Citing Sources, With Link to Chicago, DO NOT USE: Citing books and e-books

General rules

• No author listed on your source?  Just skip it and start with the title of the article

•  Pay attention to italicized and Capitalized text.

o Books Titles (as well as journal, magazine, newspaper, encyclopedia, and database titles) should be italicized and capitalized.

o Article titles should be in “quotation marks”.

•  For correct information, such as the book title, cities, and publisher, consult the title page of the book (not the book’s cover). The copyright date is found on the next page, next to the © symbol, for example, © 2009

Medium of Publication
For MLA citations, you will notice a place for the “Format” of your source. The “Format” is the medium of publication. Here are the most common formats you might use:

• Print (any printed book, magazine, journal, encyclopedia, etc.)
• Web (websites, scholarly articles from online databases, online newspaper and magazine articles.)
• Television
• Film
• Performance
• Photograph

Missing Elements

If any of your sources are missing elements, like the date or publisher, use the following abbreviations, if applicable:

No date = n. d.
No place of publication = n. p.
No publisher = n. p.
No pagination = n. pag.

Examples

Items in green indicate variations in the citation based on the format.

Book with One Author

Rowling, J. K. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. New York: Scholastic, 2002. Print.

Book with Two Authors

Book with Four or More Authors

Giddens, Anthony, et.al. Introduction to Sociology. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2012.

Print.

• Et.al. is used when four or more authors exist for a book.

Electronic Book (E-Book)

Bennis, Warren G. Managing People Is Like Herding Cats. Provo, UT: Executive Excellence,

1997. EBSCO eBooks. Web.1 Apr. 2007

• Title of database, e.g. EBSCO eBooks, should be italicized
• Medium of the publication is Web. 
• Date e-book viewed online, e.g. 1 Apr 2007

Book published in 2nd or subsequent edition

Tortora, Gerard J., Berdell R. Funke, and Christine L. Case.  Microbiology: An Introduction.

8th ed. San Francisco: Benjamin-Pearson, 2004. Print.

• Insert edition of book after the title of the book, abbreviated edition with ed.

Book with editors instead of authors, and with edition

Kennedy, X. J., Dorothy M. Kennedy, and Jane E. Aaron, eds. The Brief Bedford Reader.

9th ed. Boston: Bedford-St. Martin’s, 2006. Print.

• An edited book is a collection of articles or chapters, often written by various authors. It has an editor instead of an author, indicated by the eds after the list of editors.
• Use the example above if you are citing the book as a whole. To cite one of the articles in the book, see section below on Articles or Chapters within a Book

Translated Book

Cervantes, Miguel de. Don Quixote. Trans. Edith Grossman. New York: Ecco, 2003. Print.

• Add translator after title of book, abbreviating translator with Trans.
  

No place of publication; no publisher; no date

McBride, Sara. Is Fluoridated Water Actually Harmful? N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.

• If a publisher, place of publication, or date of publication is not available, indicate this using the abbreviations in the example.
  

ARTICLES OR CHAPTERS WITHIN A BOOK

Work in an anthology or edited book

Staples, Brent. “Black Men and Public Space.” The Brief Bedford Reader. Ed. X. J. Kennedy,

Dorothy M. Kennedy, and Jane E. Aaron. 9th ed. Boston: Bedford-St. Martin’s, 2006.

181-83. Print.

• Include the author and title of the entry being cited.
• List the editors of the book, using the Ed. abbreviation and then listing the name(s).
• Add the page numbers of the cited piece after the publication date.

Work in an anthology or edited book, for a reprint of a previously published work (e.g. Contemporary Literary Criticism, Short Story Criticism)

Grove, James. "Anne Tyler: Wrestling with the 'Lowlier Angel.'" Southern Writers at Century's

End. Ed. Jeffrey J. Folks and James A. Perkins. Lexington: UP of Kentucky, 1997. 134-50.

Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Jeffrey W. Hunter. Vol. 205. Farmington Hills,

MI: Thomson, 2005. 272-81. Print.

• Include the author, article title, book title, editors, publisher, place of publication, year, and page range of the original work being cited.
• Use Rpt. in to indicate the original article is being republished in the book or anthology listed next.

Items in green indicate variations in the citation based on the format.

Article in a widely used encyclopedia or dictionary

Doyle, Jeffrey Scott. “Handgun.” World Book Encyclopedia. 2007.  Print.

Article in a specialized reference work or anthology

Staples, Brent. “Black Men and Public Space.” The Brief Bedford Reader. Ed. X. J. Kennedy,

Dorothy M. Kennedy, and Jane E. Aaron. 9th ed. Boston: Bedford-St. Martin’s, 2006.

181-83. Print.

Electronic encyclopedia or dictionary article from a library database (author)

Porter, Benjamin W. "Ur." Encyclopedia of Anthropology. Ed. H. James Birx. Vol. 5. Thousand

Oaks, CA: Sage Reference, 2006. 2251-2253. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web.

6 June 2012.

Electronic encyclopedia or dictionary article from a library database (no author)

"Third Dynasty of Ur." The Greenhaven Encyclopedia of Ancient Mesopotamia. Don Nardo.

Ed. Robert B. Kebric. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2007. 288-289. Gale Virtual Reference

Library. Web. 6 June 2012.

• If an article has no author, skip it and start the citation with the title of the article.