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HIS 141 - Downtown (DuMontier): MLA Style for Citing Sources

Sample MLA Documentation

A sentence that integrates two quotes:

 

Thomas Barker, writing to his wife Martha on July 6, 1776 expressed the joy of the moment: "We will be the first free people since the Athenians, my love. The honor is ours if we take it!" (1). But in the same letter he admitted his "doubts that England will let such a rich colony go without a war" (2).

 

Later, I paraphrase a fact from the same source.

 

At least some colonists were already saving food for the winter (Barker 2).

 

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Works Cited

 

Barker, Jonathan. "July 6, 1776 Letter to Martha Barker." Voices in

Revolutionary Times: Family Correspondence Following the Declaration of Independence, edited by Lisa Ann Greenley,      Blacksmith Press, 2001, Thompson Historical Database. http:XXXXXX.com/XXXXXXxxxccc.

MLA Documentation: Three Things to Do

1. Properly quote, paraphrase or summarize the borrowed material.

  • You must accurately capture the authors' words or faithfully convey their meaning.
  • Borrowed words must be formally quoted.
  • Paraphrases and summaries must be in your own words.

2. Insert an in-text citation to mark the borrowed material.

  • Whenever you use a source (by inserting a quote, paraphrase, or summary) you must cite the source.
  • In MLA, normally this means giving the author's last name and the page number where you found the material.
  • The author's last name must match the first word in the full citation (below).

3. Include a full citation to the source in your list of works cited.

  • An MLA full citation focuses on the author and the title of your source.
  • Then it describes the "container" that the source is found in.
    • Examples of containers: a newspaper, a book that is an edited collection, or a database.

Citation Generator

Create a citation for a chapter in an eBook.

  • Open this Citation Machine template
  • Click this tab: Online Database
  • Fill in the appropriate boxes (See definitions listed at the bottom).
    • Skip the Location boxes
  • Press Create citation
  • Double check it, then copy/paste it into your works cited.