The following is a summary of the basic rules for MLA citations.
Author Names
Make sure the date of publication is in the correct format
If there are no pages given, do not count unmarked paragraphs but if there are section numbers or the paragraphs are numbered, use par. or pars. for (paragraph or paragraphs) or sec. or secs. for (section or sections)
Titles
Watch for capitalization:
Publisher
The name of the organization that makes the work available for you to see/use.
Locations
Place of publication is no longer necessary. Instead just give the name of the publisher and the date of publication. (e.g., Oxford University Press, 2016 or HarperCollins Publishers 1999)
For online documents or websites, give the url. If there is a doi for an online journal, use that rather than the url.
Indigenous Elders and Knowledge Keepers
Last name, First name. Nation/Community. Treaty Territory if applicable. City/Community they live in if applicable. Topic/subject of communication if applicable. Date Month Year.
For example:
Cardinal, Delores. Goodfish Lake Cree Nation. Treaty 6. Lives in Edmonton. Oral teaching. 4 April 2004.
Template taken from: MacLeod, Lorisia. 2021. “More Than Personal Communication: Templates For Citing Indigenous Elders and Knowledge Keepers”. KULA: Knowledge Creation, Dissemination, and Preservation Studies 5 (1). https://doi.org/10.18357/kula.135.
ChatGPT and AI citations
“Describe the symbolism of the green light in the book The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald” prompt. ChatGPT, 13 Feb. version, OpenAI, 8 Mar. 2023, chat.openai.com/chat
In-Text:
Taken from the MLA blog, March 17, 2023: https://style.mla.org/citing-generative-ai/
Sample Citations
The library's research databases will help you format sources you find while searching them, but they will not help you with other sources. These tools can help you format your references in MLA style. Select the resource type, enter your data, and get a formatted citation that you can paste into your bibliography.
Caveat: These citation machines are not perfect - they are only as good as the data you feed them. You will still need to proofread your references - use the basic rules above to catch the most common mistakes.
"[P]lagiarism, in an academic context, refers to an intentional decision not to acknowledge the work of others in assignments – or ignoring usually well-publicized obligations to do this."
In:
The UFV Academic Success Centre's student guide:
Additional Library books to consult.
For Students:
For Instructors:
For Everyone:
For Instructors: