Skip to Main Content

Using Academic Sources

This is a companion guide to "Finding Academic Sources". Its goal is to make student researchers more comfortable with using scholarly material in their own research.

MLA Brief Overview

MLA (Modern Language Association) is a citation style that is mostly used by the humanities: English Language, English Literature, Foreign Languages and Literature, Art, Theater, and Philosophy. Understanding the concept of containers is essential to MLA. Citation styles are often updated; this content is specific to MLA Stlye, 8th Edition. 

Below are examples of both in-text citations and works cited citations from the journal article "Global Turns and Cautions in Rhetoric and Composition Studies" by Wendy S. Hesford. Using a published paper as a model can help learn the formatting for MLA or any other citation style. 

in-text citation: 

 

works cited citation