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Welcome to this tutorial on MLA styles for online articles.
We hope you find this helpful. Most articles that we use come from libraries
online databases.
The first example is for a journal article from the JSTOR database.
First is article author; last name, first name
separated by a comma then middle initial and ends with a period.
"Brinker, William J." Then is article title.
In quotation marks with a period.
"Oral History and the Vietnam War."
Then is journal title in italics "OAH Magazine of History"
Volume number followed by a period than issue number:
"11.3" Date of publication in parentheses and a colon.
Year of scholarly journals and possibly day,
month, year for popular magazines. "(1997)"
Page numbers and ends with a period "15-19."
Title of database in italics and ends with a period. "JSTOR."
Medium of publication and ends with a period. "Web."
Date of access: day, month, and year and ends with a period.
"7 July 2011." The second example is for a newspaper article from the pro
quest database.
The daily newspaper is listed as day, month, year.
"10 July 2011" This newspaper example would be very similar to a popular
magazine
the difference being that the date of publication. Since a newspapers is published
daily,
whereas a magazine might be published weekly or monthly. Please see the next
slide for an example of
a magazine article from a database. The third example is a magazine article
from the academic one file database.
Please note that this magazine is published monthly. First you have a
article author;
last name comma, first name period.
"Weisenberger, Jill." Article title in quotation marks;
"Tap Water Toxins: Fact or Fiction"
Magazine title in italics. "Enironmental Nutrition"
Date of publication; month, abbreviated, and year
followed by a colon "September 2010:" Page numbers and ends with a period.
We only know the first page number, but the database indicated that the article
was two pages long
so MLA uses the plus symbol to show that there are additional pages;
"1+" Title of database in italics and with the period.
"Academic OneFile." Medium of publication and ends with a period. "Web."
Date of Access: day, month, and year
and ends with a period. "21 July 2011"
The fourth example is an article from a trade publication found in the pro quest
database.
Please note it is a weekly publication. Article author:
last name comma fist name period. "Steinberg, Brian." Article title:
in quotation marks. "US Report: TV Upfront Surges Beyond
$8.8B." Trade publication title
in italics; "Advertising Age" Date of publication:
day, month, and year followed by a colon; "13 June 2011:"
Page numbers and ends with a period; "3."
Title database in italics and ends with a period.
"ProQuest." Medium of publication and ends with a period;
"Web." Date of Access: day, month, and year
and ends with a period; "26 July 2011."
For detailed instructions on citing resources, check the MLA handbook for
writers of research papers published in 2009.
The library has two copies, one on reserve at the circulation desk
and one in the reference collection. Please note that chapter 6 of the
handbook is discussed in text citation.
If you have any questions please contact a reference librarian.