What does MLA mean?

MLA is the acronym for Modern Language Association; it is a publication style that follows a specific format for writing, formatting, and documentation in a research paper or student work (a PowerPoint for example).

What is a Works Cited page?

A Works Cited page is the title given to your references (when completed using MLA format), which should appear at the end of your research paper, project, or presentation, and provides a fuller and richer detail of all the sources used in your work. Collecting your sources as you go along can help you in the research process and NoodleTools, Zotero, or Microsoft Word are a just a few reference management tools that can assist you in bringing all your sources together and creating a MLA formatted Works Cited page.

What is the formula for creating a MLA citation?

The items (or sources) that make up your Works Cited page will be different based on the type of source you are citing. The Purdue University Online Writing Lab is an excellent resource for answering any questions about formatting citations you might have and covers a variety of source types. Purdue OWL includes information and resources on how to cite using both MLA and APA formats. It would be impossible to include all of the formulas and rules for creating citations for the different types of sources you might use in your student work, so you are encouraged to use the MLA section of the Purdue University Online Writing Lab as your guide when creating citations. Also keep in mind that reference management tools can help you create an appropriately MLA formatted Works Cited page.

What does a MLA formatted Works Cited page look like?

A Works Cited page might look like this:

Works Cited

Gore, Albert. An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It. Emmaus, Pa: Rodale Press, 2006. Print.

Liu, Jian et al. “What Drives the Global Summer Monsoon over the Past Millennium?” Climate Dynamics 39.5 (2012): 1063–1072. EBSCOhost. Web. 27 Nov. 2013.

US Environmental Protection Agency. “Overview of Greenhouse Gases.” Greenhouse Gas Emissions. Overviews & Factsheets. N. p., 9 Sept. 2013. Web. 27 Nov. 2013.

Why is citing my sources important? How is this going to help me?

Citing sources in your academic work is an invaluable skill that will serve you while you are a student, as well as when you enter the work force. There are numerous jobs where researching an aspect of your work (or the business your place of employment engages in) may be a requirement for your position; the ability to locate and evaluate information that would be beneficial to your job is very important, but so also is using that information ethically and responsibly. Creating appropriate citations of your sources will come in handy because you want to empower your boss, coworker, peer, instructor, or whomever to follow up on the awesome information you found. It's also helpful to you if you ever need to go back to a source you used in a report at work (or a research paper you completed while in school) that you be able to track your way back to the original source. Creating citations does all of that!