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If the title of an essay consists solely of the title of a work normally styled in italics, the title of the work should be both italicized and enclosed in quotation marks: In the essay “The Portrait of a Lady,” about Henry James’s novel The Portrait of a Lady, the author provides a detailed character study of . . .
Published 21 August 2018
In an index or sortable list of titles, MLA style follows the The Chicago Manual of Style, which recommends placing initial articles at the end of the full title (16.51). A Tale of Two Cities would appear as Tale of Two Cities, A. Note that titles in indexes do not include subtitles unless they are “essential for identification” (16.55). If . . .
Published 24 July 2018
Yes. If a title ends with a punctuation mark, include the mark: The Band Perry opened their set with the song “Done.,” the second track on their album Pioneer. For examples of titles ending in punctuation marks other than a period, see our previous post.
Published 28 June 2018
To distinguish between different dictionary entries for the same term, follow the principle in our previous post on distinguishing between works with the same title: provide additional details in your parenthetical citation, usually the first unique piece of information in your works-cited-list entries. For example, in the following works-cited-list entries for emoticon, the information in the . . .
Published 30 May 2018
The spelling of a title should almost never be corrected, especially by students, even when the title seems to include an error. Sometimes the “error” is intended, as for the Stephen King novel and movie Pet Sematary, or may be otherwise purposefully made, however ill advised, as for the movie Two Weeks Notice. But sometimes an . . .
Published 23 May 2018
If you are citing a work that has been published with a new title, list the title of the version you are citing in your works-cited-list entry. If it is important for your reader to know the original title, provide the information in an endnote or in your prose.
Published 2 May 2018
MLA style’s rules for capitalization are intended to help authors remain consistent while also respecting the ways in which titles have traditionally been styled in different languages. The history of capitalization in titles is complicated, though titles of printed works from earlier eras written in English generally conform to a currently recognizable style. For instance, the . . .
Published 29 April 2018
If you include a quotation in the title of your paper, you should discuss the quotation in the body of your essay. Do not place a parenthetical citation or an endnote with source information after the title. Instead, cite the quotation where it occurs in your essay. For example, in the March 2017 issue of PMLA, . . .
Published 16 April 2018
As section 3.2.1 of the MLA Handbook explains, when you need to shorten a title for a parenthetical citation, “give the first noun and any preceding adjectives, while excluding any initial article: a, an, the” (117). Thus, if a title consists of a compound subject, use only the first noun and any adjectives that precede it as the . . .
Published 11 April 2018
Remember that the goals of parenthetical citation are clarity and concision. Thus, if a title begins with a number–for example: 1066: A New History of the Norman Conquest use the number as the short title in your parenthetical reference: Peter Rex offers a new take on the Norman invasion of England (1066). Works Cited Rex, . . .
Published 4 April 2018
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