8.4: Formatting the Works Cited Page

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A Works Cited page is an MLA formatted bibliography. A Works Cited entry usually has three basic parts: Author. Title. Publication Information. When a work has no author, then an entry includes the title and publication information.

Requirements for the Works Cited Page

According to the Purdue OWL, you need to provide the necessary information for readers to find your sources. Ask yourself, “What information is necessary to make finding the sources foolproof?”

In-text citations should look consistent throughout your paper.
Works Cited lists include core information, such as author’s name, title of source, publication information, based upon the type of source, and should be uniform and simple so readers can locate the sources.
Entries are double spaced
Only the first line of each entry goes on the left margin; subsequent lines are indented a half inch
Entries are organized in alphabetical order based upon author’s last name. If a source does not have an author, use the title.
Important change: When citing a web page that has been published previously in print, it is no longer necessary to include the original publication date.

Telling the Difference between Magazines and Journals

Magazines	Journals
Shorter & simpler titles	Long & complicated titles
Shorter articles	Usually longer articles
Lower page numbers	Higher pages numbers
Published more frequently	Published less frequently
Usually have specific publication date	Generalized publication
Lots of photographs and colored images	Graphs
Ads for food, drink, cologne, cars, etc.	No ads for food, drink, cologne, cars, etc.
No bibliography	Bibliography, a. k. a. Works Cited page

Sample Entries

Here are some sample entries taken from the Purdue OWL and the MLA Handbook:

Book in Print

Jacobs, Alan. The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction. Oxford UP, 2011.

Scholarly Journal

Kincaid, Jamaica. “In History.” Callaloo, vol. 24, no. 2, Spring 2001, pp. 620-26.

Magazine

Poniewozik, James. “TV Makes a Too-Close Call.” Time, 20 Nov. 2000, pp. 70-71.

E-book

Smith, Simon. Rocking the New World. Penguin Classics, 2010. ACLS Humanities. E-book, hdl.handle.net/2028/heb.07588.0001.001.

Database Source (journal)

Goldman, Anne. “Questions of Transport: Reading Primo Levi Reading Dante.” The Georgia Review, vol. 64, no. 1, 2010, pp. 69-88. JSTOR.

Database Source (magazine)

Crocker, Michael. “A Witness to History.” Newsweek, 14 Jan. 2015, pp. 45-47. Academic Search Premier.

Corporate Authors

Corporate authors can be organizations, institutions, and government agencies to name a few. When works are created by corporate authors but published by another source, entries are placed under the corporate author’s name. When the corporate author also publishes the work, the entry goes under the title of the work.

United Nations. Consequences of Rapid Population Growth in Developing Countries. Taylor and Francis, 1991.

“Zika Virus Disease.” Mayo Clinic, 1998-2016. http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-c...e/ovc-20189269.

Page from a website (No original publication date because it is from The Atlantic’s website)

Deresiewicz, William. “The Death of the Artist–and the Birth of the Creative Entrepreneur.” The Atlantic, 28 Dec. 2014, www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/01/death-of-the-artist-birth-of-entrepreneur.

Blog

Hollmichel, Stephanie. “The Reading Brain: Differences Between Digital and Print.” So Many Books, 25 Apr. 2013, somanybooksblog.com/2013/04/25/the-reading-brain-differences-between-digital-and-print.

Video

“The Bomb.” PBS, 28 July 2015. PBS, http://www.pbs.org/video/2365530722/.