Adult Upgrading English 012 - Hamlet

Find the identifying information needed.

• Author's Last Name, First Name. Referred to as the Author in MLA.

  • You should also determine if information regarding a Contributor, a person who also had a role in the creation of the source, is available (i.e., Translator, Editor, Producer/Director, Narrator, etc.).

• Title and Subtitle. Referred to as the Title of Source in MLA. For a book, this information is found on the title page and/or the reverse title also called the verso. CIP (Cataloguing in Publication information) is also located on the reverse title page of a book. Canadian CIP data is obtained through LAC. Collectively any information found before the 1st Chapter is referred to as frontmatter.

• The title page should contain:

  • the full book title (main title + subtitle)

  • edition statement, if this is a second or later edition

  • If relevant, the title page should acknowledge other major contributors to the book, using a statement below the author’s name such as: 

  • With an introduction by…

  • Colour illustrations by…

  • Translated by...

  • Author(s) or Editor(s) name

  • Publisher’s name and city (city + state, province, if not a major city)

  • Year of publication

• Where did you find the source? Used in MLA when the source is part of a larger work. (i.e., Anthology, OCtopus, Research Database, Journal, Website, etc.). Such larger works are called a Container in MLA.

• Version information. Source can be available in more than one version you need to identify which version of the source you are quoting from.   Books are commonly issued in versions called editions. A revised version of a book may be labeled revised edition or be numbered (second edition, etc.).

• Volume and Issue information primarily associated with journal, magazine and newspaper articles. Referred to as Number in MLA. Abbreviated in MLA as vol. no. The word Issue is not used.

• Publisher (i.e., UTP = University of Toronto Press) 

• Publication Year

• Location may include

  • Pagination (page information found in printed and printable sources)

  • The doi (digital object identifier) 

  • URL (Uniform Resource Locator) of the information. Primarily used with Internet sources, i.e., webpages, blogs, social media, etc. 

  • Permalink as known as:

    • Bookmark URL

    • Document Link/URL

    • Resource Link

    • Persistent Link/URL

    • Record URL

    • Stable Link/URL

    • Static Link/URL

What If I Do Not Have An Author?

Use the first one, two or three words of the Title.

• Provide enough words to clarify which work from the Works Cited list you are referencing.

• Do not include initial articles such as "A", "An" or "The".

• Always write out the Title as it appears in the Works Cited list.

What If I Do Not Have Page Number?

• Some works, such as online sources, will not have page numbers.

• No Page number? Do not include it.

  • Only Use the Author's name in the In-Text Citation.

• If the sources use explicit paragraph numbers rather than page numbers, give the relevant paragraph number or numbers, preceded by the label par. or pars. 

What If I Do Not Have A Date?

If no date is provided, skip that information. MLA does provide the ability to add the date you accessed the work at the end of the citation. Access date is given by putting the word "Accessed" followed by the Day Month (Shortened) Year the work was accessed/viewed.

What Do I Do If I Have A Large Number of Authors?

When a source has three or more authors enter the Author name in the format Last Name, First Name, and follow it with a comma and the abbreviation et al. (“and others”). I

Is OCtopus a Container?

OCtopus's real name is EBSCOHost. 

MLA recognizes EBSCOHost as a container. MLA Works Cited entries can have 2 containers.

The first is typically the larger whole within which the source was found. For example, in an anthology or a journal.

The second container would list the database where the source was retrieved from such as EBSCOHost or the actual database where the article was retrieved from. MLA allows both but the name of the actual database is preferred.

For example:

Rubelise Cunha. “The Trickster Wink: Storytelling and Resistance in Tomson Highway’s Kiss of the Fur Queen.” Ilha Do Desterro, no. 56, Nov. 2010, pp. 93–118. 

Actual Database = Directory of Open Access Journals

vs

https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsdoj&AN=edsdoj.5e87322b6a394e12aadad30d1acad953&site=eds-live&scope=site&custid=s5672116&authtype=sso

When entering the editors name in an MLA Works Cited entry, it is First Name, Last Name.

In-text citations are brief, clear references that direct readers to the essays Works Cited list entries for the sources you used so that your reader has enough information to correctly identify and access the source being cited.

There are two types of In-Text citations:

Citation in prose.

This is where you as the author build the citation directly into the structure of the sentence in your essay. 

For example:

In her article, Dory Nason discusses the importance of including Indigenous literature’s perspectives when discussing current and historical prison conditions and ensuring an Indigenous feminist position when conducting such research (142).

Parenthetical Citation

A parenthetical citation appears in parenthetical brackets at the end of a sentence or paragraph. Use page information if you are referring to a specific word-for-word quotation. 

For example:

The "importance of Native literature’s insights to discussions of contemporary and historical carceral conditions" can not be over-emphasized (Nason 142). 

For further information see Chapter 6 of the MLA Handbook. Links to specific sections are found below.

Each source cited in the text or notes of your project should appear in a list at the end of the paper, after any endnotes. 

For further information see Chapter 5 of the MLA Handbook. Links to specific sections are found below.

In-Text Citation - More than one author

UBC MLA 9th Edition Citation Style Guide 

When a source has two authors, include them in the order they appear in the work. Invert the first author's name, but write out the second author's name in its normal form.

Works Cited Format Two Authors 

Works Cited Three or More Authors

University of West Florida University Libraries MLA Citation Style, 9th Edition

A container is a work that contains another work.

Your text is an anthology, which is also considered a container because it is composed of chapters written by individual authors. 

Research Databases are considered containers.

OCtopus is technically a container. The OCtopus Search Results display is a good starting point for identifying container information.