Should hyphens be used in an expression such as mid to late 1990s?

No. Since hyphens are not needed to prevent misreading, we recommend that they be omitted. Read more about how the MLA treats mid compounds. … Read More

How are commas used with place names?

Unless a place name is at the end of a sentence and followed by sentence-ending punctuation, whenever you list a city and a state or… Read More

When should I use a semicolon before a coordinating conjunction?

Semicolons should be used before coordinating conjunctions—that is, terms such as and, or, and but joining independent clauses—when the clauses are long and have internal punctuation, as… Read More

How are commas used in date ranges?

As the MLA Handbook (sec. 1.5) explains, when writing dates, you should “be consistent in your use of either the day-month-year style (12 January 2014) or the… Read More

Are grade levels hyphened in MLA style?

MLA style hyphens grade levels in adjective form but not in noun form: a third-grade student, a student in third grade, a third grader. Read… Read More

How do I style a title or short title enclosed in parentheses in my parenthetical citation?

If a title or short title in parentheses must be given in a parenthetical citation, do not nest parentheses within parentheses. Instead, change the parentheses… Read More

How do I style compound modifiers that express number ranges?

The MLA follows The Chicago Manual of Style’s rules for hyphening number ranges in modifiers  (“Hyphenation Guide”). When the compound is an adjective, the compound… Read More

Should the serial comma be used before an ampersand?

Omit the serial comma when using an ampersand: Shelley bought all the vintage Earth, Wind & Fire albums she found at the yard sale. Ampersands… Read More

How do I create a vertical list in which each item includes a quoted fragment and a complete sentence?

Follow the guidelines on how to create a vertical list. Since the quotes are fragments, you may lowercase them. Either a colon or a period… Read More

If I am writing a paper in Spanish, should I follow Spanish rules or MLA style rules for the placement of a period in relation to quotation marks?

Follow Spanish rules. Read more on writing papers in foreign languages. Read More