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Spanish Exercise 1
(Tarea 1)
Lesson Plan
Exercise 1 is an ungraded homework assignment for students to practice MLA documentation; it includes an optional research component.
Objective: For students to practice creating works-cited-list entries as a first step in the preparation of an annotated bibliography in Spanish. (Read more about MLA guidelines on creating an annotated bibliography.)
Total estimated class time: Allot up to 20 minutes to go over Exercise 1 in class; the remaining activities are completed outside class.
Additional outcomes: This exercise gives students experience identifying the relevant publication facts of articles in journals and book anthologies, using the MLA template of core elements from the eighth edition of the MLA Handbook, and crafting works-cited-list entries as part of a larger project of preparing an annotated bibliography. It also allows students to practice styling titles in Spanish and titles within titles, as well as various formatting issues they face in drafting a list of works cited, such as spacing and alphabetizing entries.
Preparation for the assignment: Students should read part 1 of the MLA Handbook. The class should then discuss the core and optional elements on pages 20–53 and review the examples from the handbook and the handouts. During discussion, the instructor should use the examples to familiarize students with where to find publication facts required by the template.
Give students the assignment sheet for Exercise 1 and direct them to complete it outside class.
Follow-up in-class activity: Ask students to bring the completed Exercise 1 to class. Review the example sources with the students, pointing out their various elements on the template and explaining how these elements are assembled in a works-cited-list entry. Discuss such things as capitalization of titles in Spanish, titles within titles, alphabetical order in the list of works cited, instances in which a source has more than one container, which template elements are necessary and which are not (students tend to include a publisher for journal articles, for example). Be sure to leave enough time to answer students’ questions.
Alternative approaches: This assignment works for any institution that lacks a subscription to a research database but can be modified to include a step that has students practice using databases to locate research material. With this modification, the students can be required to look up the source in the MLA Bibliography, for example; for this version, see Exercise 1, with Research Component.
Lesson Materials:
Assignment Sheet: Exercise 1, with Research Component
Assignment Sheet: Exercise 1, without Research Component
Handout: Source (Fuente) 1
Handout: Source (Fuente) 2
Template Key: Source (Fuente) 1
Template Key: Source (Fuente) 2
Entries Key: Final Works-Cited List
Joan M. Hoffman is professor of Spanish at Western Washington University.
Spanish Exercise 2
(Tarea 2)
Lesson Plan
Exercise 2 is a graded assignment for students to practice MLA documentation; it includes an optional research component.
Objective: For students to practice creating works-cited-list entries as a first step in the preparation of an annotated bibliography in Spanish. (Read more about MLA guidelines on creating an annotated bibliography.) This exercise is more extensive than Exercise 1 and is handed in for a grade.
Total estimated class time: Allot up to 20 minutes to go over Exercise 2 in class; the remaining activities are completed outside class.
Additional outcomes: This exercise gives students experience identifying the relevant publication facts of articles in journals and book anthologies, using the MLA template of core elements from the eighth edition of the MLA Handbook, and crafting works-cited-list entries as part of a larger project of preparing an annotated bibliography. It also allows students to practice styling titles in Spanish and titles within titles, as well as various formatting issues they face in drafting a list of works cited, such as spacing, handling more than one source by an author, and alphabetizing entries.
Preparation for the assignment: Students should read part 1 of the MLA Handbook. The class should then discuss the core and optional elements on pages 20–53 and review the examples from the handbook and the handouts. During discussion, the instructor should use the examples to familiarize students with where to find publication facts required by the template. The class should also have completed Exercise 1 (Tarea 1).
Give students the assignment sheet for Exercise 2 and direct them to complete it outside class. Tell them that it will be graded for adherence to guidelines on MLA style set forth in the MLA Handbook.
Follow-up activity: Once the exercise has been graded and returned to students, point out the various elements on the template and explain how these elements are assembled in a works-cited-list entry. Discuss such things as capitalization of titles in Spanish, titles within titles, alphabetical order in the list of works cited, instances in which a citation has more than one container, and which template elements are necessary and which are not (students tend to include a publisher for journal articles, for example). Be sure to leave enough time to answer students’ questions.
Alternative approaches: Like Exercise 1, this assignment works for any institution—such as a high school—that lacks library database subscriptions. The assignment can be modified to practice documenting any type of source. It can also be modified in another way for use at the university level or at any institution with database access. With this modification, the students can be required to look up the source in the MLA Bibliography, for example; for this version, see Exercise 2, with Research Component.
Lesson Materials:
Assignment Sheet: Exercise 2, with Research Component
Assignment Sheet: Exercise 2, without Research Component
Handout: Source (Fuente) 1
Handout: Source (Fuente) 2
Handout: Source (Fuente) 3
Template Key: Source (Fuente) 1
Template Key: Source (Fuente) 2
Template Key: Source (Fuente) 3
Entries Key: Final Works-Cited List
Joan M. Hoffman is professor of Spanish at Western Washington University.
If I’m citing an entire play reprinted in an anthology, does it appear in italics?
Yes. As the MLA Handbook explains, the title of an independent work (that is, a work that usually stands alone, such as a play, novel, or artwork) is styled in italics, even when the work is contained in another independent work (27):
The following example shows an entry for a work of art contained in a Web site:
Punctuation with Titles
By Jennifer RappaportIn a previous Ask the MLA post, we explained how to incorporate titles ending in question marks or exclamation points into works-cited-list entries. But how do you incorporate such titles into your prose? How do you handle titles ending in other punctuation marks? And what should you do about other matters of punctuation related to titles?
Titles Ending in Question Marks or Exclamation Points in Your Prose
At the MLA, we never insert a period after a title ending in a question mark or exclamation point, but we insert a comma if doing so makes a sentence easier to read—for example, when such a title is one item in a series or when the title is contained in a nonrestrictive clause:
But when possible, we prefer to reword:
Titles Ending in Ellipses or Dashes
If a period is needed along with a title ending in an ellipsis added by us to indicate that the title continues, we insert the period before the ellipsis. If a comma is needed, we insert it after the ellipsis. All inserted punctuation is set roman.
Work Cited
Topsell, Edward. The History of Four-Footed Beasts and Serpents. . . . London, 1658.
If the ellipsis is part of the title, we add the period or comma after the ellipsis. The ellipsis is
set in italics if the title is italicized, but the additional punctuation is set roman:
Work Cited
Reiner, Rob, director. When Harry Met Sally . . . . MGM, 1989.
We follow the same principle if a title ends in a dash:
Work Cited
Dickinson, Emily. “I heard a Fly buzz—when I died—.” The Poems of Emily Dickinson, edited by R. W. Franklin, Harvard UP, 1999.
Titles and Subtitles
Section 1.2.1 of the eighth edition of the MLA Handbook says, “Use a colon and a space to separate a title from a subtitle, unless the title ends in a question mark or an exclamation point. Include other punctuation only if it is part of the title or subtitle.”
The handbook provides the following examples:
But sometimes titles are not straightforward. In such cases, we follow some additional rules.
For example, when a title is followed by two subtitles, we use two colons:
For works published in English, when a period separates a title and a subtitle on the title page, we change the period to a colon. When a question mark, exclamation point, or dash separates a title and a subtitle on the title page, we leave the original mark:
But if a title contains a title ending in a question mark or exclamation point, we add a colon:
Here the exclamation point is part of the title Absalom, Absalom!, so a colon is needed to separate the title Moby-Dick and Absalom, Absalom! from the subtitle.
In foreign language publications, we follow the source when punctuating titles.
Double Titles
For an alternative or double title in English beginning with or, we follow the first example given in section 8.165 of The Chicago Manual of Style and punctuate as follows:
But no semicolon is needed for a title in English that ends with a question mark or exclamation point:
For double titles of foreign language publications, we follow the source.
Dates in Titles
Unless a date is part of a title’s syntax, we follow section 8.163 of Chicago and set it off with a comma:
Serial Comma in Titles
Contrary to section 8.163 of Chicago, for English-language titles of books published in the United States, we add the serial comma before the conjunction preceding the final item in a series if the comma is missing. Otherwise, we follow the source. The following book was published by Verso in London, so the serial comma is not added:
Works Cited
The Chicago Manual of Style. 16th ed., U of Chicago P, 2016.
MLA Handbook. 8th ed., Modern Language Association of America, 2016.
Jennifer Rappaport is an associate editor at the Modern Language Association. She received a BA in English and French from Vassar College and an MA in comparative literature from New York University, where she taught expository writing. Before coming to the MLA, she worked as an editor at a university press and as a freelance copyeditor and translator for commercial and academic publishers.
Documenting Legal Works in MLA Style
By Angela GibsonGaining familiarity with the legal-citation practices used to document legal works may be impractical for student writers and sometimes even for scholars working in nonlegal fields. Nonspecialists can use MLA style to cite legal sources in one of two ways: strict adherence to the MLA template of core elements or a hybrid method incorporating the standard legal citation into the works-cited-list entry. In either case, titles of legal works should be standardized in your prose and list of works cited according to the guidelines below.
Legal Style
Legal publications have traditionally followed the style set forth in the Harvard Law Review Association’s Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation, although some law reviews, such as the University of Chicago Law Review, have published their own style manuals. A more streamlined version of the Bluebook’s legal-citation method, the ALWD Guide to Legal Citation, was introduced in 2000. The Legal Information Institute, a nonprofit associated with Cornell Law School, publishes an online guide to legal citation geared toward practitioners and nonspecialists instead of academics.
Those working in law are introduced to the conventions of legal citation during their professional training. Legal style is a highly complex shorthand code with specialized terminology that helps legal scholars and lawyers cite legal sources succinctly. It points specialists to the authoritative publication containing the legal opinion or law, regardless of the version the writer consulted.
MLA Style
Students and scholars working outside the legal profession and using MLA style should follow the MLA template of core elements to cite laws, public documents, court cases, and other related material. Familiarize yourself with the guidelines in the MLA Handbook, section 2.1.3, for corporate authors and government authors.
Following one of the fundamental principles of MLA style, writers citing legal works should document the version of the work they consult—not the canonical version of the law, as in legal style. As with any source in MLA style, how you document it will generally depend on the information provided by the version of the source you consulted.
Titles pose the greatest challenge to citing legal works in MLA style. Since MLA style keys references in the text to a list of works cited (unlike court filings, which cite works in the text of the brief, or academic legal writings, which cite works in footnotes ), writers should, with a few exceptions (noted below), standardize titles of legal sources in their prose and list of works cited. Following the MLA Handbook, italicize the names of court cases (70):
When you cite laws, acts, and political documents, capitalize their names like titles and set them in roman font (69):
When a legal source is contained within another work—for example, when the United States Code appears on a Web site that has a separate title—follow the MLA Handbook and treat the source as an independent publication (27). That is, style the title just as you would in prose—in italics if it is the name of a court case, in roman if it is a law or similar document; even though the legal source appears within a larger work, do not insert quotation marks around the title:
For more on titles in legal citations in MLA style, see “Tips on Titles,” below.
Commonly Cited Sources
A few examples of using MLA style for commonly cited legal sources follow.
United States Supreme Court Decisions
Where you read the opinion of a United States Supreme Court decision will dictate how you cite it in MLA style. Legal-citation style, in contrast, points to the opinion published in the United States Reports, the authoritative legal source for the United States Supreme Court’s decisions, and cites the elements of that publication.
For example, the case Brown v. Board of Education is commonly abbreviated “347 U.S. 483” in legal citations: 347 is the volume number of United States Reports; “U.S.” indicates that the opinion is found in United States Reports, which is the official reporter of the Supreme Court and indicates the opinion’s provenance; and the first page number of the decision is 483. (The American Bar Association has published a useful and concise overview of the components of a Supreme Court opinion.)
Regardless of the version you consult, you must understand a few basic things about the source: that it was written by a member of the United States Supreme Court on behalf of the majority and that, when you cite the opinion, the date on which the case was decided is the only date necessary to provide.
Following are examples of works-cited-list entries in MLA style for Brown v. Board of Education. The entries differ depending on whether the information was found on the Legal Information Institute Web site, published by Cornell University Law School, or on the Library of Congress Web site.
Legal Information Institute
The works-cited-list entry includes
- the government entity as author
- the name of the case (“Title of source” element)
- the year of the decision; it would also not be incorrect to include the day and month if it appears in your source
- the title of the Web site containing the case (“Title of container” element)
- the publisher of the Web site
- the Web site’s URL (“Location” element)
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress site allows researchers to link to or download a PDF of the opinion from the United States Reports. To locate the case, the researcher must know the volume number of the United States Reports in which Brown v. Board of Education was published. A works-cited-list entry in MLA style would include the author (the government entity) and the title of the case, as well as the following information for container 1:
- United States Reports (“Title of container” element)
- vol. 347 (“Number” element)
- the date of the decision (“Publication date” element)
- page range (“Location” element)
Container 2 includes the name of the Web site publishing the case and its location, the URL. The publisher of the site is omitted since its name is the same as that of the site.
United States Supreme Court Dissenting Opinions
Sometimes, Supreme Court justices write dissenting opinions that accompany the published majority opinion. They are part of the legal record but not part of the holding—that is, the court’s ruling. If you cite only the dissent, you can treat it as the work you are citing:
Federal Statutes (United States Code)
In MLA style, it will generally be clearest to create an entry for the United States Code in its entirety and cite the title and section number in the text, especially if you are referring to more than one section of the code.
If an online search directs you to the Web page for a specific section of the United States Code, it would not be incorrect to cite the page for that section alone. For example, if you want to use MLA style to document title 17, section 304, of the United States Code—commonly abbreviated 17 U.S.C. § 304 in legal citations—title 17 can be treated as the work and thus placed in the “Title of source” slot on the MLA template, or if you cite the United States Code in its entirety, title 17 can be placed in the “Number” slot.
Your entry will once again depend on the version you consult. Below are examples from various Web sites.
Web Site for the United States Code
On the Web site for the United States Code, you would likely determine that the United States House of Representatives is the author of the code. The United States Code is the title of the source, and since the source constitutes the entire Web site, no container needs to be specified: the source is self-contained, like a book (see p. 34 of the MLA Handbook). The site lists the Office of the Law Revision Counsel as publisher, so you would include that name in the “Publisher” slot, followed by the date on which the code was last updated, and the URL as the location:
The body of your text or your in-text reference must mention title 17 and section 304 so the reader can locate the information you cite. It would not be wrong to include chapter 3 as well (title 17, ch. 3, sec. 304), although a discerning researcher will note that section numbers (304) incorporate chapter numbers (3), making “chapter 3” unnecessary to include.
If you do not include title 17 and section 304 in the text, you must include that information in the works-cited-list entry:
Legal Information Institute
A nonspecialist would not be able to determine from the Legal Information Institute site that the United States House of Representatives is the author of the United States Code. A basic citation would include the title of the code as displayed on the site, the title of the Web site as the title of the container, the publisher of the Web site, and the location:
Government Publishing Office Web Site
The Web site of the Government Publishing Office (variously referred to as the Government Printing Office) displays each statute heading (or “title”) as a Web page:
You can treat title 17 as the work and the United States Code as the title of the container, as follows:
Or you can treat the United States Code as the title of the source and title 17 as a numbered section within the code, by placing title 17 in the “Number” slot on the MLA template:
Below are examples of how to cite other common legal sources in MLA style.
Public Laws
Federal Appeals Court Decisions
It is customary to title court cases by using the last name of the first party on each side of the v. You may also wish to shorten a long URL, as we have done here.
Federal Bills
Hearings
Executive Orders
After a president signs an executive order, the Office of the Federal Register gives it a number. It is then printed in the Federal Register and compiled in the Code of Federal Regulations. Executive orders usually also appear as press releases on the White House Web site upon signing.
State Court of Appeals, Unpublished Decisions
State Senate Bills
Constitutions
If a constitution is published in a named edition, treat it like the title of a book:
References to the United States Constitution in your prose should follow the usual styling of titles of laws:
But your in-text reference should key readers to the appropriate entry:
If the title does not indicate the country of origin, specify it in the entry:
Treaties
International Governing Bodies
Writing for Specialists: A Hybrid Method
A writer using MLA style to document a legal work for a specialized readership that is likely to be familiar with the conventions of legal documentation may wish to adopt a hybrid method: in place of the author and title elements on the MLA template of core elements, identify the work by using the Bluebook citation. Then, follow the MLA template of core elements to list publication information for the version of the source you consulted.
For example, to cite the United States Code using the hybrid method, treat the section cited as the work. As above, you can omit the title of the Web site, United States Code, since the code constitutes the entire Web site and is thus a self-contained work.
If you are citing a court case, begin the entry with the title of the case before listing the Bluebook citation. In the hybrid style, cite Brown v. Board of Education as found on the Legal Information Institute Web site thus:
Other sources (public laws, federal appeals court decisions, etc.) can be handled similarly.
If using the hybrid method, do not follow the handbook’s recommendation to alphabetize works that start with a number as if the number is spelled out. Instead, list works beginning with numbers before the first lettered entry and order numbered works numerically.
TIPS ON TITLES
Styling titles when you document legal sources in MLA style may be challenging. Below are some guidelines.
- Standardize titles of legal sources in your prose unless you refer to the published version: as the MLA Handbook indicates, italicize the names of court cases, but capitalize the names of laws, acts, and political documents like titles and set them in roman font.
- When a legal source is contained within another work—for example, when the United States Code appears on a Web site with another title—follow the MLA Handbook, page 27, and treat the work as an independent publication. That is, style the title just as you would in prose—in italics if it is the name of a court case, in roman if it is a law or similar document; even though the legal source appears in a larger work, do not insert quotation marks around the title.
- In the names of court cases, use the abbreviation v. consistently, regardless of which abbreviation is used in the version of the work you are citing.
- To determine the name of a court case, use only the name of the first party that appears on either side of “v.” or “vs.” in your source; if the name is a personal name, use only the surname.
To shorten the name of a court case in your prose after introducing it in full or in parenthetical references, use the name of the first-listed nongovernmental party. Thus, the case NLRB v. Yeshiva University becomes Yeshiva. If your list of works cited includes more than one case beginning with the same governmental party, list entries under the governmental party but alphabetize them by the first nongovernmental party:
Refer to the nongovernmental party in your prose and parenthetical reference, alerting readers to this system of ordering in a note.
NOTE
Special thanks to Noah Kupferberg, of Brooklyn Law School, for assistance with these guidelines.
Angela Gibson is the associate director of scholarly communication at the MLA. She has a decade and a half of editorial experience and holds a PhD in Middle English from the University of Rochester. Before coming to the MLA, she taught college courses in writing and literature.
How do I alphabetize a title that starts with a number in my works-cited list?
When you alphabetize your works-cited list, treat numbers in titles as though they were spelled out.
Let’s say, for example, you need to alphabetize entries for George Orwell’s Animal Farm and 1984, along with two entries for lyrics to songs by Radiohead thought to be inspired by Orwell’s novels, “2 + 2 = 5” and “Optimistic.” Treat 1984 as Nineteen Eighty-Four and “2 + 2 = 5” as “Two plus Two Equals Five,” and alphabetize the entries by their titles accordingly:
If there is no author and the entry begins with the title, you would follow the same principle.
Published 18 October 2016
When citing a work whose title ends in a question mark or exclamation point, should I also include a period?
The MLA template of core elements calls for a period after the title of a source, but if the title of a source ends in a question mark or exclamation point, do not include a period. Question marks or exclamation points, as stronger marks, always supersede a period:
If, however, the title of the container ends in a question mark or exclamation point, do add a comma after the question mark. MLA style allows a comma after a question mark or exclamation point if the comma facilitates reading or if rewording is impossible. Since a works-cited-list entry cannot be reworded and since the MLA template calls for a comma after the title of a container, retain the comma:
Published 11 October 2016
Following the guidance given in section 1.2 to avoid special typography when using the title of a source in my writing, should I replace the ampersand with “and” in a title?
Yes!
Do I italicize Cyrillic book titles in the list of works cited?
In the past, titles and terms in the Cyrillic alphabet were not italicized, partly because it is based on the Greek alphabet, which traditionally is not italicized (on this point, see Chicago Manual of Style, 16th ed., sec. 11.131). Letterspacing instead of italics was traditionally used to emphasize a word or phrase.
Today, Cyrillic cursive (the term italics is usually not used in this context) for titles and for emphasis seems to be used often in publications, including scholarly publications, perhaps because of progress in digital typesetting or because of a global trend toward standardization.
Note that there are many languages in the world that do not have an italic font—Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Armenian, for example. Arabic sometimes uses a typeface that slants to the left instead of to the right.
Given the complexity and specificity of historical, cultural, linguistic, and printing practices throughout the world, a writer should not use italics when a book title is in a foreign language that is not written in the Latin alphabet. If a work is being prepared for publication, let the author pass that buck to the publisher.
How do I cite scriptural writings? And when do I use italics in referring to them?
Create a works-cited-list entry for scriptural writings as you would for any other source: follow the MLA style template. In general, begin with the title. The title should be italicized because you are referring to a published edition. (The published title might be, for example, The New Jerusalem Bible, or simply The Bible.) If the source indicates that there is an editor or translator, list this information as an “other” contributor (see pp. 37–38 of the MLA Handbook for a definition of this element). Then provide the publisher and the date of publication.
If the source carries a notation indicating that it is a version of a work released in more than one form, identify the version in your entry.
In the body of your text, general references to scriptural works like the Bible, Talmud, and Koran should not be italicized unless you refer to a specific published edition.
