Frequently asked Questions on MLA Style

Should I use underlining or italics?

How many spaces should I leave after a period or other concluding mark of punctuation?

How do I create the indention that the MLA shows for a works-cited list?

If a title begins with a numeral, how should the title be alphabetized?

When I borrow repeatedly from the same source, how should my parenthetical citations appear?

Why does the MLA recommend putting angle brackets around URLs in the works-cited list?

My word processor omits angle brackets and turns URLs into links in my works-cited list. Is that OK?

I am using a source on the Web that has no page numbers. How do I cite it?

Should I use underlining or italics?

Most word-processing programs and computer printers permit the reproduction of italic type. In material that will be graded or edited for publication, however, the type style of every letter and punctuation mark must be easily recognizable. Italic type is sometimes not distinctive enough for this purpose. In printed material submitted for grading and editing, therefore, words that would be italicized in a publication are usually underlined to avoid ambiguity. If you wish to use italics rather than underlining, check your instructor's or editor's preferences. When preparing a manuscript for electronic publication, consult your editor on how to represent italicization.

Publications in the United States today usually have the same spacing after a punctuation mark as between words on the same line. Since word processors make available the same fonts used by typesetters for printed works, many writers, influenced by the look of typeset publications, now leave only one space after a concluding punctuation mark. In addition, most publishers' guidelines for preparing a manuscript on disk ask authors to type only the spaces that are to appear in print.

We recommend the use of hanging indention for the entries in the works-cited list: the first line of each entry is flush left, and subsequent lines in the entry are indented. Hanging indention makes alphabetical lists easier to use.

In a word processor, the best way to create this indention is to highlight the paragraphs that are (or will be) entries and then choose hanging indention in the options for formatting paragraphs.

If a title begins with a numeral, how should the title be alphabetized?

The title should be alphabetized as if the numeral were spelled out. For example, 1914: The Coming of the First World War should be alphabetized as if it began "Nineteen-Fourteen. . . ."

When you borrow from a source several times in succession, you may be able to make your citations more concise by using one of the following techniques. However, always give your citations in full if these techniques would create ambiguity about your sources.

You may be able to combine citations in a single parenthesis after a sequence of borrowings:

Romeo and Juliet presents an opposition between two worlds: "the world of the everyday . . . and the world of romance." Although the two lovers are part of the world of romance, their language of love nevertheless becomes "fully responsive to the tang of actuality" (Zender 138, 141).

Here it is clear that the first page number in the parenthesis must apply to the first quotation and the second number to the second quotation.

But suppose you decide to break the first quotation into two parts. Then the parenthetical citation will be ambiguous, because three quotations will be followed by two numbers. It will not be clear how the page numbers should be matched to the borrowings. In that case, the citations should be separated. You can use another technique for making citations more economical--not repeating what is understood:

Romeo and Juliet presents an opposition between two worlds: "the world of the everyday," associated with the adults in the play, and "the world of romance," associated with the two lovers (Zender 138). Romeo and Juliet's language of love nevertheless becomes "fully responsive to the tang of actuality" (141).

The second parenthetical citation--"(141)"--omits the author's name. This omission is acceptable because the reader will conclude that the author must be Zender. No other understanding is possible. However, if you include material from a different source between the two borrowings from Zender, you must repeat this author's name in the second citation: "(Zender 141)."

A third technique is to define a source in the text at the start:

According to Karl F. Zender, Romeo and Juliet presents an opposition between two worlds: "the world of the everyday," associated with the adults in the play, and "the world of romance," associated with the two lovers (138). Romeo and Juliet's language of love nevertheless becomes "fully responsive to the tang of actuality" (141).

This technique can be useful when an entire paragraph is based on material from a single source. When a source is stated in this way and followed by a sequence of borrowings, it is important to signal at the end of the borrowings that you are switching to another source or to your own ideas. For example:

According to Karl F. Zender, Romeo and Juliet presents an opposition between two worlds: "the world of the everyday," associated with the adults in the play, and "the world of romance," associated with the two lovers (138). Romeo and Juliet's language of love nevertheless becomes "fully responsive to the tang of actuality" (141). I believe, in addition, that . . .

(The quotations in the above examples are taken from Karl F. Zender, "Loving Shakespeare's Lovers: Character Growth in Romeo and Juliet," Approaches to Teaching Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, ed. Maurice Hunt [New York: MLA, 2000] 137-43.)

When special symbols are placed before and after a URL (Internet address), readers are always certain about where it begins and ends. A URL without such markers could be misread, for several reasons. URLs may contain letters, numbers, and other marks used in documentation, including periods. A long URL may have to be divided at the end of the line in your text and continued on a new line, but no hyphen or other mark of division should be inserted at the break. Finally, in a works-cited list a URL is usually directly followed by the entry's final period, which is not part of the URL.

Angle brackets have been widely used to surround URLs and are recognized for this purpose by the Internet Engineering Task Force, a standards body for the Web. 

Some recent versions of word processors automatically turn network and e-mail addresses into hyperlinks, regardless of the document's intended use. Hyperlinks may be useful for documents that are read on-screen. When a document is printed, however, the linking has no purpose. A research paper or manuscript that will be printed should be free of the irrelevant effects of hyperlinks.

In Word 97, Word 2000, and Word 2002, you can turn off automatic hyperlinking by going to the menu "Tools" and choosing "AutoCorrect." Then click on the tab "AutoFormat As You Type" and remove the check mark next to "Internet and network paths with hyperlinks." Alternatively, you can leave this function on but remove hyperlinking from each URL individually, by clicking with the right mouse button on the URL to bring up a shortcut menu. From this menu in Word 97, choose "Hyperlink" and then "Edit Hyperlink," and click on the button "Remove Link"; in Word 2000, choose "Hyperlink" and then "Remove Hyperlink"; in Word 2002, choose "Remove Hyperlink."

In Word 98 and Word 2001 for the Macintosh, turn off automatic hyperlinking as described above. To remove hyperlinking from an individual URL, hold down Control and click on the URL. From the pop-up menu, choose "Hyperlink" and then "Edit Hyperlink," and click on the button "Remove Link."

You can also remove hyperlinking from a URL individually in all these programs by typing Ctrl-z (in Windows) or Command-z (on Macintosh) as soon as the hyperlinking appears.

In parenthetical references in the text, works on the Web are cited just like printed works. For any type of source, you must include information in your text that directs readers to the correct entry in the works-cited list (see the MLA Handbook, 6th ed., sec. 6.2). Web documents generally do not have fixed page numbers or any kind of section numbering. If your source lacks numbering, you have to omit numbers from your parenthetical references.

If your source includes fixed page numbers or section numbering (such as numbering of paragraphs), cite the relevant numbers. For numbers other than page numbers, give the appropriate abbreviation before the numbers: "(Moulthrop, pars. 19-20)." (Pars. is the abbreviation for paragraphs. Common abbreviations are listed in the MLA Handbook, sec. 7.4.)

For a document on the Web, the page numbers of a printout should normally not be cited, because the pagination may vary in different printouts. An exception is PDF files, which appear with the same pagination on all systems.

Information obtained from the MLA website.

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