In the course of your essay, you will probably quote or summarize material derived from a source. You must give credit, and although there is no one form of documentation to which all scholarly fields subscribe, you will probably be asked to use one of two. One, established by the Modern Language Association (MLA), is used chiefly in the humanities; the other, established by the American Psychological Association (APA), is used chiefly in the social sciences.

We include two papers that use sources. “An Argument for Corporate Responsibility” uses the MLA format. “The Role of Spirituality and Religion in Mental Health” follows the APA format. (You may notice that various styles are illustrated in other selections we have included.)

In some online venues you can link directly to your sources. If your assignment is to write a blog or some other online text, linking helps the reader to look at a note or citation or the direct source quickly and easily. For example, in describing or referencing a scene in a movie, you can link to reviews of the movie, or to a YouTube of the trailer, or to the exact scene that you’re discussing. These kinds of links can help your audience get a clearer sense of your point. When formatting such a link in your text, make sure the link opens in a new window so that readers won’t lose their place in your original text. In a blog, linking to sources usually is easy and helpful.

A NOTE ON FOOTNOTES (AND ENDNOTES)

Before we discuss these two formats, a few words about footnotes are in order. Before the MLA and the APA developed their rules of style, citations commonly appeared in footnotes. Although today footnotes are not so frequently used to give citations, they still may be useful for another purpose. (The MLA suggests endnotes rather than footnotes, but most readers seem to think that, in fact, footnotes are preferable to endnotes. After all, who wants to keep shifting from a page of text to a page of notes at the rear?) If you want to include some material that may seem intrusive in the body of the paper, you may relegate it to a footnote: for example, you might translate a quotation given in a foreign language, or you might demote from text to footnote a paragraph explaining why you aren’t taking account of such-and-such a point. By putting the matter in a footnote you signal to the reader that it is dispensable; it’s relevant but not essential, something extra that you are, so to speak, tossing in. Don’t make a habit of writing this sort of note, but there are times when it is appropriate to do so.

MLA FORMAT: CITATIONS WITHIN THE TEXT

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Brief citations within the body of the essay give credit, in a highly abbreviated way, to the sources for material you quote, summarize, or make use of in any other way. These in-text citations are made clear by a list of sources, titled Works Cited, appended to the essay. Thus, in your essay you may say something like this:

Commenting on the relative costs of capital punishment and life imprisonment, Ernest van den Haag says that he doubts “that capital punishment really is more expensive” (33).

The citation, the number 33 in parentheses, means that the quoted words come from page 33 of a source (listed in the Works Cited) written by van den Haag. Without a Works Cited, a reader would have no way of knowing that you are quoting from page 33 of an article that appeared in the February 8, 1985, issue of the National Review.

Usually, the parenthetic citation appears at the end of a sentence, as in the example just given, but it can appear elsewhere; its position will depend chiefly on your ear, your eye, and the context. You might, for example, write the sentence thus:

Ernest van den Haag doubts that “capital punishment really is more expensive” than life imprisonment (33), but other writers have presented figures that contradict him.

Five points must be made about these examples:

1. Quotation marks The closing quotation mark appears after the last word of the quotation, not after the parenthetic citation. Since the citation is not part of the quotation, the citation is not included within the quotation marks.

2. Omission of words (ellipsis) If you are quoting a complete sentence or only a phrase, as in the examples given, you do not need to indicate (by three spaced periods) that you are omitting material before or after the quotation. But if for some reason you want to omit an interior part of the quotation, you must indicate the omission by inserting an ellipsis, the three spaced dots. To take a simple example, if you omit the word “really” from van den Haag’s phrase, you must alert the reader to the omission:

Ernest van den Haag doubts that “capital punishment . . . is more expensive” than life imprisonment (33).

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Suppose you’re quoting a sentence but wish to omit material from the end of the sentence. Suppose, also, that the quotation forms the end of your sentence. Write a lead-in phrase, quote what you need from the source, then type the ellipses for the omission, close the quotation, give the parenthetic citation, and finally type a fourth period to indicate the end of your sentence.

Here’s an example. Suppose you want to quote the first part of a sentence that runs, “We could insist that the cost of capital punishment be reduced so as to diminish the differences.” Your sentence would incorporate the desired extract as follows:

Van den Haag says, “We could insist that the cost of capital punishment be reduced . . .” (33).

3. Punctuation with parenthetic citations In the preceding examples, the punctuation (a period or a comma in the examples) follows the citation. If, however, the quotation ends with a question mark, include the question mark within the quotation, since it is part of the quotation, and put a period after the citation:

Van den Haag asks, “Isn’t it better — more just and more useful — that criminals, if they do not have the certainty of punishment, at least run the risk of suffering it?” (33).

But if the question mark is your own and not in the source, put it after the citation, thus:

What answer can be given to van den Haag’s doubt that “capital punishment really is more expensive” (33)?

4. Two or more works by an author If your list of Works Cited includes two or more works by an author, you cannot, in your essay, simply cite a page number because the reader will not know which of the works you are referring to. You must give additional information. You can give it in your lead-in, thus:

In “New Arguments against Capital Punishment,” van den Haag expresses doubt that “capital punishment really is more expensive” than life imprisonment (33).

Or you can give the title, in a shortened form, within the citation:

Van den Haag expresses doubt that “capital punishment really is more expensive” than life imprisonment (“New Arguments” 33).

5. Citing even when you do not quote Even if you don’t quote a source directly, but use its point in a paraphrase or a summary, you will give a citation:

Van den Haag thinks that life imprisonment costs more than capital punishment (33).

Note that in all of the previous examples, the author’s name is given in the text (rather than within the parenthetic citation). But there are several other ways of giving the citation, and we shall look at them now. (We’ve already seen, in the example given under paragraph 4, that the title and the page number can appear within the citation.)

AUTHOR AND PAGE NUMBER IN PARENTHESES

It has been argued that life imprisonment is more costly than capital punishment (van den Haag 33).

AUTHOR, TITLE, AND PAGE NUMBER IN PARENTHESES

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We have seen that if the Works Cited list includes two or more works by an author, you will have to give the title of the work on which you are drawing, either in your lead-in phrase or within the parenthetic citation. Similarly, if you’re citing someone who is listed more than once in the Works Cited, and for some reason you don’t mention the name of the author or the work in your lead-in, you must add the information in the citation:

Doubt has been expressed that capital punishment is as costly as life imprisonment (van den Haag, “New Arguments” 33).

A GOVERNMENT DOCUMENT OR A WORK OF CORPORATE AUTHORSHIP

Treat the issuing body as the author. Thus, you will write something like this:

The Commission on Food Control, in Food Resources Today, concludes that there is no danger (37-38).

A WORK BY TWO AUTHORS

If a work is by two authors, give the names of both authors, either in the parenthetic citation (the first example below) or in a lead-in (the second example below):

There is not a single example of the phenomenon (Christakis and Fowler 293).

Christakis and Fowler insist there is not a single example of the phenomenon (293).

A WORK BY MORE THAN TWO AUTHORS

If there are more than two authors, give the last name of the first author, followed by et al. (an abbreviation for et alii, Latin for “and others”), thus:

Gittleman et al. argue (43) that . . .

or

On average, the cost is even higher (Gittleman et al. 43).

PARENTHETIC CITATION OF AN INDIRECT SOURCE (CITATION OF MATERIAL THAT ITSELF WAS QUOTED OR SUMMARIZED IN YOUR SOURCE)

Suppose you’re reading a book by Jones in which she quotes Smith and you wish to use Smith’s material. Your citation must refer the reader to Jones — the source you’re using — but of course, you cannot attribute the words to Jones. You will have to make it clear that you are quoting Smith, and so after a lead-in phrase like “Smith says,” followed by the quotation, you will give a parenthetic citation along these lines:

(qtd. in Jones 324-25).

PARENTHETIC CITATION OF TWO OR MORE WORKS

The costs are simply too high (Smith 301; Jones 28).

Notice that a semicolon, followed by a space, separates the two sources.

A WORK IN MORE THAN ONE VOLUME

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This is a bit tricky. If you have used only one volume, in the Works Cited you will specify the volume, and so in the parenthetic in-text citation you won’t need to specify the volume. All you need to include in the citation is a page number, as illustrated by most of the examples that we have given.

If you have used more than one volume, the parenthetic citation will have to specify the volume as well as the page, thus:

Jackson points out that fewer than 150 people fit this description (2: 351).

The reference is to page 351 in volume 2 of a work by Jackson.

If, however, you are citing not a page but an entire volume — let’s say volume 2 — your parenthetic citation will look like this:

Jackson exhaustively studies this problem (vol. 2).

or

Jackson (vol. 2) exhaustively studies this problem.

Notice the following points:

AN ANONYMOUS WORK

For an anonymous work, give the title in your lead-in, or give it in a shortened form in your parenthetic citation:

A Prisoner’s View of Killing includes a poll taken of the inmates on death row (32).

or

A poll is available (Prisoner’s View 32).

AN INTERVIEW

Probably you won’t need a parenthetic citation because you’ll say something like

Vivian Berger, in an interview, said . . .

or

According to Vivian Berger, in an interview . . .

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and when your reader turns to the Works Cited, he or she will see that Berger is listed, along with the date of the interview. But if you don’t mention the source’s name in the lead-in, you’ll have to give it in the parentheses, thus:

Contrary to popular belief, the death penalty is not reserved for serial killers and depraved murderers (Berger).

AN ELECTRONIC SOURCE

Electronic sources, such as Web sites, are generally not divided into pages. Therefore, the in-text citation for such sources cites only the author’s name (or, if a work is anonymous, the title):

According to the Web site for the American Civil Liberties Union . . .

If the source does use pages or breaks down further into paragraphs or screens, insert the appropriate identifier or abbreviation (p. or pp. for page or pages; par. or pars. for paragraph or paragraphs; screen or screens) before the relevant number:

The growth of day care has been called “a crime against posterity” by a spokesman for the Institute for the American Family (Terwilliger, screens 1-2).

MLA FORMAT: THE LIST OF WORKS CITED

As the previous pages explain, parenthetic documentation consists of references that become clear when the reader consults the list titled Works Cited at the end of an essay.

The list of Works Cited begins on its own page and continues the pagination of the essay: If the last page of text is 10, then the Works Cited begins on page 11. Type the page number in the upper right corner, a half inch from the top of the sheet and flush with the right margin. Next, type the heading Works Cited (not enclosed within quotation marks and not italic), centered, one inch from the top, and then double-space and type the first entry.

Here are some general guidelines.

FORM ON THE PAGE

ALPHABETICAL ORDER

Here is more detailed advice.

THE AUTHOR’S NAME

Notice that the last name is given first, but otherwise the name is given as on the title page. Do not substitute initials for names written out on the title page.

If your list includes two or more works by an author, do not repeat the author’s name for the second title; instead represent it by three hyphens followed by a period. The sequence of the works is determined by the alphabetical order of the titles. Thus, Smith’s book titled Poverty would be listed ahead of her book Welfare. See the example on page 295, listing two works by Roger Brown.

Anonymous works are listed under the first word of the title or the second word if the first is A, An, or The or a foreign equivalent. We discuss books by more than one author, government documents, and works of corporate authorship on pages 295–96.

CONTAINERS AND PUBLICATION INFORMATION

When a source being documented comes from a larger source, the larger source is considered a container, because it contains the smaller source you are citing. For example, a container might be an anthology, a periodical, a Web site, a television program, a database, or an online archive. The context of a source will help you determine what counts as a container.

In Works Cited lists, the title of a container is listed after the period following the author’s name. The container title is generally italicized and followed by a comma, since the information that follows describes the container. (More on this below.) Disregard any unusual typography, such as the use of all capital letters or the use of an ampersand (&) for and. Italicize the container title (and subtitle, if applicable; separate them by a colon), but do not italicize the period that concludes this part of the entry.

When citing a source within a container, the title of the source should be the first element following the author’s name. The source title should be set within quotation marks with a period inside the closing quotation mark. The title of the container is then listed, followed by a comma, with additional information—including publication information, dates, and page ranges—about the container set off by commas.

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Boyle, T. C. “Achates McNeil.” After the Plague: Stories, Viking Penguin, 2001, pp. 82-101.

This example cites a story, “Achates McNeil,” from an anthology—or container—called After the Plague: Stories. The anthology was published by Viking Penguin in 2001, and the story appears on pages 82 through 101.

Note that the full name of the publisher is listed. Always include the full names of publishers, except for terms such as “Inc.” and “Company.” Retain terms such as “Books” and “Publisher.” The only exception is university presses, which are abbreviated thus: Yale UP, U of Chicago P, State U of New York P.

Sample Entries Here are some examples illustrating the points we have covered thus far:

Brown, Roger. Social Psychology. Free Press, 1965.

- - - . Words and Things. Free Press, 1958.

Haidt, Jonathan. “The Uses of Adversity.” The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom, Basic Books, 2006, pp. 135-154.

Hartman, Chester. The Transformation of San Francisco. Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 1984.

Kellerman, Barbara. The Political Presidency: Practice of Leadership from Kennedy through Reagan. Oxford UP, 1984.

These examples provide general guidelines for the kind of information you need to include in your Works Cited list. On the following pages, you will find more specific information for listing different kinds of sources.

A BOOK BY MORE THAN ONE AUTHOR

The book is alphabetized under the last name of the first author named on the title page. If there are two authors, the name of the second author is given in the normal order, first name first, after the first author’s name.

Gilbert, Sandra M., and Susan Gubar. The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination. Yale UP, 1979.

Notice, again, that although the first author’s name is given last name first, the second author’s name is given in the normal order, first name first. Notice, too, that a comma is added after the first name of the first author, separating the authors.

If there are more than two authors, give the name only of the first, followed by a comma, and then add et al. (Latin for “and others”).

Zumeta, William, et al. Financing American Higher Education in the Era of Globalization. Harvard Education Press, 2012.

GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS

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If the writer is not known, treat the government and the agency as the author. Most federal documents are issued by the Government Printing Office (abbreviated to GPO) in Washington, D.C.

United States, Office of Technology Assessment. Computerized Manufacturing Automation: Employment, Education, and the Workplace. GPO, 1984.

WORKS OF CORPORATE AUTHORSHIP

Begin the citation with the corporate author, even if the same body is also the publisher, as in the first example:

American Psychiatric Association. Psychiatric Glossary. American Psychiatric Association, 1984.

Human Rights Watch. World Report of 2015: Events of 2014. Seven Stories Press, 2015.

A REPRINT (E.G., A PAPERBACK VERSION OF AN OLDER CLOTHBOUND BOOK)

After the title, give the date of original publication (it can usually be found on the reverse of the title page of the reprint you are using), then a period, and then the publisher and date of the edition you are using. The example indicates that de Mille’s book was originally published in 1951 and that the student is using the 2015 reprint with an introduction by Joan Acocella.

de Mille, Agnes. Dance to the Piper. 1951. Introduction by Joan Acocella, New York Review Books, 2015.

A BOOK IN SEVERAL VOLUMES

If you have used more than one volume, in a citation within your essay you will (as explained on p. 292) indicate a reference to, say, page 250 of volume 3 thus: (3: 250).

If, however, you have used only one volume of the set — let’s say volume 3 — in your entry in the Works Cited, specify which volume you used, as in the next example:

Friedel, Frank. Franklin D. Roosevelt. Vol. 3, Little Brown, 1973. 4 vols.

With such an entry in the Works Cited, the parenthetic citation within your essay would be to the page only, not to the volume and page, because a reader who consults the Works Cited will understand that you used only volume 3. In the Works Cited, you may specify volume 3 and not give the total number of volumes, or you may add the total number of volumes, as in the preceding example.

BOOK WITH MORE THAN ONE PUBLISHER

If a book is listed as having been published by two or more publishers, separate the publishers with a slash, and include a space before and after the slash.

Hornby, Nick. About a Boy. Riverhead / Penguin Putnam, 1998.

A BOOK WITH AN AUTHOR AND AN EDITOR

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Kant, Immanuel. The Philosophy of Kant: Immanuel Kant’s Moral and Political Writings. Edited by Carl J. Friedrich, Modern Library, 1949.

If you are making use of the editor’s introduction or other editorial material rather than the author’s work, list the book under the name of the editor rather than of the author, as shown below under An Introduction, Foreword, or Afterword.

A REVISED EDITION OF A BOOK

Arendt, Hannah. Eichmann in Jerusalem. Revised and enlarged ed., Viking, 1965.

Honour, Hugh, and John Fleming. The Visual Arts: A History. 7th ed., Laurence King Publishing, 2013.

A TRANSLATED BOOK

Ullmann, Regina. The Country Road: Stories. Translated by Kurt Beals, New Directions Publishing, 2015.

AN INTRODUCTION, FOREWORD, OR AFTERWORD

Dunham, Lena. Foreword. The Liars’ Club, by Mary Karr, Penguin Classics, 2015, pp. xi-xiii.

Usually, an introduction or comparable material is listed under the name of the author of the book (here Karr) rather than under the name of the writer of the foreword (here Dunham), but if you are referring to the apparatus rather than to the book itself, use the form just given. The words Introduction, Preface, Foreword, and Afterword are neither enclosed within quotation marks nor italicized.

A BOOK WITH AN EDITOR BUT NO AUTHOR

Let’s assume that you have used a book of essays written by various people but collected by an editor (or editors), whose name(s) appears on the collection.

Horner, Avril, and Anne Rowe, editors. Living on Paper: Letters from Iris Murdoch. Princeton UP, 2016.

A WORK WITHIN A VOLUME OF WORKS BY ONE AUTHOR

The following entry indicates that a short work by Susan Sontag, an essay called “The Aesthetics of Silence,” appears in a book by Sontag titled Styles of Radical Will. Notice that the inclusive page numbers of the short work are cited, not merely page numbers that you may happen to refer to but the page numbers of the entire piece.

Sontag, Susan. “The Aesthetics of Silence.” Styles of Radical Will, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1969, pp. 3-34.

A BOOK REVIEW

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Here is an example, citing Walton’s review of Mitchell’s book. Walton’s review was published in a journal: The New York Review of Books.

Walton, James. “Noble, Embattled Souls.” Review of The Bone Clocks and Slade House, by David Mitchell. The New York Review of Books, 3 Dec. 2015, pp. 55-58.

In this case, Walton’s review has a title (“Noble, Embattled Souls”) that appears between the period following the reviewer’s name and Review.

If a review is anonymous, list it under the first word of the title, or under the second word if the first is A, An, or The. If an anonymous review has no title, begin the entry with Review of, and then give the title of the work reviewed; alphabetize the entry under the title of the work reviewed.

AN ARTICLE OR ESSAY IN A COLLECTION

A book may consist of a collection (edited by one or more persons) of new essays by several authors. Here is a reference to one essay in such a book. (The essay by Sayrafiezadeh occupies pages 3 to 29 in a collection edited by Marcus.)

Sayrafiezadeh, Saïd. “Paranoia.” New American Stories, edited by Ben Marcus, Vintage Books, 2015, pp. 3-29.

MULTIPLE WORKS FROM THE SAME COLLECTION

You may find that you need to cite multiple sources from within a single container, such as several essays from the same edited anthology. In these cases, provide an entry for the entire anthology (the entry for Marcus below) and a shortened entry for each selection. Alphabetize the entries by authors’ or editors’ last names.

Eisenberg, Deborah. “Some Other, Better Otto.” Marcus, pp. 94-136.

Marcus, Ben, editor. New American Stories. Vintage Books, 2015.

Sayrafiezadeh, Saïd. “Paranoia.” Marcus, pp. 3-29.

BOOK WITH A TITLE IN ITS TITLE

If the book title contains a title that is normally italicized, do not italicize the title within the book title. If the book title contains a title normally placed in quotation marks, retain the quotation marks and italicize the entire title.

Masur, Louis P. Runaway Dream: Born to Run and Bruce Springsteen’s American Vision. Bloomsbury, 2009.

Lethem, Jonathan. “Lucky Alan” and Other Stories. Doubleday, 2015.

BOOK IN A SERIES

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After the publication information, list the series name as it appears on the title page.

Denham, A. E., editor. Plato on Art and Beauty. Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. Philosophers in Depth.

AN ARTICLE IN A REFERENCE WORK (INCLUDING A WIKI)

For a signed article, begin with the author’s last name. (If the article is signed with initials, check elsewhere in the volume for a list of abbreviations, which will inform you who the initials stand for, and use the following form.) Provide the name of the article, the publication title, edition number (if applicable), the publisher, and the copyright year.

Robinson, Lisa Clayton. “Harlem Writers Guild.” Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience. 2nd ed., Oxford UP, 2005.

For an unsigned article, begin with the title of the article:

“Ball’s in Your Court, The.” The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms. 2nd ed., Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013.

For an online reference work, such as a wiki, include the author name and article name followed by the name of the Web site, the date of publication or the most recent update, and the URL (without http:// before it).

Durante, Amy M. “Finn Mac Cumhail.” Encyclopedia Mythica, 17 Apr. 2011, www.pantheon.org/articles/f/finn_mac_cumhail.html.

“House Music.” Wikipedia, 16 Nov. 2015, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_music.

A TELEVISION OR RADIO PROGRAM

Be sure to include the title of the episode or segment (in quotation marks), the title of the show (italicized), the producer or director of the show, the network, and the date of the airing. Other information, such as performers, narrator, and so forth, may be included if pertinent.

“Fast Times at West Philly High.” Frontline, produced by Debbie Morton, PBS, 17 July 2012.

“Federal Role in Support of Autism.” Washington Journal, narrated by Robb Harleston, C-SPAN, 1 Dec. 2012.

AN ARTICLE IN A SCHOLARLY JOURNAL

The title of the article is enclosed within quotation marks, and the title of the journal is italicized.

Some journals are paginated consecutively; the pagination of the second issue begins where the first issue leaves off. Other journals begin each issue with page 1.

Matchie, Thomas. “Law versus Love in The Round House.” Midwest Quarterly, vol. 56, no. 4, Summer 2015, pp. 353-64.

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Matchie’s article occupies pages 353 to 364 in volume 56, which was published in 2015. When available, give the issue number as well. (If the journal is, for instance, a quarterly, there will be four page 1’s each year, so the issue number must be given.)

AN ARTICLE IN A WEEKLY, BIWEEKLY, MONTHLY, OR BIMONTHLY PUBLICATION

Do not include volume or issue numbers, even if given.

Thompson, Mark. “Sending Women to War: The Pentagon Nears a Historic Decision on Equality at the Front Lines.” Time, 14 Dec. 2015, pp. 53-55.

AN ARTICLE IN A NEWSPAPER

Because a newspaper usually consists of several sections, a section number or a capital letter may precede the page number. The example indicates that an article appears on page 1 of section C.

Bray, Hiawatha. “As Toys Get Smarter, Privacy Issues Emerge.” The Boston Globe, 10 Dec. 2015, p. C1.

AN UNSIGNED EDITORIAL

“The Religious Tyranny Amendment.” New York Times, 15 Mar. 1998, p. 16. Editorial.

A LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Lasken, Douglas. New York Times. 15 Mar. 1998, p. 16. Letter.

A PUBLISHED OR BROADCAST INTERVIEW

Give the name of the interview subject and the interviewer, followed by the relevant publication or broadcast information, in the following format:

Weddington, Sarah. “Sarah Weddington: Still Arguing for Roe.” Interview by Michele Kort, Ms., Winter 2013, pp. 32-35.

Tempkin, Ann, and Anne Umland. Interview by Charlie Rose. Charlie Rose: The Week, PBS, 9 Oct. 2015.

AN INTERVIEW YOU CONDUCT

Akufo, Dautey. Personal interview, 11 Apr. 2016.

A PERSONAL OR PROFESSIONAL WEB SITE

Include the following elements, separated by periods: the name of the person who created the site (omit if not given, as in Figure 7.4), site title (italicized), name of any sponsoring institution or organization; date of electronic publication or of the latest update (if given; if not, provide the date you accessed the site at the end of the citation); and the URL (without http://).

Legal Guide for Bloggers. Electronic Frontier Foundation, www.eff.org/issues/bloggers/legal. Accessed 5 Apr. 2016.

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AN ARTICLE IN AN ONLINE PERIODICAL

Give the same information as you would for a print article, plus the URL. (See Figure 7.5.)

Acocella, Joan. “In the Blood: Why Do Vampires Still Thrill?” New Yorker, 16 March 2009. www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/03/16/in-the-blood.

A POSTING TO AN ONLINE DISCUSSION LIST

The citation includes the author’s name, the subject line of the posting, the name of the forum, the host of the forum, the date the material was posted, and the URL.

Robin, Griffith. “Write for the Reading Teacher.” Developing Digital Literacies, NCTE, 23 Oct. 2015, ncte.connectedcommunity.org/communities/community-home/digestviewer/viewthread?GroupId=1693&MID=24520&tab=digestviewer&CommunityKey=628d2ad6-8277-4042-a376-2b370ddceabf.

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A FACEBOOK POST OR COMMENT

Include the name of the Facebook page on which the post appeared, the name of the post (or the post on which the comment appears), the name of the site, the date, and the URL of the post or comment.

Bedford English. “Stacey Cochran Explores Reflective Writing in the Classroom and as a Writer: http://ow.ly/YkjVB.” Facebook, 15 Feb. 2016, www.facebook.com/BedfordEnglish/posts/10153415001259607.

AN E-MAIL MESSAGE

Include the name of the sender, the title of the message, the name of the recipient, and the date of the message.

Thornbrugh, Caitlin. “Coates Lecture.” Received by Rita Anderson, 20 Oct. 2015.

A TEXT MESSAGE

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Include the name of the sender, the title of the message, the name of the recipient, and the date of the message.

Naqvi, Sahin. Message to the author, 18 Nov. 2015.

TWITTER POST (TWEET)

Include the handle of the poster, the content of the Tweet (enclosed in quotation marks), the name of the site, the date and time of the post, and the URL.

Curiosity Rover. “Can you see me waving? How to spot #Mars in the night sky: https://youtu.be/hv8hVvJlcJQ.” Twitter, 5 Nov. 2015, 11:00 a.m., twitter.com/marscuriosity/status/672859022911889408.

A DATABASE SOURCE

Treat material obtained from a database like other printed material, but at the end of the entry add (if available) the title of the database (italicized), and a permalink or DOI (digital object identifier) if the source has one. If a source does not, then include a URL (without the protocol, such as http://).

Coles, Kimberly Anne. “The Matter of Belief in John Donne’s Holy Sonnets.” Renaissance Quarterly, vol. 68, no. 3, Fall 2015, pp. 899-931. JSTOR, doi:10.1086/683855.

Macari, Anne Marie. “Lyric Impulse in a Time of Extinction.” American Poetry Review, vol. 44, no. 4, July/Aug. 2015, pp. 11-14. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/.

Caution: Although we have covered many kinds of sources, it’s entirely possible that you will come across a source that doesn’t fit any of the categories that we have discussed. For greater explanations of these matters, covering the proper way to cite all sorts of troublesome and unbelievable (but real) sources, see the MLA Handbook, Eighth Edition (Modern Language Association of America, 2016).

APA FORMAT: CITATIONS WITHIN THE TEXT

Your paper will conclude with a separate page headed References, on which you list all of your sources. If the last page of your essay is numbered 10, number the first page of the References 11.

The APA style emphasizes the date of publication; the date appears not only in the list of references at the end of the paper but also in the paper itself, when you give a brief parenthetic citation of a source that you have quoted or summarized or in any other way used. Here is an example:

Statistics are readily available (Smith, 1989, p. 20).

The title of Smith’s book or article will be given at the end of your paper in the list titled References. We discuss the form of the material listed in the References after we look at some typical citations within the text of a student’s essay.

A SUMMARY OF AN ENTIRE WORK

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Smith (1988) holds the same view.

or

Similar views are held widely (Smith, 1988; Jones & Metz, 1990).

A REFERENCE TO A PAGE OR TO PAGES

Smith (1988) argues that “the death penalty is a lottery, and blacks usually are the losers” (p. 17).

A REFERENCE TO AN AUTHOR WHO HAS MORE THAN ONE WORK IN THE LIST OF REFERENCES

If in the References you list two or more works that an author published in the same year, the works are listed in alphabetical order, by the first letter of the title. The first work is labeled a, the second b, and so on. Here is a reference to the second work that Smith published in 1989:

Florida presents “a fair example” of how the death penalty is administered (Smith, 1989b, p. 18).

APA FORMAT: THE LIST OF REFERENCES

Your brief parenthetic citations are made clear when the reader consults the list you give in the References. Type this list on a separate page, continuing the pagination of your essay.

An Overview Here are some general guidelines.

FORM ON THE PAGE

ALPHABETICAL ORDER

Drabman, R. S., & Thomas, M. H. (1974). Does media violence increase children’s tolerance of real-life aggression? Developmental Psychology, 10, 418-421.

305

Donnerstein, E. (1980a). Aggressive erotica and violence against women. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39, 269-277.

Donnerstein, E. (1980b). Pornography and violence against women. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 347, 227-288.

Donnerstein, E. (1983). Erotica and human aggression. In R. Green & E. Donnerstein (Eds.), Aggression: Theoretical and empirical reviews (pp. 87-103). New York, NY: Academic Press.

FORM OF TITLE

Sample References Here are some samples to follow.

A BOOK BY ONE AUTHOR

Pavlov, I. P. (1927). Conditioned reflexes (G. V. Anrep, Trans.). London, England: Oxford University Press.

A BOOK BY MORE THAN ONE AUTHOR

Belenky, M. F., Clinchy, B. M., Goldberger, N. R., & Torule, J. M. (1986). Women’s ways of knowing: The development of self, voice, and mind. New York, NY: Basic Books.

A COLLECTION OF ESSAYS

Christ, C. P., & Plaskow, J. (Eds.). (1979). Woman-spirit rising: A feminist reader in religion. New York, NY: Harper & Row.

A WORK IN A COLLECTION OF ESSAYS

306

Fiorenza, E. (1979). Women in the early Christian movement. In C. P. Christ & J. Plaskow (Eds.), Woman-spirit rising: A feminist reader in religion (pp. 84-92). New York, NY: Harper & Row.

GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS

If the writer is not known, treat the government and the agency as the author. Most federal documents are issued by the U.S. Government Printing Office in Washington, D.C. If a document number has been assigned, insert that number in parentheses between the title and the following period.

United States Congress. Office of Technology Assessment. (1984). Computerized manufacturing automation: Employment, education, and the workplace. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

AN ARTICLE IN A JOURNAL WITH CONTINUOUS PAGINATION

Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1981). The framing of decisions and the psychology of choice. Science, 211, 453-458.

AN ARTICLE IN A JOURNAL THAT PAGINATES EACH ISSUE SEPARATELY

Foot, R. J. (1988-89). Nuclear coercion and the ending of the Korean conflict. International Security, 13(4), 92-112.

The reference informs us that the article appeared in issue number 4 of volume 13.

AN ARTICLE FROM A MONTHLY OR WEEKLY MAGAZINE

Greenwald, J. (1989, February 27). Gimme shelter. Time, 133, 50-51.

Maran, S. P. (1988, April). In our backyard, a star explodes. Smithsonian, 19, 46-57.

AN ARTICLE IN A NEWSPAPER

Connell, R. (1989, February 6). Career concerns at heart of 1980s campus protests. Los Angeles Times, pp. 1, 3.

(Note: If no author is given, simply begin with the title followed by the date in parentheses.)

307

A BOOK REVIEW

308

Daniels, N. (1984). Understanding physician power [Review of the book The social transformation of American medicine]. Philosophy and Public Affairs, 13, 347-356.

Daniels is the reviewer, not the author of the book. The book under review is called The Social Transformation of American Medicine, but the review, published in volume 13 of Philosophy and Public Affairs, had its own title, “Understanding Physician Power.”

If the review does not have a title, retain the square brackets, and use the material within as the title. Proceed as in the example just given.

A WEB SITE

American Psychological Association. (1995). Lesbian and gay parenting. Retrieved June 12, 2000, from http://www.apa.org/pi/parent.html

AN ARTICLE IN AN ONLINE PERIODICAL

Carpenter, S. (2000, October). Biology and social environments jointly influence gender development. Monitor on Psychology 31(9). Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/monitor/

For a full account of the APA method of dealing with all sorts of unusual citations, see the sixth edition (2010) of the APA manual, Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association.