Citing Sources

The new MLA 8th Edition focuses on the concept of "containers" instead of formats.

For example, a book is a container. If it's a print book, then it just has one container. But if it's an e-book, then it has two containers (the e-book itself, and the database or e-reader that you used to access the e-book.)

The same thing happens with articles from journals. The journal is the main container of the article, but if you found the journal article from a database, then the database is an outer container for the journal.

MLA provides examples for using the container structure on their website.

• Works Cited: A Quick Guide
• Practice Template

All works-cited entries provide the same types of information, what MLA calls the Core Elements:

It might help to think about how these core elements fit within a who, what, where, when format

Er, Amanda. Matryoshka Dolls. 2010, March 13, Flickr, www.flickr.com/photos/er_amanda/4428053755/.

• Who. Who's responsible for writing the source? (1) Author, (4) Other contributors.
• What. What's the name of the source? (2) Title of source, (3) Title of container.
• Where. Where in a container is a source located? Who produced the source? What is the page range or the URL? (5) Version, (6) Number, (7) Publisher, (9) Location.
• When. When was the source published or produced? (8) Publication date.
• MLA Style also wants to know when you accessed online material (webpage, websites, etc.).