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An Introduction to Citing Scholarly Articles and Websites in MLA Format

Argumentative writing (as you probably already know of) involves doing a bit of research. As
such, one of the things that I will expect is for you to be able to cite these sources in an effective
manner. In looking at online sources, you will probably be using journal articles and websites the
most. Here are some basic guidelines:
Scholarly Articles
When citing a scholarly article within a paper, you will follow the same structure as a print
source include the last name of the author, as well as the page number that it appears on. For
example:
In his article, Rob Atkinson considers Atticus Finch to be the prophet of New Dealish
progressivism in To Kill a Mockingbird (Atkinson, 607).
Or if you have two authors or more than one page number:
In their article, Teaching Writing with Radio, Sarah Levine and Johanna Franzel argue that
radio is especially demanding of good writing because it must enhance the understanding
people have of the natural world (Levine and Franzel, 21-22).
Works Cited: Once you have finished your paper and are including your journal articles in your
works cited, you want to include everything listed in the following order: the authors last name
and first name, the title of the article in quotations, the title of the journal publication, the volume
and issue number, the pages used, the publication year, and the day you accessed it. For
example, the two examples listed earlier would look as such:
Atkinson, Rob. "Liberating Lawyers: Divergent Parallels in Intruder in the Dust and To Kill a
Mockingbird." Duke Law Journal 49.3 (1999): 601-748. Web. 16 June 2015.
-Notice that there are certain grammatical and punctuating choices following parts of the
citation. A period follows the authors name with the last name coming before the first,
quotations come before and after the title, and the journal title is in italics. Also, the volume and
issue numbers are put together with a period, the year is in parentheses, there is a dash put
between the page numbers, and the access date is put in short format. Heres the second one:
Levine, Sarah, and Johanna Franzel. "Teaching Writing With Ratio." The English Journal 104.5
(2015): 21-29. Web. 16 June 2015.
In this example, because there are two authors for this article, they are split up by a comma.
Also notice that the first author has the last name come before the first, split with a comma,
while the one after has the first name before the last, and not separated with a comma. Follow
this format when in creating your works cited when you have articles with two or more authors.

Websites
Websites can sometimes be a bit more tricky, since they dont always have the same contents
as scholarly articles regarding publishing information.

In-Text Citation: When inserting an in-text citation in MLA format, if given, still provide the
authors last name, but instead of including page numbers (which generally dont exist in
websites), include the title of the web page. For instance:
Sigfried Pueschel, a former professor of pediatrics at Brown University, states that children with
down syndrome often have a smaller size than those who dont (Pueschel, What is Down
Syndrome?).
However, there may be times where a website may not have an exact author, but it is directly
published by the organization itself. This is especially common in university department
websites and medical center articles. In this case, whenever you have a corporate source, use
an abbreviated version of the organization. Heres a different example:
Research shows that heart attacks occur when a blood flow is stopped up by a blood clot (Amer.
Heart Assoc.)

Works Cited: When including websites or web pages on your works cited, include the author if
possible, the title of the site, the date of publication, the medium, and date of access. However,
if there is no publication date or publication name, use the initials n.p. (no publisher) and n.d.
(no date). Here is the first example:
Pueschel, Sigifried. What is Down Syndrome?. N.p., 1992. Web. 16 June 2015.
Notice that the author name is the same format in the works cited last name before first. Also
notice that the title of the site is in parentheses. You will want to make sure of this whenever you
are citing a website, as well as including the medium (web).
Here is how the second source might look:
What is Cardiovascular Disease?. American Heart Association, 2014. Web. 16 June 2015.
While there may not be a specific author for this site, there is at least a corporate publisher the
American Heart Association. As such, this information will still be important in directing people to
the correct source.

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