How to Cite a Wikipedia Page, MLA Format

Posted by Tom Fasano on May 19, 2010 – 10:57 pm

This blog gets hits every day from people looking for the proper MLA format for a WIkipedia page. Good luck finding this information in the MLA Handbook. You’re here now, so you’ve come to the right place. Below you’ll find the proper format, which you can also find on my MLA Web Publications page. How do I know this? I gleaned everything I know about this from the Citing Wikipedia page. Note: be sure to include both the date of last update and the date you last viewed the page; place “Web” between the two dates.

Wikipedia Citation

“Jimi Hendrix.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 18 May 2010. Web. 19 May 2010.


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A Concise Guide to MLA Style and Documentation

Posted by Tom Fasano on July 18, 2009 – 7:50 am

MLA book

Cover of my MLA book

Okay, I’ve written a small book to help my students write their research papers. In the thirty years since my undergraduate days in Florida, there has been a seismic shift in the way students conduct research, find primary and secondary sources, gather and store information, and write their papers. I’m certainly grateful I had the MLA Handbook back then, and I cannot imagine completing a research project in today’s computerized world without the careful, concise Seventh Edition.

My experience as a teacher, however, is that many students struggle with understanding even the basics of MLA style. That’s why I wrote this book, and students using it to help them write their research papers can rest assured that it was teacher designed and student tested in the classroom. My eleventh-graders are never shy about revealing their confusion, and their input helped me see immediately what needed improving. Because of their involvement, the strengths of this book are theirs; its weaknesses, mine.

The book should be available by the end of August, just in time for the upcoming school year. And believe me, I fully intend to use it as a textbook in my classroom. When it comes to my students and teaching them to write research papers, I can’t think of a better book to use.


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MLA Handbook Seventh Edition

Posted by Tom Fasano on April 5, 2009 – 8:36 pm

MLA Handbook

The newest MLA Handbook

A lot has changed since I used the 1977 edition of the MLA Handbook to write my first undergraduate theses. (Keats was its subject, but what little could I have known about this marvelous of poets back then?) Funny, how I have vivid memories of the handbook’s now-archaic instructions for preparing the paper: use of a “fresh black ribbon and clean type are essential” and using “thin paper except for a carbon copy” was highly recommended. As a teacher, I can attest that today’s students have never fumbled with a black ribbon and have little understanding of how carbon copies work. In the thirty years since my undergraduate days in Flordia, there has been a seismic shift in the way students conduct research, find primary and secondary sources, gather and store information, and prepare a finished paper. I’m certainly grateful I had the MLA Handbook back then, and I cannot imagine completing a research project in today’s computerized world without the careful, concise Seventh Edition, which I purchased yesterday and have been poring over ever since. (Yes, we English teachers have a strange idea of what makes interesting reading.) As my students know, I’m finishing up a guide to MLA documentation which I hope to publish by early summer. It should prove helpful to my future students — after my current students battle-test my rough draft in the coming weeks.


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MLA Citation for Wikipedia

Posted by Tom Fasano on March 25, 2008 – 8:14 pm

Click Here to go the the updated Wikipedia Citation Entry

The following is no longer accurate. I’ll be updating this page with the latest MLA Handbook, 7th Edition, recommendations soon . . . and then deleting this page.

Note: I’ve taken this information from a Wikipedia page about proper citation.

Citation in MLA style, as recommended by the Modern Language Association:

  • “Plagiarism.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 22 July 2004, 10:55 UTC. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 10 Aug. 2004. <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Plagiarism&oldid=5139350>.

Note that MLA style calls for both the date of publication (or its latest update) and the date on which the information was retrieved. According to the most recent edition of the MLA Handbook, there is now information required about any foundation involved. Also note that many schools/institutions slightly change the syntax. Another example:

  • “Plagiarism.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. 22 July 2004 <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Plagiarism&oldid=5139350>.

Be sure to double check the exact syntax your institution requires.

For citation of Wikipedia as a site, use:


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