The MLA, or Current Tongue Corporation, format is the preferred style for citing counsel in liberal arts and humanities documents. Its counterpart is the APA style action, which is chiefly used for scientific and specialized writing. Summarized by the books "MLA Handbook for Writers of Trial Papers" and "MLA Style Publication and Criterion to Scholarly Publishing," the MLA style provides guidelines for formatting parenthetical citations, the "Works Cited" event and endnotes.
Parenthetical Citations
MLA style states that credit to other authors for their ideas should be expressed via parenthetical citations, commonly referred to as "in-text" citations. The MLA formatting guidelines for parenthetical citations territory that a locate of parentheses should straightaway replace any regulate quotations from other authors and/or paraphrasing of their ideas. The parentheses should comprehend the author's ultimate alias, followed by a amplitude and the leaf cipher from the source counsel on which the reader can jewel the cited dossier.
Provided a effort that is existence cited does not hog a celebrated author, writers should applicability an abbreviated account of the business's fame in abode of an author appellation. For short works the abbreviated titles should be placed in passage marks, while extensive works depend upon an italicized or underlined honour. Writers citing also than one source in one parenthetical reference should assign a semi-colon between Everyone quotation within the parentheses.
Works Cited
According to the MLA format, writers should use common sense and ethics when deciding whether a given piece of information requires a citation. Proverbs, famous quotations and information considered to be common knowledge need not be cited, according to the MLA style. However, writers should also consider their target audience when deciding whether or not to quote material, as not all audiences and communities will view the same information as being common knowledge. The last part of the entry should list the city of publication, followed by a colon, the publisher's name and publication year. The entries should be listed in alphabetical order and double spaced.
When to Use Citations
Everyone parenthetical quotation should permit to an factor in the "Works Cited" event ultimate of the dossier. Each entry should first list the author's last name, followed by a comma and the author's first name. The underlined title of the book should be provided next, followed by a period.
Endnotes
The MLA citation format encourages writers to use endnotes for adding brief information that digresses from the subject, but may be helpful to the reader. Examples include pointing out a particularly helpful section of one of the bibliographic sources used in the document. Footnotes should be listed on a separate page called "Notes," which should come before the "Works Cited" page. The notes should be listed in chronological order by superscript Arabic numbers, with two lines of space between each note.
Benefits
The advantages of using the MLA citation format are several. Firstly, the format's consistency allows both the writer and readers to easily locate information. Secondly, giving due credit to other author's gives a writer's work credibility by holding him accountable. Finally, MLA style citations help ensure that writers do not get wrongfully accused of plagiarism-suspected use of other author's ideas without attributing credit.
