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Citation elements are the publication information that helps you construct a complete bibliographic citation.
bibliographic citation.
For this tutorial, we’ll concentrate on examples for MLA, 7th edition.
For printed works, such as books you find on a library shelf,
the citation elements can usually be found on the cover and in the first few pages.
In this example, the title of the book is A Tale of Two Cities.
The author is Charles Dickens.
The book was illustrated by Townsend and published in London.
The publisher information usually exists in close proximity to the place and the year of publication.
Once you find these citation elements,
you can incorporate them into a complete bibliographic citation.
The author goes first, followed by the title.
If there is an editor or illustrator, that citation element goes next.
Then comes the place of publication, the publisher, and the year the work was published.
There are minor variations,
but for the most part, most standard MLA citations follow this format.
Notice that the citation is double-spaced, and the title of the main work is italicized.
The 2nd and subsequent lines are indented.
Because this a print book (a physical one that you can hold in your hands),
the word “Print” is added to the end of the citation.
All of these citation elements combine to create this complete bibliographic citation,
and you would put these in the back of your paper under the Works Cited section.
Notice that all of the citations are organized by alphabetical order.
The previous example focused on a print book.
How about an article in a journal from an electronic database—
something that most students would encounter?
The process, not surprisingly, is similar.
You would look for the relevant citation elements.
If you were viewing the PDF format of that electronic resource,
you would scan the first few pages (and sometimes the last few pages) for the necessary information.
However, one advantage to using an electronic resource is that most of the bibliographic information
have been provided for you, especially when you first access the article.
Again, once you find these citation elements,
you can incorporate into a complete bibliographic citation.
Slight differences exist between a book and an article citation.
The title of the article is in quotation, but the title of the journal (the main work) is italicized.
Because this is an electronic source, the word “Web” is used instead,
and the date that the article was accessed is also included in the citation.
Citations may seem difficult at first, but once you work on a few and get the hang of them,
they’re a lot easier than you think.
The devil, as they say, is in the details.
If you need help with creating a citation for a source you are using,
please feel free to talk to a librarian at any of the reference desks on all three campuses or call or email us.
We’re here to help you.