Why We Have to Worry about Citation and Formatting Styles

A common frustration is that there seems to be nothing as annoying as worrying about citation (at least when it comes to English class). Who cares if the title isn’t italicized? Why do I have to put the name of the author in parentheses at the end of a sentence when I’ve already got the author listed on the works cited page? Why do I have to learn MLA-style formatting when my professional field is going to use a different style?

Okay, okay. Chill out. What a complainer.

There are some general points about citation and formatting that we should probably cover so that the required adherence to a particular formatting style is justified.

• Proper formatting and citation enhances your text’s ethos, pathos, and logos (but especially ethos). Just like any other aspect of a text, formatting and citation serve rhetorical purposes. Remember that your audience in school is an instructor (usually) and in a particular professional field is others in that field. Either way, you want to appeal to their expectations and values by presenting your ideas in a way that they can easily follow and, therefore, understand. You also make the logic of your argument more effective when your formatting isn’t distracting and your citations are clear and accurate. Arguably the most important rhetorical aspect of formatting and citation style, however, is what it does for your ethos. Proper formatting and citation demonstrates to the reader that you’ve got your $#^! together… in other words, that you are a responsible, credible author that is adequately concerned with standards and meticulous citation. It also enhances your ethos by making transparent the quality (or lack thereof) of research that you’ve conducted. When all of your solid, credible sources are clearly and accurately cited both in text and on the Works Cited page, your reader will be more comfortable trusting that the information that you’re presenting is of at least relatively high quality.
• Standards allow for anyone in a particular field to easily decode bibliographic information: MLA style is, in a sense, its own subdialect, if not its own language. As basic language rules allow complete strangers to communicate, standardized formatting and citation style facilitate the sharing of ideas among those in a particular field of study. When an individual formats and cites an essay in some unique way, readers have to spend extra time decoding; they are no longer obligated to work to understand the author’s point (which is often complicated enough), but the quasi-logical system that the author has used to denote source information. Moreover, our ability to adapt to a particular discourse community is important if we wish not only to basically communicate but to be fully accepted into the academic or professional community with which we are engaging.
• Formatting and citation requirements make grading easier and fairer. When an instructor is going through a (now metaphorical) stack of essays with the intent to assign grades to each, it is less time-consuming to evaluate the quality of sources and presentation of evidence when the essays are all following some common formatting and citation style. This makes the instructor’s job easier. That’s not it, though. It is good for the student as well, since you are then getting evaluated based on your quality ideas and explanations rather than the multicolored word art title at the beginning or the scrambled mess of URLs at the end of your document.

The Basics of Citation

The Modern Language Association (MLA) formatting and citation style is only one of several major styles, but it is the one that’s used in many composition and humanities courses as well as in many related disciplines.

There are two basic concepts to grasp about MLA citation: In-Text Citation and the Works Cited page.

• In-Text Citation: Whenever you present information from a source in the body of your essay (whether a quote, a paraphrase, or a summary), you must include at least the minimum information that your reader will need in order to use your Works Cited page in locating the original source. The minimum information required is the first word of the source’s citation as listed on the Works Cited page (so that your reader can identify which source to look for) and the static page number on which the information is located. Let’s discuss each of these requirements briefly.
  • The first word of the source’s citation as listed on the Works Cited page: This is usually the author’s last name (see the examples in the resources linked below), though if there is no listed author it will be the title of the work. Note that (as discussed below) the first time that you refer to a source in the text of your essay, you are usually best off taking the time to fully introduce the source so that your reader is more likely to believe that it is credible (including author’s full name, title of work, date of publication, and name of periodical/publication if applicable).
  • The static page number on which the information is located: Because you may refer to different pages of the same source at different times in an essay, each instance must be accompanied by the page number of the original article where the information came from. In the case that the original source is not paginated, you don’t need to put anything at all. Whatever you do, don’t count pages or paragraphs if there are no numbers there. Also note that you only need to include static page numbers: page numbers that can’t change. For example, a printed book has static page numbers because they’re printed on the page, whereas a website that splits an article into two pages isn’t static because at any moment the designer of the site could decide that the story should be split into some other number of pages.

This information in the text acts almost like a hyperlink because it links the reader directly to the corresponding entry on the Works Cited page.

When the minimum information that you are required to provide in the text is stylistically awkward or repetitive, you may include it in parentheses at the end of the sentence containing the information. This is called a parenthetical citation and it is not always required. Page numbers are usually put in a parenthetical citation, as it is often stylistically bizarre to state the page number in a sentence. Author names are included in the parenthetical citation only when they have not been mentioned in the text. See the examples in the resources linked below.

• Works Cited page: This page, which is numbered along with the rest of your document, contains a list of bibliographic data about those sources (and only those sources) to which you referred in the body of your essay. The citations on this page are listed alphabetically by the last name of the author (unless there is not author, in which case it begins with the work’s title). The bibliographic information must be presented exactly as outlined in the resources provided below. The first line of each entry begins all the way to the left, and subsequent lines are indented (this is called a “hanging indent”).

How to Do It

There are many free online resources with the details. Check with your college library or something like the Excelsior Online Writing Lab for more information.

Note that you should feel free to use tools like EasyBib or Citation Machine, but also remember that these are, basically, calculators. As with using any calculator, you have to know what you’re doing if you want the output to be valid. If you don’t understand how a basic formula works, for example, a calculator isn’t going to help you because you won’t know what to input and where. My experience has been that students using one of these citation generators because they find it “easier” than just putting the citation together on their own based on the thorough guidelines provided by one of the resources above usually end up submitting terribly inaccurate Works Cited pages.

Also remember that, in many cases, you are not expected to memorize the details of MLA-style citation and formatting. You are expected to know where to find the rules/guidelines and to know how to follow them when putting together an essay for submission. Basically, the rules can be found in the next chapter (and at the links provided above). Ultimately, you may be expected to demonstrate your familiarity with the guidelines and expectations of MLA-style formatting and citation, but you will likely find yourself in any number of writing situations where you will be required to apply a different citation style. Therefore, it is in your interest to acquire a working knowledge of how to identify various style requirements and follow them to the best of your ability.

MLA 8th Edition

Warning

Not everyone reading this (and you all should read this in case you end up needing it) is going to end up needing it. As you might already know, the details of MLA citation formatting are not necessarily relevant to all students once they’ve passed through first-year composition. Other courses and professional fields have other citation guidelines. But those might change, too. You are advised to take the time to process the basic changes involved in this common but not universal citation style. You are also advised to keep in mind that this is a very recent change.

Does the content in this page matter, then? Honestly, it might not. If you are sure that you will never again take a course or find yourself in a professional situation where basic knowledge of MLA-style formatting is expected by your audience, then feel free to skim this and move on. I would recommend, in the meantime, that you identify and investigate the citation style(s) that you think you will encounter.

New Editions of the MLA Handbook

In April 2016, the Modern Language Association (MLA) released the first update to its formatting and style guidelines since 2009, and another update is upon us now. At the very least, know that this overview should be understood as an introduction to the formatting style and nothing like a comprehensive tool for navigating the twisting byways of source citation. It also may not reflect recent changes.

The Nine “Core Elements”

Any source that you are citing in your work will contain some of the nine elements listed below, but not necessarily all of them. If any of the elements do not apply to the source that you are citing, simply skip that element and move on to the next.

The nine “core elements” are as follows, and you are expected to connect them to each other in your citation with the proper punctuation (added to each in parentheses).

1. Author (.) : Who is credited for the work?
2. Source (.) : What is the title of the work? If it’s a print book (that doesn’t contain a bunch of other works with other authors), then you would put the book’s title here in italics. If it’s an article or story within a larger publication, then you put the title of the article or story here enclosed by quotation marks (and not in italics). See below for a note about formatting titles.
3. Container (,) : If the work you’re citing is contained in a larger work, include that “container” here in italics.
4. Other Contributors (,) : If the work you’re citing prominently displays the contribution of someone other than the author or is contained in a larger work with its own editors, include those names here. For example, include translators or editors here if appropriate.
5. Version (,) : If you are looking at a specific edition/version of a work, include that information here. As always, you won’t have to look too far so don’t include information that nobody needs.
6. Number (,) : If the work is part of a series, as in the case of an academic journal with volume and issue numbers, include them here.
7. Publisher (,) : Who is responsible for the work’s copyright? The easiest way to determine this is to look at the title page and locate the publisher there (in the case of a print book) or the copyright statement of a website (often located at the bottom of a webpage).
8. Publication Date (,) : When was the work published? For periodicals and articles on webpages, this might include the month, week, or even day of publication. For articles in academic journals this will often be a month and a year. For books, you usually only have the year to worry about.
9. Location (.) : Where is the work that you are citing? This isn’t asking you to identify a physical location. If you think about it, you’ll see that a magazine article, for example, is always going to be on pages 20-27 of that edition of the magazine whether you are reading the magazine in your room or on a cafe terrace on Mars. This element asks where the work is located in the context of its container. If it’s in a print publication or another publication with static pagination, you include the range of pages here (e.g. “pp. 20-27”). If it’s an article on a website, provide a “stable” URL if possible. If you’re accessing content through a database, locate the DOI (Digital Object Identifier) and include that.

This method of citation formatting requires that you, as the composer of the text, keep your audience in mind when providing information. More to come on that…

General Tips

• Consider the “core elements” as general guidelines, and not rigid requirements.
• Think about what your reader really needs to know. If you try too hard to include information relevant to all nine of the “core elements,” you’ll likely be providing too much unnecessary (and perhaps misleading) information.
• Format titles appropriately. In general, works that exist as a whole on their own should be placed in italics. A common example is a print book entirely written by one or one set of authors. Other examples include films, websites (but not individual articles on a website), and databases. Some of the sources that you italicize will contain any number of individual works, as in the case of a website (which may contain many pages, articles, or posts) or a magazine (which may contain any number of stories, images, or graphics). On the other hand, works that are contained in a larger work should be enclosed in quotation marks and not italicized. For example, if you were at Websource, you might find an article on the site entitled “Things to Know about MLA Formatting.” If you were looking at a story in a print anthology (which is a collection of works), you would say that “Cute Story” was contained in The Stories We All Need to Read. (I made up those examples, by the way, so I take no responsibility if they don’t show up when you search for them.)
• Consider the type of source you’re dealing with. Not all sources are equal. Popular periodicals, such as magazines, are primarily identified by their date of publication and not their volume/issue numbers, whereas academic journals typically display their volume/issue numbers in a prominent way on their covers. Your reader doesn’t need to know what volume/issue of Time magazine you’re referring to; the reader just needs the week of its publication. With academic journals, however, volume and issue numbers are more important, so you should include them.