The most thorough primer on MLA 8th edition style is available from Purdue University's Online Writing Lab.
For your convenience, we offer sample citations from some of our published essays to help you better see how to correctly format your citations.
Periodicals in MLA 8th edition
Scholarly journal essay
O'Brien, Valerie. “‘A Genius for Unreality’: Neurodiversity in Elizabeth Bowen's Eva Trout.” Journal of Modern Literature, vol. 42, no. 2, Winter 2019, pp. 75-93.
Book review
Furbank, P.N. “No One Is Incapable of Boiling a Kettle.” Review of Eva Trout, by Elizabeth Bowen. The Times, 25 Jan. 1969, pp. 22.
Online periodical
Yezzi, David. "These Are the Poems, Folks: On the Relationship between Poetry and Joke-telling." Contemporary Poetry Review, 12 October 2011. www.cprw.com/these-are-the-poems-folks-on-the-relationship-between-poetry-and-joke-telling-by-david-yezzi. Accessed 1 June 2019.
Dictionary entry
“lacuna, n.” Oxford English Dictionary Online. Oxford UP, 2016. Accessed 6 June 2016.
Books in MLA 8th edition
Original texts
Ellmann, Maud. Elizabeth Bowen: The Shadow across the Page. Edinburgh UP, 2003.
(Note our house style to abbreviate "University Press" as UP. The same idea applies when the words are in a different order: U of Chicago P.)
Multi-author
Bennett, Andrew, and Nicholas Royle. Elizabeth Bowen and the Dissolution of the Novel: Still Lives. St. Martin’s, 1995.
Republications
Bowen, Elizabeth. Eva Trout. 1968. Anchor Books, 2003.
Multiple books by same author
Bowen, Elizabeth. Eva Trout. 1968. Anchor Books, 2003.
---. “How to Be Yourself—But Not Eccentric.” 1956. People, Places, pp. 412-16.
---. People, Places, Things. Edited by Allan Hepburn. Edinburgh UP, 2008.
---. “The Thread of Dreams.” 1969. People, Places, pp. 416-17.
(Note the use of three hyphens NOT dashes or underlining. Note the ordering by title NOT date. Note also the two cross-referenced essays from a collection.)
Single-author works with other contributors
Deleuze, Gilles. The Logic of Sense. Edited by Constantin V. Boudas. Translated by Mark Lester with Charles Stivale. Columbia UP, 1990.
(Note the periods and capitalizations.)
Multi-author collections
Walshe, Eibhear, editor. Elizabeth Bowen. Irish Academic P, 2009.
Essays in collections
O’Toole, Tina. “Angels and Monsters: Embodiment and Desire in Eva Trout.” Elizabeth Bowen, edited by Eibhear Walshe. Irish Academic P, 2009, pp. 162-78.
(Note comma and use of lowercase "edited" for collections. Note our house style places a period before the publisher, no matter what precedes it.)
Essays in collections that have been already cited (cross reference citation)
O’Toole, Tina. “Angels and Monsters: Embodiment and Desire in Eva Trout.” Walshe, pp. 162-78.
Conference presentations
Valente, Joseph. “Is the Au in Autism the Same as the Au in Autonomy?” Modern Language Association Convention. Chicago. 9-12 Jan. 2014.
Archival documents
Oppen, George. Letter to Ezra Pound. 1 May 1930. Louis Zukofsky’s Papers. TXRC98-A11 Box 33, Folder 7. Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin.
