MLA Style: The Works Cited List

How this page is organized: 

1. the top section (Format Guidelines) tells you how to format your list--that is, how it should be laid out on the printed page; 

2. the bottom section (Sample Works Cited List) gives you an example of what a Works Cited list looks like

1.  Format guidelines:

• Put your works cited list on a separate page
• Title the list as Works Cited, centered, at the top of the page
• Double-space between and within entries
• Type the first line of each entry flush with the left margin; indent each additional line 1/2 inch (In Microsoft Word the easiest way to set up the proper indentation is to set the works cited page for "hanging indent" [Format, Paragraph, Indentation -- Special, Hanging] before you begin typing the page.
• Arrange entries alphabetically by authors' last names, with anonymous works alphabetized by title (ignoring the articles a, an, & the)

Don't forget to double space at all times and don't forget to alphabetize your entries.

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2. Sample Works Cited list:

In this sample list note that Barnes' article comes from a weekly magazine, and thus uses the same form as would a newspaper article. Cook's article is from a "scholarly journal." Lannon's work is a book, while Leap's article comes from a book containing the works of several authors. Can you spot the differences among the citations?

Works Cited

Barnes, Fred. "Finest Hour." New Republic 11 Feb. 1991: 14-16.

Cook, Eleanor. "Reading Typologically, For Example, Faulkner." American

Literature 63 (1991): 693-711.

Lannon, John M. Technical Writing. Glenview, IL: Scott- Foresman, 1988.

Leap, William L. "American Indian Languages." Languages in the USA.

Ed. Charles A. Ferguson and Shirley Brice Heath. Cambridge: Cambridge

 UP, 1981. 115-35.

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