MLA Format Expectations for Grade 8 Heritage Fair Research Paper
General Format Paper must be typed on standard white paper. Text of paper must be double-spaced, including the heading. Margins are set at 1 inch for left, right, top, and bottom (older versions of Microsoft Word will set the margins at 1.25 inches for left and right go in and reset manually). There must be a header on the right side that has the writer s last name and the page number.
Title Page
Table of Contents
Heading and Title Name 1 Stephen Drew Mrs. Wishart ENG 102.401 30 October 2011 Note: header to the right This is the correct order for information The title of published stories are in quotation marks, but not the title of the paper Edgar Allen Poe s Manipulations in The Cask of Amontillado and The Tell-Tale Heart Edgar Allen Poe is renowned for his spooky tales and haunting plotlines. One of the reasons that his stories work so well is the manner in which Poe layers manipulation into his tales. Throughout his works, including The Cask of
In-Text Citations MLA uses parenthetical citation (information about the source inside parentheses). Work the citation into a sentence that contains some of your own words. Quotations should be integrated, not just dropped into the paper. Example: Romantic poetry is characterized by the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings (Wordsworth 263). Note that the period is inserted after the last parenthesis, not after the quotation mark.
Make Your Life Easier For the purposes of this research paper, make sure that there is an author for all sources. If no author is listed and you want to use the source, see your instructor for assistance. The lack of an author most often occurs when using an Internet source. Avoid using any Internet source with an address ending in.com unless approved by your instructor.
Citing Internet Sources You do not need to give paragraph numbers or page numbers based on your print preview. Do not list the URL address within the text of the paper. Instead, list the author of the source.
Methods of Parenthetical Citation The following are examples from Purdue OWL: MLA Format: According to some, dreams express profound aspects of personality (Foulkes 184), though others disagree. According to Foulkes s study, dreams may express profound aspects of personality (184). Is it possible that dreams may express profound aspects of personality (Foulkes 184)?
Quotes of More than Four Lines You may use only 1 or 2 such quotes in your research paper. The paper should be mainly your thoughts. Nelly Dean treats Heathcliff poorly and dehumanizes him when she says: They entirely refused to have in bed with them, or even in their room, and I put it on the landing of the stairs, hoping it would be gone in the morrow. By chance, or else attracted by hearing his voice, it crept into Mr. Earnshaw s door, and there he found it on his quitting chamber. Inquiries were made as to how it got there; I was obliged to confess, and in recompense for my cowardice and inhumanity was sent out of the house. (Bronte 78) Note placement of period with quote, lack of quotation marks, and lack of punctuation after the parenthesis.
Works Cited Begins on a separate page and is labeled Words Cited (no italics or quotation marks). Double space, but do not skip spaces between entries. Indent the second and subsequent lines five spaces. List page numbers only when needed. Determine the Medium of Publication. Most will be print or web sources. Basic Format: Last name, First name. Title of Book. Place of Publication: Publisher, Year of Publication. Medium of Publication. Work from an Anthology: Last name, First name. Title of Story. Title of Anthology. Ed. Editor s Name. Place of Publication, Publisher, Year. Page range of entry. Medium. Work from a web source: Last name, First name. Title of Source. Name of Institution publishing the source. Date source was published. Web. Date you viewed source on the web.
Assistance with Works Cited A website that is helpful in building a Works Cited page is Easybib. This is also available as a free app for ios and Android devices. Another useful website to create a Works Cited page is RefMe and is available as a free app for ios and Android devices. Use of these sites is not considered plagiarism.
Works Cited Sample Aristotle. Poetics. Ed. S. H. Butcher. The Internet Classics Archive. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Sept. 2007. Web. 23 Nov. 2011. Gillespie, Paula, and Neal Lerner. The Allyn and Bacon Guide to Peer Tutoring. Boston: Allyn, 2000. Print. Wysocki. Anne Frances. Writing New Media: Theory and Applications for Expanding the Teaching of Composition. Logan, UT: Utah State UP, 2004. Print.
Group Practice Write out these sources correctly: An anthology named Literature: Approaches to Fiction, Poetry and Drama. The editor is Robert DiYanni. It is published by McGraw Hill in 2008. The story you have cited is The Rocking Horse Winner by D. H. Lawrence, who was born in 1885 and died in 1930. The pages the story appear on are from page 100 to 110.
Source Used for This PowerPoint The Purdue OWL. Purdue U Writing Lab, 2010. Web. 4 Oct. 2011.