The Literary Criticism Web

In a traditionally typed/printed essay, a list of the resources used begins on a separate page at the end of the essay.  It is normally headed "Works Cited," indicating that all the items it contains are referred to by notes in the text.  If some resources have been read but not quoted or paraphrased, a separate "Works Consulted" list can be appended to the essay.  (NOTE:  no quotation marks are used to mark these headings.)

The items on a list of works cited or consulted are alphabetized by the first word in the entry.  This "keyword" becomes an important element in the parenthetical notes included in the text of the critical essay.   In addition, in a traditional printed format, a "hanging paragraph" style is used with the first line of an entry beginning on the left margin and succeeding lines indented a half inch.  This style allows the keyword to be easily visible for each entry.  In online publications this hanging style is not easily maintained, so a standard block paragraph format is used for each entry.

Each item on a resource list normally provides three bits of information: the author, title, and place of publication.  These bits of information comprise separate "sentences" in the entry.  So a conventional entry could be diagrammed in this fashion:

Author's Name.  Title.  Publication Information.

However, the particular format of an item depends upon the type of resource used.  The menu selections to the left provide illustrations of the proper MLA format for common types of resources used in literary analysis.

PLEASE NOTE:  These explanations and illustrations do not cover all the situations and complications the writer will encounter in using and documenting resources.   For information on situations not explicitly covered here, the writer should consult

Gibaldi, Joseph.  MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers.   5th ed.  New York:  MLA, 1999.