MLA STYLE SHEET

For research papers

I. PLAGIARISM

When using other people’s ideas – either in the form of direct quotation or as paraphrasis (that is, a
summary in your own words) – , the source of the ideas must at all times be indicated in your text. The
failure to indicate the source of the ideas and words you are using is called plagiarism. Plagiarism is a
very serious offence and will be duly punished:
1. The student’s grade will be lowered when s/he is found guilty of dishonesty on any
assignment, examination, or paper.
2. The student may be asked to repeat the course if the case cannot be resolved before final
grades are due.
3. In case of repeated dishonesty, the Institute Council shall report to more severe forms of
penalties ranging from disqualifying multiple offenders from scholarships and study abroad to
advising the Dean of Arts and Social Sciences that the students be disenrolled from his/her
English major.

II. THE OVERALL ORDER OF THE RESEARCH PAPER

1. Title page: includes the name of the student, the title of the course, the name of the instructor,
the date of submission, and the number of words at the bottom right corner of the page. The
title page is not numbered.
2. Body of paper (with footnotes if necessary): the paper should be double-spaced, the pages are
numbered.
3. Works Cited: should be a separate page/pages

III. HOW TO INDICATE THAT YOU ARE USING VARIOUS SOUCES?

1. Direct Quotations

A direct quotation is a group of words copied word-for-word from a source.

a. short quotation (less than five lines or 50 words): enclose the exact words within quotation marks in
the text. Example:

Darkness is a central symbol in both novels. Villanelle “used to think that darkness and death were the
same. That death was the absence of light” (Winterson 57).

b. longer quotations (more than five lines or fifty words): indent the entire quotation 10 spaces from
the left margin. No quotation marks are used around such indented or “block” quotations. The block
quotation is separated by a blank line from the text before and after it. Example:

Darkness is a central symbol in both novels. As Villanelle observes:

I used to think that darkness and death were probably the same. That death was the absence of
light. That death was nothing more than the shadow-lands where people bought and sold and
loved as usual but with less conviction. The night seems more temporary than the day,
especially to lovers, and it also seems more uncertain. In this way it sums up our lives, which
are uncertain and temporary. (Winterson 57)

2. Punctuation of Titles

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Whenever you are using then, titles of books, plays, motion pictures, television series, newspapers,
magazines, journals and albums or CDs must always be italicised. (The Passion; Romeo and Juliet;
Daily Telegraph; Comparative Literature; The Wall; etc.)

Titles of shorter works (poems, short stories, essays, articles, book chapters, songs) are enclosed in
quotation marks (“Ode”; “The Garden Party”; “Risking the Text: Stories of Love in Jeanette
Winterson’s The Passion”; “Fantastic Language: Jeanette Winterson’s Recovery of the Postmodern
Word”; “Second Death in Venice: Romanticism and the Compulsion to Repeat in Jeanette
Winterson’s The Passion”)

The first word and all the important words in all titles should be capitalised (as in the examples
above).

3. Internal Citations and Notes

When in your essay you quote from your sources or use ideas from them, refer to the sources
parenthetically. It is not necessary in the text to provide detailed bibliographical information about
your sources: indicate only the name of the author and the page number. The detailed information
should be provided at the end of your essay, in your bibliography. The sole function of the
parenthetical note is to enable the reader of your essay to identify the source in the bibliography.

Used with short quotations, the parenthetical note is placed after the quotation marks which close the
quotation, and before the end punctuation of the sentence. Example:

Darkness is a central symbol in both novels. Villanelle “used to think that darkness and death were the
same. That death was the absence of light” (Winterson 57).

With an indented, block quotation, the parenthetical note is placed at the very end, after the end
punctuation. Example:

Darkness is a central symbol in both novels. As Villanelle observes:

I used to think that darkness and death were probably the same. That death was the absence of
light. That death was nothing more than the shadow-lands where people bought and sold and
loved as usual but with less conviction. The night seems more temporary than the day,
especially to lovers, and it also seems more uncertain. In this way it sums up our lives, which
are uncertain and temporary. (Winterson 57)

When paraphrasing (when you sum up other’s ideas in your own words), you should also use a
parenthetical note for the source of the original idea. Example:

Darkness is a central symbol in both novels. Villanelle used to associate it with death and
transitoriness (Winterson 57).

In most cases the author’s name and the page number are sufficient in your parenthetical note.
Example: (Winterson 57)

When you include the author’s name in your text as part of the passage that leads up to the quotation
and it is clear which source you are quoting or paraphrasing, it is enough to give the page number in
your parenthetical note. You also need only the page number if the source is the same as for the
preceding quotation. Example:

Darkness is a central symbol in The Passion. Villanelle “used to think that darkness and death were
the same. That death was the absence of light” (57).

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Darkness is a central symbol in The Passion. Villanelle used to associate it with death and
transitoriness (57).

When you quote or refer to more than one text by the same author in your essay, the parenthetical note
should also contain the title of the work to avoid confusion. Note that long titles should be shortened
to save space (but only in parenthetical notes; the bibliography should always contain the full title).
Example:

(Winterson, Oranges 99) (short for Oranges are Not the Only Fruit)

4. Informational or Content Notes

Do not use footnotes or endnotes simply to indicate your sources. For this purpose, always use
parenthetical quotations. Use footnotes only if you want to insert some additional information that you
have not included in the main body of the text yet it is somehow relevant to your argument. Example:

Darkness is a central symbol in Jeanette Winterson’s novels. Villanelle, for instance, used to associate
it with death and transitoriness (The Passion 57).1

5. Works Cited

The bibliography, placed at the end of your text, is where you should list all the sources that you used
in preparing your research paper. If your entries include only works that you are actually quoting in
your paper, the source is titled “Works Cited.” If you also list other works which you have read but
have not referred to or quoted, the source should be entitled “Works Consulted.”

General guidelines for preparing the “Works Cited” or “Works Consulted” section:
1. List your entries in alphabetical order by the last name of the author
2. The first line in each entry is not indented, but all additional lines are indented five spaces
from the left margin.
3. The entries are not numbered.
4. The entries should include all relevant bibliographical information: full name of the author.
Full title. Place of publication. Name of publisher. Date of publication (and the page numbers
if the entry refers to a part of a book or an article in a journal or paper).
5. When the author of the source is Hungarian, no comma should be used between the surname
and the Christian name.

Here is a sample source list, showing accepted form, punctuation, and information.

Book by a single author:

Winterson, Jeanette. The Passion. London: Vintage, 1996.

Book by a Hungarian author:

Földényi F. László. A medusa pillantása. Budapest: Lánchíd, 1990.

Book by a single author, translated:

Otto, Rudolf. The Idea of the Holy. Trans. John W. Harvey. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1959.

Book by two authors (only the name of the first author has to be reversed):

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The trope also frequently appears in Salman Rusdie’s writings. In Harun and the Sea of Stories, for example, it
describes the silent world of Khattam Shud. Yet whereas for Villanelle, darkness means transitoriness, in Harun
it is associated with an eternal evil realm.

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Horkheimer, Max and Theodor W. Adorno. The Dialectics of Enlightenment. Cambridge: Cambidge
UP, 1971.

Book by more than three authors (“et al” means “and others”):
Jung, Carl Gustav, et al. Man and His Symbols. Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Co., 1969.

Edited book:
O’Sullivan, Vincent, ed. Poems of Katherine Mansfield. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1988.

Article from an edited book:

Punter, David. “Essential Imaginings – The Novels of Angela Carter and Russell Hoban.” The British
and Irish Novel Since 1960. Ed. James Acheson. London: Macmillan, 1991. 142-58.

Article from a book written entirely by the same author:

Malinowski, Bronislaw. “Magic, Science and Religion.” Magic, Science and Religion and Other
Essays. Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Co., 1954. 5-67.

More than one books by the same author:

Winterson, Jeanette. The Passion. London: Vintage, 1996.
---. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit. London: Vintage, 2001.

Article from a scholarly journal:

Bényei Tamás. “Risking the Text: Stories of Love in Jeanette Winterson’s The Passion. Hungarian
Journal of English and American Studies 3.2 (1997): 199-209.

Article from a scholarly journal available online (electronic databases):

Burns, Christy L. “Fantastic Language: Jeanette Winterson’s Recovery of the Postmodern Word.”
Contemporary Literature 37.2 (1996): 278-306. JSTOR. 15 Apr. 2010 <http://www.jstor.org>

Magazine article:
Nimmons, David. “Sex and the Brain.” Discover 15 March 1994: 64-71.

Newspaper article:
Feder, Barnaby J. “For Job Seekers.” New York Times 30 Dec. 1993: 13.

Motion picture (listed alphabetically by name of director instead of author):

Ray, Nicholas, dir. Rebel Without a Cause. Warner Brothers, 1955.

Unsigned encyclopaedia entry:

“A Vocational Education.” Encyclopaedia Americana. 1950 ed.

Internet site (non-academic):

Conley, Tim. “Jeanette Winterson.” The Scriptorium. 15 Apr. 2010. <
http://www.themodernword.com/scriptorium/winterson.html>