Make sure:
Are You Holding the Item in Your Hand?
Book: A book may be fiction or nonfiction. It is written to be read from beginning to end and may be in print or electronic (eBooks).
Anthology/Collection: A book with chapters by different authors or the collected work (essays, poems, short stories) of a single author.
Pamphlet or Brochure: A single-topic short publication with subheadings rather than chapters. It may be in print or a .pdf online.
Reference Source: A book in print or online designed to be consulted for specific facts or background rather than to be read all the way through, such as almanacs, atlases, dictionaries, directories, encyclopedias, gazetteers, and yearbooks.
Journal: Contains scholarly articles with abstracts and references (e.g., footnotes, parenthetical references, citations). Most articles are evaluated by experts in the same field in order to be accepted for publication (“peer reviewed”). The author's tone is serious and s/he uses words and ideas that are understood by experts but might be harder for a general reader to follow. The print layout may include graphs and charts, but few photos, pictures and ads. Often published by an academic or professional organization, the goal of a journal is to advance knowledge or publish research findings in a scholarly discipline, not make money for the author or publication.
Magazine: Vary widely in topic, tone, and authority. They tend to include eye-catching pictures, color, and ads. The goal of a magazine is to sell itself by attracting, informing and entertaining general readers.
Newsletter: A shorter publication with stories about one main topic, written for a group of people with a common interest.
Newspaper: Published daily or weekly in print and online and contains breaking news, investigative reports, photographs, and/or videos. It may also contain ads, reviews, editorials, letters to the editor, cartoons, weather, etc.
Religious Work: A classical work like the Bible or Quran.
Textbook: Cite as a Book.
Is the Item Online?
Blog: Entries are in reverse chronological order.
Journal: Contains scholarly articles with abstracts and references (e.g., footnotes, parenthetical references, citations). Most articles are evaluated by experts in the same field in order to be accepted for publication (“peer reviewed”). The author's tone is serious and s/he uses words and ideas that are understood by experts but might be harder for a general reader to follow. The print layout may include graphs and charts, but few photos, pictures and ads. Often published by an academic or professional organization, the goal of a journal is to advance knowledge or publish research findings in a scholarly discipline, not make money for the author or publication.
Magazine: Vary widely in topic, tone, and authority. They tend to include eye-catching pictures, color, and ads. The goal of a magazine is to sell itself by attracting, informing and entertaining general readers.
Newsletter: A shorter publication with stories about one main topic, written for a group of people with a common interest.
Newspaper: Published daily or weekly in print and online and contains breaking news, investigative reports, photographs, and/or videos. It may also contain ads, reviews, editorials, letters to the editor, cartoons, weather, etc.
Web Site: Online source of any length or language. Use a Search engine (Google, Yahoo, Baidu) in your Web browser (Firefox, Safari, Chrome) to view Web sites. Web sites may be one page or a collection of Web pages and may be in different formats, such as PowerPoint slides (.ppt), an Adobe flash file (.swf), an Adobe document (.PDF), Hypertext markup (.htm, .html), Google Doc or Word (.docx), or Prezi, Slideshare, etc.
Photo or Image (Born Digital): it was created (e.g. digital camera, computer screen capture program, desktop scanner) in digital form for the Web or you do not know where the image itself (not the place or object in it) is physically stored
Photo or Illustration: A photograph or illustration in hand, or for which print/physical location information (e.g., a library archive) is provided.
Work of Visual Art: A photograph housed in a museum or art collection, or a photograph of a work of art (where you are documenting the original artwork).
Map, Chart, Table or Infographic: A map, chart, or similar type of image, where it is important to document the specific type of image.
Historical Work in an Archive: Primary source documents and other materials are often housed in physical archives or manuscript collections or they may be scanned and available through a site like American Memory. They include: historical manuscripts or papers; unpublished letters, memos or other correspondence; maps or charts; and print photos or Illustrations.
Interview: Choose this option if you conducted the interview. If not, you are citing a transcript of the interview in a book or on a Web site or an interview broadcast on television/radio or archived as an online video or online audio recording. If so, choose “Interview,” then see the Similar/Related Choices in the dropdown list.
You read a fascinating article written by Ms. Pulver. In the article, Ms. Pulver quotes Mr. Aguiar's excellent book Dissecting a Banana (which you have not used in your research). You would like to use Mr. Aguiar's quote.
The best thing to do is get a copy of Mr. Aguiar's book and find the original quote to find out for yourself if Ms. Pulver quoted Mr. Aguiar correctly and represented his idea accurately. But what if you can't get Mr. Aguiar's book?
What do you do?... You do TWO things:
First: In the body of your paper you write something like this:
... Mr. Aguiar asserts in his book Dissecting a Banana that "the study of biology is the most foundational science, more so even than physics, given that only living things can study physics." (qtd. in Pulver 12).
Second: In your Works Cited, you cite the book you actually read:
Pulver, Cecily. The Kingsley Journal. WA Press, 2019.
Say you want to cite the short story The Gray Club by Ch'oe Inhun, which you found in the book Modern Korean Literature: An Anthology, which you found on Google Books? Stay with me...
Ch'oe Inhun. "The Gray Club." Modern Korean Literature: An Anthology, edited and translated by Peter H. Lee, University of Hawaii, 1990, pp. 125-49. Google Books, books.google.com/books?id=XHCc-wTgEIIC&lpg=PP1&dq=anthology&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q=anthology&f=false.
Editorial Board. “How to Tell Truth from Fiction in the Age of Fake News.” Chicago Tribune, 21 Nov. 2016, www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-fake-news-facebook-edit-1120-md-20161118-story.html.
“It’s Subpoena Time.” The New York Times, late ed., 8 June 2007, p. A28. Editorial.
3. You can refer to the piece as an editorial in the text of your paper.
The information and examples in this Guide were created to answer specific questions by Worcester Academy students. If you have a question or don't know how to cite a source, come see Ms. Biancolo in the library.
If you're citing something particularly tricky, you can always see if MLA itself has answered your question.
You can also check out the Excelsior OWL.
Mildred H. McEvoy Library at Worcester Academy | 81 Providence Street | Worcester, MA 01604