Citations

The Modern Language Association (MLA) Manual of Style is commonly used in the Arts and Humanities. The Ninth Edition replaced the Eighth edition in 2021. It is available in the Blumberg Library and you may also find it in other academic and public libraries. You may also use reliable online sources, the best being those from MLA directly.

Sources for MLA:

The MLA style uses the concepts of core elements and containers for the works cited. The core elements are assembled in a specific order and punctuated exactly. Check with your instructor about including the database name/vendor, DOIs, permalinks, or URLs.  Some want that information, others do not.  

The 9 Core Elements for MLA Style

(1) Author.
(2) “Title of Source.”
(3) Title of Container,
(4) Other contributors,
(5) Version, 
(6) Number, 
(7) Publisher,
(8) Publication date,
(9) Location.

Here are a couple of quick examples of a journal or book citation. Use the MLA Hanbook or MLA website for more detailed examples.

Journal Article:

Author, First Name Middle Initial. "Title of Source." Title of Container, vol. #, no. #, publication date year, pp. #-#. Database, doi.org/xxxx

Watson, Alex P. “Hallucinated Citation Analysis: Delving into Student-Submitted AI-Generated Sources at the University of Mississippi.” Serials Librarian, vol. 85, no. 5/6, July 2024, pp. 172–80. EBSCOhost, doi.org/10.1080/0361526X.2024.2433640.

Book:

Author, First Name Middle Initial. Title of Book, # ed., Publisher, publication date year.

Modern Language Association of America. MLA Handbook. 9th ed., The Modern Language Association of America, 2021.

In-text Citations:

A typical in-text citation is composed of the element that comes first in the entry in the works-cited list (usually the author's name) and a page number.  The page number goes in a parenthesis, which is placed, when possible, where there is a natural pause in the text.  A parenthetical citation that directly follows a quotation is placed after the closing quotation mark.  The other item (usually the author's name) may appear in the text itself or, abbreviated, before the page number in the parenthesis.

AI hallucinated citations are found in freshman-level papers (Watson 172).

Style manuals have very specific formatting instructions.  Look at the guidelines while writing.  Here are some areas that cause students trouble:

• Double space all citations.
• Use hanging indentation on each citation.
• Put all entries in alphabetical order.
• Use Italic font for book titles, database names, newspaper titles, magazine titles, journal titles, website names and film titles. 
• Use quotation marks for article titles, book-chapter titles, and web page titles.
• Correctly capitalize author names, titles of books, titles of journals and titles of articles. 
• Use international style to notate dates, not American style.
• Identify an author or hosting organization for web pages.
• List authors correctly, especially if there are multiple authors. 
• Citations generated by databases and citation managers can be incorrect, especially in the capitalization of titles. 
• Generative AI produce hallucinations as citations.