Sample Entries: The List of Works Cited

January 12, 2012 – 7:38 pm


The MLA Handbook has extensive guidelines for formatting sources in the list of works cited, including recommendations for an array of electronic and print media. The following models illustrate the kinds of sources most commonly used.


Nonperiodical Print Publications

The MLA Handbook uses the cumbersome phrase “nonperiodical print publications” to refer to books and pamphlets. When citing these, provide as much of the following information as possible:

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A Book by a Single Author

Powers, Thomas. Heisenberg’s War. New York: Knopf, 1993. Print.

Fletcher, Richard. The Barbarian Conversion: From Paganism to Christianity. New York: Holt, 1997. Print.

Rowling, J[oanne] K[athleen]. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. New York: Levine-Scholastic, 2003. Print.

MacDonald, Ross [Kenneth Millar]. The Galton Case. 1959. New York: Warner, 1990. Print.

An Anthology

Mizener, Arthur, ed. F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice, 1963. Print.

A Book by Two Authors

Beckson, Karl, and Arthur Ganz. Literary Terms: A Dictionary. New York: Farrar, 1989. Print.

A Book by Three Authors

Booth, Wayne C., Gregory G. Colomb, and Joseph M. Williams. The Craft of Research. 2nd ed. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2003. Print.

A Book by Four or More Authors

Gilman, Sandra, et al. Hysteria Beyond Freud. Berkeley: U of California P, 1993. Print.

A Book by a Corporate Author

Pax World Investments. Annual Report 2008. Providence: Pax World, 2008. Print.

A Work in an Anthology

Thoreau, Henry David. Walden, or Life in the Woods. The Norton Anthology of American Literature: Shorter Edition. Ed. Ronald Gottsman, et al. New York: Norton, 1979. 585–705. Print.

Keats, John. “Ode to a Nightingale.” The Best Poems of the English Language. Comp. Harold Bloom. New York: Harper, 2004. 463–65. Print.

An Article in a Reference Book

Leiren, Terje. “Norway.” The Encyclopedia Americana. 2004 ed. Print.

Donno, Elizabeth Story. “Varieties of Sixteenth-Century Narrative Poetry.” Columbia History of British Poetry. Ed. James Shapiro. 1994. Print.

Nichols, Roger. “Francis Poulenc.” The New Grove Dictionary of Music & Musicians. Ed. Stanley Sadie. 1980. Print.

An Introduction, a Preface, a Foreword, or an Afterword

Greenblatt, Stephen. Foreword. Will in the World. By Greenblatt. New York: Norton, 2004. 11–14. Print.

Faggen, Robert. Introduction. Early Poems. By Robert Frost. Ed. Robert Faggen. New York: Penguin, 1998. xi–xl. Print.

Schlosser, Eric. Preface. The Jungle. By Upton Sinclair. New York: Penguin, 2006. vii–xv. Print.

King, Stephen. Afterword. Different Seasons. By King. New York: Signet-Penguin, 1998. 501–08. Print.

A Book by an Anonymous Author

Chase’s Calendar of Events 2008. 50th Anniversary Ed. New York: McGraw, 2008. Print.

A Scholarly Edition

Poe, Edgar Allan. The Selected Writings of Edgar Allan Poe. Ed. G. R. Thompson. New York: Norton, 2004. Print.

A Translation

Tolstoy, Leo. Anna Karenin. Trans. Rosemary Edmonds. London: Penguin, 1977. Print.

Pirandello, Luigi. Six Characters in Search of an Author and Other Plays. Trans. Mark Musa. London: Penguin, 1995. Print.

An Illustrated Book or a Graphic Narrative

Potter, Beatrix. The Complete Tales. Illus. Beatrix Potter. New York: Warne-Penguin, 2006. Print.

Copeland, Charles, illus. Pinocchio: The Adventures of a Marionette. By Carlo Collodi. Trans. Walter S. Cramp. Boston: Ginn, 1904. Print.

Collodi, Carlo. Pinocchio: The Adventures of a Marionette. Trans. Walter S. Cramp. Illus. Charles Copeland. Boston: Ginn, 1904. Print.

A Book Published in a Second or Subsequent Edition

Tyson, Lois. Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 2006. Print.

A Multivolume Work

Caro, Robert A. Master of the Senate. New York: Knopf, 2002. Vol. 3 of The Years of Lyndon Johnson. 3 vols. to date. 1982–2004. Print.

Durant, Will, and Ariel Durant. The Age of Voltaire. New York: Simon, 1965. Vol. 9 of The Story of Civilization. 11 vols. 1935–75. Print.

A Book in a Series

Wilson, C. Philip, Charles C. Hogan, and Ira L. Mintz, eds. Fear of Being Fat: The Treatment of Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia. New York: Aronson, 1983. Print. Classical Psychoanalysis and Its Applications.

A Republished Book or Publisher’s Imprint

Kaplan, Justin. Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain. 1959. New York: Simon, 2006. Print.

Banks, Russell. Continental Drift. 1985. New York: Perennial-Harper, 2007. Print.

A Brochure, Pamphlet, or Press Release

Cruise Guide 2009. Los Angeles: Crystal Cruises, 2008. Print.

Renoir Lithographs. New York: Dover, 1994. Print.

Medical Marijuana Now. Medical Marijuana Now Announces New Stores. Los Angeles: MMN, 20 Apr. 2009. Print.

A Government Publication

United States. The President’s Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy. Report of the President’s Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy. Washington, DC: GPO, 1964. Print.

Cong. Rec. 25 Feb. 2009: 2656–706. Print.

Michigan. Dept. of Public Health. Lifelines for Children: Child Mortality in Michigan. Michigan: Lansing, 1989. Print.

Published Proceedings of a Conference

Kartiganer, Donald M., and Ann J. Abadie, eds. Proceedings of Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference: Faulkner at 100: Retrospect and Prospect, 27 July–1 August, 1997. Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 2000. Print.

A Book Published Before 1900

Jahn, Otto. The Life of Mozart. Trans. Pauline D. Townsend. 3 vols. London, 1891. Print.

An Unpublished Dissertation

Franson, Robert T. “Women in Shakespeare’s History Plays.” Diss. U of Southern California, 1988. Print.

A Published Dissertation

Zimmerman, Robert. Manuscript Revision in Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. Diss. Duke U, 1960. Ann Arbor: UMI, 2001. Print.

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