation and Bibliographical Format

As English majors, we follow the Modern Language Association rules for documenting sources. We use "parenthetical documentation," meaning that we cite source references (quoted material, paraphrased material, statistics) with parentheses, not footnotes. For example, let's imagine that you are using quoted material in one of your sentences:

One of the more noted New Critics commented on a central irony in Keats' famous ode: "The love depicted on the urn remains warm and young because it is not human flesh at all but cold, ancient marble "(Brooks 160).
 
(Brooks 160) tells the reader that the quote can be found on page 160 of some book by Brooks. What book? To discover that, readers expect to find a Bibliography page at the end of the article.
 

Bibliographical Format

Use the following forms for entries in a bibliography (Make certain you follow the punctuation format. Underline if you cannot use italics)

ARTICLES:

Note: after first line, indent lines in each entry several spaces.

ARTICLE in a book collection:

Brivic, Sheldon. "Toni Morrison's Funk at Finnegans Wake. " Joyce Studies Annual 1998.
Ed. Thomas F. Staley. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1998. 158-173.

ARTICLE in a Journal:

Furst, Lilian R. "Thomas Mann's Interest in James Joyce." Modern Language 64 (1974): 605-613.

ARTICLE (unsigned) in a Magazine:

"Stars of the Cathode Church."Time 4 Feb. 1980: 64.

ARTICLE (signed) in a Magazine:

Liebermann, J. Howard. "The Telecommunications Act of 1995: One Year Later." Atlantic Monthly 12
Nov. 1996: 326-333.

ARTICLE in a Newspaper:

Conroy, Gabriel. "Snow Is General All Over Ireland." Irish Times 6 Jan. 1904: B29.

ARTICLE on a Website:

Silver, Dan. "Joyce for Jocks: Tips for Reading Joyce's Ulysses."
<http://www.assumption.edu/HTML/Academic/users/ady/HHJoyce/joycejocks.html>

REVIEW of Book:

Blake, William. Rev. of Principia Mathematica, by Isaac Newton. Blackstone's Magazine 21 Feb. 1798.

BOOKS

Note: after first line, indent lines in each entry several spaces.

BOOK: One author

Brooks, Cleanth. The Well Wrought Urn. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1947.

BOOK: Two authors

Murfin, Ross, and Supryia M. Ray. The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms. Boston:
Bedford Books, 1997.

BOOK: Three authors

Baker, Gene, Susan Smith, and Elizabeth Wayans. The Truth about Television Violence. New York:
Sage Publications, 1999.

BOOK: More than three authors

Morris, Desmond, et al. Gestures. New York: Stein, 1979

BOOK: Editor of collection

Selzer, Jack, ed. Conversations. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1997.

BOOK: Author and editor

Russell, Bertrand. Essays in Analysis. Ed. Douglas Lackey. New York: New American Library, 1970.

BOOK: Marking Edition Number

Williams, Joseph M. Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace. 5th ed. New York: Addison-Wesley, 1997.

BOOK: Marking Volume Number

Hurt, James, and Brian Wilkie. Literature of the Western World, Vol. II. New York: Prentice Hall, 1997.

Sample Bibliography Page

Baker, Gene, Susan Smith, and Elizabeth Wayans. The Truth about Television Violence. New York:
Sage Publications, 1999.

Blake, William. Rev. of Principia Mathematica , by Isaac Newton. Blackstone's Magazine 21 Feb. 1798.

Brivic, Sheldon. "Toni Morrison's Funk at Finnegans Wake. " Joyce Studies Annual 1998.
Ed. Thomas F. Staley. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1998. 158-173.
 

Brooks, Cleanth. The Well Wrought Urn. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1947.

Conroy, Gabriel. "Snow Is General All Over Ireland." Irish Times 6 Jan. 1904: B29.

Furst, Lilian R. "Thomas Mann's Interest in James Joyce." Modern Language (1974): 605-613.

Hurt, James, and Brian Wilkie. Literature of the Western World, VoI . 2 New York: Prentice Hall, 1997.

Liebermann, J. Howard. "The Telecommunications Act of 1995: One Year Later." Atlantic Monthly 12
Nov. 1996: 326-333.

Morris, Desmond, et al. Gestures. New York: Stein, 1979

Murfin, Ross, and Supryia M. Ray. The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms. Boston:
Bedford Books, 1997.

Russell, Bertrand. Essays in Analysis. Ed. Douglas Lackey. New York: New American Library, 1970.

Selzer, Jack, ed. Conversations. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1997.

Silver, Dan. "Joyce for Jocks: Tips for Reading Joyce's Ulysses."
<http://www.assumption.edu/HTML/Academic/users/ady/HHJoyce/joycejocks.html>

Williams, Joseph M. Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace. 5th ed. New York: Addison-Wesley, 1997.

D'Alzon Library Research Materials

A wide variety of secondary sources are available to the literary researcher and critic. Some of these resources are author and/or text-specific, such as A Word Index to James Joyce's Dubliners. Ed. Gary Lane. New York: Haskell House, 1972.

Most other resources are less narrow in scope.

The following list is intended to help you get acquainted with various literary research materials.

Before you write a paper, it helps to learn what issues surround an author or text, something about the author's biography, and the author's critical reception.

Remember that it is often difficult to know in advance what information will be useful to you. Your ideas and perspectives on a text change as you think and write and reread it (and read about it).

Some Useful Reference Works:

More:


Finally: