Week 11 · Chapter

Chapter 11 — MLA Documentation

English Composition Free sample edition

The module's primary reading · ~45–55 minutes · Objective 6 (document sources in MLA style — in-text citations in the author-page form and a works-cited list built on the ninth edition's template of core elements and containers — and apply MLA formatting conventions accurately, checking any generator's or chatbot's entry against the template and the real source), Objective 5 (find, evaluate, and integrate credible sources: turn a topic into a research question, classify sources, judge credibility by lateral reading and a checklist, and quote, paraphrase, summarize, and synthesize with signal phrases and attribution — never patchwriting, never plagiarizing, and never trusting an unverified quotation, source, or citation) · Read it first this week; the lecture, the tutorial, the quiz, and the Writing Studio all build on it.

In plain language

When you use a source, your reader deserves two answers: who said this, and where can I find it? Documentation (the in-text citations and the list of sources that answer those two questions) gives both answers in a fixed pattern. This week you learn the pattern this course uses, MLA style (the system set by the MLA Handbook, ninth edition). You write a short pointer inside your sentence and a full works-cited entry (one source's complete record in the list at the end of the paper). You practice on the running draft's four real sources and on a speech transcript from a national archive.

Why you already care about this

Picture a group chat at 11:40 p.m. A friend posts, "New study: phones wreck your focus." Within 2 minutes, 3 people reply with the same question: "Says who?" Another adds, "Link?" Nobody is being rude. They want to know who made the claim and where they can read it for themselves. Until the friend answers both questions, the claim floats with nothing under it.

You ask those questions every time you see a surprising number on a poster, a "fun fact" on a cereal box, or a statistic in an ad. A claim with a name and a link behind it carries weight. A claim with neither is a rumor.

Academic writing answers both questions for every borrowed idea, and it answers them in a pattern so predictable that a reader can follow it without thinking. That pattern is documentation. It is not decoration added at the end. It is how your reader checks your work and how your sources get their credit.

By the end of this chapter you will be able to:

write an MLA in-text citation in the author-page form, in both the parenthetical form and the signal-phrase form;
cite a web source that has no page numbers without inventing one;
build a works-cited entry from the template of core elements, with the right punctuation;
tell a source from its container and include only the elements a source has;
format an MLA paper and its "Works Cited" list;
match every in-text citation to its entry;
audit a generator's or a chatbot's entry on format and on facts.

Carry this sentence with you: pointer in the sentence, address at the end; one word starts both.

Where we are

Already covered: Week 2, Critical Reading: Summary & Response, taught you to restate a source fairly before you answer it. Week 6, Rhetorical Analysis, taught you to quote a few exact words from the archived text. Week 9, Research: Finding & Evaluating Sources, chose the running draft's four sources and ran each one through the credibility checklist. Week 10, Integrating Sources: Quoting, Paraphrasing & Avoiding Plagiarism, brought those sources into the draft's sentences with signal phrases.
This week: documenting those sources in MLA style: the in-text citation, sources with no pages, the template of core elements, the container, the four entries built element by element, formatting the paper and the list, the matched pair, and auditing a machine's entry.
How they connect: last week you wrote citations the MLA way and deferred the rules. This week you learn those rules and finish the trail, so every citation in the draft leads to a full entry.
Where we're going next: Week 12, The Research-Based Argument, puts the whole running draft together, from thesis to works-cited list, and uses these citations in a full essay.

Three earlier ideas carry this chapter. From Week 9, the mini-source set is the running draft's four real sources: a news article by Jeff Amy, a peer-reviewed article by Louis-Philippe Beland and Richard Murphy, a book by Nicholas Carr, and a government guidance page from the Department for Education. From Week 10, a signal phrase is the lead-in that names a source before you use it, such as "As Beland and Murphy argue". Also from Week 10, the running draft's quotation already carries a page in parentheses, "(61)". This week explains why it looks that way.

1. Meet the rulebook: MLA style and the ninth edition

Every sport has a rulebook, and every league agrees to play by the same one. Nobody argues about how many points a basket is worth during the game, because the rulebook settled it in advance. Documentation works the same way. A style is a shared rulebook for showing sources, so writer and reader never have to negotiate the format.

MLA style is the documentation system set by the MLA Handbook. This course teaches the ninth edition of the MLA Handbook, published in 2021.

Other styles exist. A psychology or nursing class may ask for a different one, and a history class may ask for yet another. They differ in details, such as where the date goes and what the list is called. They share one purpose: let a reader find every source. Once you understand why MLA asks for each piece, learning a second style is mostly a matter of rearranging.

One more point about the rulebook. Many websites restate MLA's rules, and some still use wording from the eighth edition. When a restatement and the ninth edition differ, the MLA Handbook wins, because it is the source of the rules.

Misconception check — "MLA is a list of picky rules." Students often think citation style exists to catch them on commas. It is tempting because the rules are detailed, and a wrong comma can cost points. But every rule serves the reader: a fixed order means a reader knows where to look for the date, and a fixed format means the list can be scanned in seconds. The cure is to ask, for each rule, "what does this help my reader find?"

2. Cite inside the sentence: the author-page form

Think about a sticky note on a cookbook page that says "see Grandma's card, back of the box." It does not copy the whole recipe. It points you to where the full recipe lives. An in-text citation is that sticky note.

An in-text citation is the short pointer placed in a sentence, usually in parentheses, that names the source of a borrowed idea or set of words and leads the reader to the matching works-cited entry.

MLA's pointer uses the author-page form: the author's last name and the page number, separated by one space with no comma and no "p.", as in (Beland and Murphy 61).

You can place the author's name in one of two spots.

The parenthetical form puts both the author's name and the page inside the parentheses at the end of the borrowed material.
The signal-phrase form names the author in the sentence itself, so the parentheses hold only the page, or nothing at all when the source has no pages.

Worked example — the running draft's quotation, both ways. The fragment inside the quotation marks is copied exactly from the abstract of Beland and Murphy's article, which sits on page 61. The rest of each sentence is the running draft, illustrative and attributed to no one.

Parenthetical form: "the unstructured presence of phones has detrimental effects on certain students" (Beland and Murphy 61). The names and the page sit together inside the parentheses.
Signal-phrase form, the running draft's Stage 5 sentence: "As Beland and Murphy argue, 'the unstructured presence of phones has detrimental effects on certain students' (61), and the students they identify are the ones a college most needs to reach." The authors are named in the sentence, so the parentheses hold only the page.
Where the period goes: the citation sits after the closing quotation mark, and the sentence's own period comes after the citation. The parentheses belong to the sentence.

In words: the parenthetical form packs the name and the page together; the signal-phrase form splits them, with the name in your sentence and the page in the parentheses. Both point to the same entry.

Worked example — three wrong forms and the cure. All three are illustrative errors, written for this course.

(Beland and Murphy, 61) adds a comma between the names and the page.
(Beland and Murphy p. 61) adds "p." before the page.
(Beland and Murphy, p. 61) adds both.

The correct form is (Beland and Murphy 61): the names, one space, the bare number.

Misconception check — "(Smith, 42)" and "(Smith p. 42)". Students often add a comma or a "p." because other styles, and older habits, use them. It is tempting because the comma looks like it separates two different things. But MLA's in-text form is the name and the bare number with one space. The cure is to picture the shape: word, space, number. The label "pp." does appear in MLA, but only in the works-cited entry's page range, never inside an in-text citation.

Misconception check — the two forms confused. Students sometimes name the author in the signal phrase and then repeat the name in the parentheses, or drop the name from both places. It is tempting because the two forms are close cousins. The cure is one rule: the name appears once, either in your sentence or in the parentheses, never both and never neither.

3. Handle a source with no pages

Open any news site on your phone, then on a laptop. The same article might fill four screens on one and two on the other. If you printed it, your printer might number the pages differently again. A web page has no fixed pages, so any page number you see is an accident of your screen.

That is why MLA has a separate rule. For a source with no page numbers, cite the first item of its works-cited entry, usually the author's name, alone. Or name the author in your sentence and add no parenthetical at all. Never count paragraphs yourself, and never use a page number your browser or printer shows; those numbers change from screen to screen.

Worked example — three web sources with no pages. The sources are real; the sentences around them are illustrative.

The news article: cite it as (Amy). With a signal phrase, write "Amy reports that a majority of U.S. states now ban or regulate phones in schools," and add no parenthetical.
The government page has a group author, so cite it as (Department for Education), or name the department in your sentence and add no parenthetical.
The address: the archive's transcript of Eisenhower's farewell address has no page. Eisenhower concedes, "We recognize the imperative need for this development." The author is in the sentence and the transcript has no page, so no parenthetical follows. Without the signal phrase, the same quotation ends with (Eisenhower).

In words: no page means no page number, ever. The name alone is the whole pointer, and a signal phrase can carry even that.

Misconception check — inventing a paragraph number. Students often think a citation looks incomplete without a number, so they count paragraphs on the screen or copy the page number from a printout. It is tempting because it feels more precise. But a reader on another device will never find "paragraph 6," because nobody else's screen matches yours. The cure is to trust the rule: a source with no pages gets the name alone.

Pause and think. Choose one of these two options.

(a) think of a time you tried to find something a friend described as "about halfway down the page" and could not, and say what pointer would have worked better.
(b) think of a web page you read on your phone this week, and say what you would put in its in-text citation and why there is no number.

4. Build the entry from the template of core elements

A mailing address has a fixed order: name, street, city, state, postal code. A carrier can deliver to a stranger because every address follows the same order. A works-cited entry is the full address of a source, and it also follows a fixed order.

A works-cited entry is the full record of one source in the list at the end of a paper, built from the MLA template of core elements so a reader can find that exact source.

The template of core elements is the MLA's nine building blocks for any entry, in a fixed order: Author, Title of Source, Title of Container, Contributor, Version, Number, Publisher, Publication Date, Location.

Written out with its punctuation, the template looks like this:

Author. Title of Source. Title of Container, Contributor, Version, Number, Publisher, Publication Date, Location.

Three punctuation rules carry the whole template:

A period follows the author.
A period follows the title of source.
Commas separate the elements inside the container string, and a period closes it.

A container string is the run of elements that describes one container, from its title through its location, separated by commas and closed with a period.

Titles get one of two looks. The title of a shorter work, such as an article or a web page, goes in quotation marks. The title of a container, such as a journal or a website, or of a work that stands alone, such as a book, goes in italics.

The template also tells you when to stop. Include only the elements your source has. A news article has no edition, so it has no Version element; you skip that slot and its comma. You never guess a value to fill an empty slot.

Worked example — reading the template against a real entry. Here is entry 2 from the mini-source set, the peer-reviewed article:

Beland, Louis-Philippe, and Richard Murphy. "Ill Communication: Technology, Distraction & Student Performance." Labour Economics, vol. 41, 2016, pp. 61–76, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.labeco.2016.04.004.

Author: Beland, Louis-Philippe, and Richard Murphy. Two authors: the first is reversed, last name first; the second stays in normal order. A period closes the element.
Title of Source: the article's title, in quotation marks and title case, with a period inside the closing mark. The ampersand stays because the published title uses it.
Title of Container: Labour Economics, the journal, in italics.
Number: vol. 41, the journal volume.
Publication Date: 2016.
Location: the page range pp. 61–76 and the DOI, a permanent link to the article.

That is 6 of the 9 core elements, so 9 − 6 = 3 are skipped: Contributor, Version, and Publisher. In words: the article fills the slots it has, in template order, and skips the rest without leaving a gap.

Misconception check — "every entry must fill all nine slots." Students often think a short entry is an incomplete one. It is tempting because the template lists nine elements, so nine feels required. But the template is a menu in a fixed order, not a form to fill. The cure is to ask, slot by slot, "does my source have this?" and to write only the elements that answer yes.

5. Find the container: source vs. container

A song you love lives on an album. A short story might live in an anthology. Your favorite cooking video lives on a channel. In each case there is the thing you used and the larger thing that holds it.

A container is the larger whole that holds a source, such as the journal that holds an article or the website that holds a page or a speech transcript.

The source is what you read, watched, or heard. The container is where it lives. In an entry, the source's title comes second and the container's title comes third.

Worked example — naming source and container. Each pair comes from this week's entries.

The peer-reviewed article is the source; the journal Labour Economics is its container.
The news article is the source; PBS News, the site that published it, is its container.
The government page is the source; GOV.UK, the government site that holds it, is its container.
Eisenhower's farewell address is the source; the National Archives site is its container. This is the address-inside-a-site model: one item on a large site.
The book stands alone. Carr's The Shallows is a whole work, so it has no container. Its title goes in italics, in the Title of Source slot.

In words: the source is the thing you used; the container is the larger thing it sits in. A web address is the source's location; the site's name is the container.

Misconception check — the source and the container confused. Students often put the site's name where the article's title belongs, or treat the journal's name as the title of the article. It is tempting because the container's name is usually bigger on the screen. The cure is to ask, "What did I actually read?" That is the source. "What holds it?" That is the container.

6. Assemble the running draft's four entries

Now you build the running draft's four entries element by element. The entries below are the pinned models, built from the live sources. Read each one, then read its element list.

Worked example — entry 1, the news article. Here is the pinned entry, then its elements in order.

Amy, Jeff. "A Majority of U.S. States Now Have Laws Banning or Regulating Cellphones in Schools." PBS News, 21 May 2025, www.pbs.org/newshour/education/a-majority-of-u-s-states-now-have-laws-banning-or-regulating-cellphones-in-schools.

Author: Amy, Jeff.
Title of Source: the article's title in quotation marks, in title case.
Title of Container: PBS News, in italics.
Publication Date: 21 May 2025, written day, month, year.
Location: the web address.

That is 5 of the 9 core elements, so 9 − 5 = 4 elements are skipped. In-text, it is (Amy).

One detail matters here: title case, which means capitalizing the first word and every major word of a title, the way MLA sets titles in an entry even when the source prints its headline differently. The news site prints this headline in sentence case, with only the first word capitalized. The entry sets it in title case.

Worked example — entry 2, the peer-reviewed article. You built this one in section 4. Its six elements are Author, Title of Source, Title of Container, Number, Publication Date, and Location. In-text, it is (Beland and Murphy 61), or (61) when a signal phrase names the authors.

Worked example — entry 3, the book. A book that stands alone uses a different mix of elements.

Carr, Nicholas. The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains. 10th anniversary ed., W. W. Norton, 2020.

Author: Carr, Nicholas.
Title of Source: the book's title in italics, because the book stands alone.
Version: 10th anniversary ed., the tenth-anniversary edition.
Publisher: W. W. Norton.
Publication Date: 2020.

That is 5 of the 9 core elements. There is no container, because the book is the whole work. The edition matters: page numbers can change between editions, so a reader needs to know which one you held. In-text, it is Carr's name and the page you read, with no comma; no page is pinned here, because the page depends on the passage you use.

Worked example — entry 4, the government page. This source has a group author instead of a person.

Department for Education. "Mobile Phones in Schools." GOV.UK, 29 June 2026, www.gov.uk/government/publications/mobile-phones-in-schools.

Author: the Department for Education, a group author.
Title of Source: "Mobile Phones in Schools." The page writes its title in sentence case; the entry sets it in title case.
Title of Container: GOV.UK.
Publication Date: 29 June 2026, the page's most recent update, which is the date MLA says to use for an updated web page.
Location: the web address.

That is 5 of the 9 core elements. In-text, it is (Department for Education), or the department named in your sentence.

Worked example — the address inside a site. One speech transcript on a large archive's site follows the same template.

Eisenhower, Dwight D. "Farewell Address." National Archives, 17 Jan. 1961, www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/president-dwight-d-eisenhowers-farewell-address.

The address is the source and the site is the container. The title comes from the page's own citation line, set in title case. The date is the day the address was delivered, as the page gives it, with the month abbreviated. In-text, it is (Eisenhower).

In words: four sources, four different mixes of elements, one template. The news story and the government page each have a container and a date; the article adds a volume and a page range; the book stands alone with an edition and a publisher.

In practice (your tools). In your word processor, type an entry's elements in template order, then italicize the container's title by selecting it and pressing Ctrl+I (Command+I on a Mac). Copy each web address from your browser's address bar and paste it, so you never retype it. The running draft's entries leave the "https://" off a web address; the ninth edition allows the address with or without it, so follow your instructor's preference. Keep a DOI in its full https://doi.org/ form.

Misconception check — "a web page's date is the day I read it." Students often put the day they visited a page in the Publication Date slot. It is tempting because that is the date they know. But Publication Date is the date the page itself shows: when it was published or, for an updated page, its most recent update. The cure is to look on the page for "published" or "updated" and copy that date.

7. Format the page and the list

Picture a stack of forty job applications. The manager can scan them fast because every one puts the name, the phone number, and the experience in the same places. MLA formatting does the same for a paper: every reader knows where to look.

Here are the formatting conventions the MLA Handbook sets for the paper:

one-inch margins on all sides;
double spacing throughout, the list included;
a legible font in a common size;
a running head, which means the writer's last name and the page number placed in the upper right corner of every page;
a half-inch indent on the first line of each paragraph.

The list of sources gets its own conventions:

Works Cited is the heading of the MLA source list at the end of a paper, centered and without italics, under which the entries run in alphabetical order by their first element;
each entry uses a hanging indent, the layout in which the first line starts at the margin and every later line is indented half an inch;
titles appear in title case.

Worked example — the running draft's works-cited list (Model A, Stage 6). The running draft's list carries the heading "Works Cited", then the four entries in alphabetical order by first element:

Amy
Beland and Murphy
Carr
Department for Education

The order follows the first letters A, B, C, D. It is not the order the sources appear in the essay, and it is not the order of their dates. If the draft later added Eisenhower's address, its entry would go fifth, because "Ei" comes after "De".

In words: the heading tells the reader which style you used, the alphabet tells the reader where to look, and the hanging indent makes each entry's first word stand out at the margin.

In practice (your tools). In most word processors, the paragraph settings hold a special-indent option. Select your whole list, choose the hanging indent, and set it to 0.5 inch. Set the line spacing to double for the whole document. For the running head, open the header, choose right alignment, insert an automatic page number, and type your last name and a space before it.

Misconception check — "References" or "Bibliography" as the heading. Students often borrow a heading from another class or another style. It is tempting because all three words mean "list of sources." But in MLA the heading is "Works Cited", and a reader who sees another heading wonders which rules you followed. The cure is to type the heading once, correctly, centered, and never change it.

Misconception check — ordering by citation order or by date. Students often list sources in the order they used them, or newest first. It is tempting because that is the order the sources entered the draft. But a reader holding (Carr) needs to find Carr fast, and only the alphabet makes that possible. The cure is to sort by each entry's first element.

8. Keep the matched pair

Think of a coat check. You get a ticket with a number, and the coat on the rack carries the same number. If the two numbers do not match, you go home without your coat. Citations work the same way.

The matched pair is the rule that whatever word begins an in-text citation also begins the works-cited entry it points to, so the reader can follow the trail.

Worked example — the running draft's three trails. Each arrow points from a citation to the first word of its entry.

(Amy) → the entry that begins "Amy, Jeff."
(Beland and Murphy 61) → the entry that begins "Beland, Louis-Philippe, and Richard Murphy."
(Department for Education) → the entry that begins with the department's name.
A broken trail (illustrative error): a draft cites (GOV.UK). No entry begins with "GOV.UK", because the site's name is the container, not the first element. The reader turns to the list and finds nothing.

In words: read your in-text citations one at a time and find each one's entry by its first word. Every citation needs exactly one entry, and every entry needs at least one citation.

Misconception check — the citation and the entry treated as unrelated. Students often write the in-text citations while drafting and build the list later from scratch, so the two halves drift apart. It is tempting because the jobs happen at different times. The cure is to check the pair as a pair: before you submit, trace every citation to its entry and every entry back to a citation.

Pause and think. Choose one of these two options.

(a) think of a ticket, a receipt, or a claim number you had to match to something later, and say what would have happened if the two had not matched.
(b) look at the running draft's four in-text citations and say which one you think a writer is most likely to get wrong, and why.

9. Audit the machine: format and facts

Citation generators and chatbots will produce an entry in seconds, and the entries look finished. That speed is useful, and it is also the trap. An honest caveat before the examples: no tool can check its own facts against a source it never opened. A two-level audit is checking a machine-made citation first against the MLA template for format and then against the real source for facts such as the author, title, volume, and date.

The course's rule for every chatbot moment holds here: the tool drafts, and the writer judges. Generators routinely mis-order elements, drop the container, and set titles in sentence case. A chatbot can do something worse: it can format a perfect entry for a source that does not exist.

Worked example — a generator's entry, format audit. The entry below is illustrative, written for this course to show a typical generator fault.

Amy, Jeff. "A majority of U.S. states now have laws banning or regulating cellphones in schools." 21 May 2025, www.pbs.org/newshour/education/a-majority-of-u-s-states-now-have-laws-banning-or-regulating-cellphones-in-schools.

Check the elements against the template in order: Author, yes; Title of Source, yes; Title of Container, missing. The site's name, PBS News, never appears.
Check the title: it is in sentence case. MLA sets it in title case.
The repair: restore the container after the title and set the title in title case. The result is entry 1.

Worked example — a chatbot's entry, facts audit. This entry is also illustrative, written for this course to show a typical chatbot fault.

Beland, Louis-Philippe, and Richard Murphy. "Ill Communication: Technology, Distraction & Student Performance." Labour Economics, vol. 14, 2018, pp. 61–76.

Format check: every element is in order and punctuated correctly. A format check alone would pass it.
Facts check: you open the article's record and compare. The record gives vol. 41, not vol. 14, and 2016, not 2018, and the entry is missing the DOI.
The repair: correct the volume and the year from the real record, and add the DOI. The result is entry 2.

In words: the format audit catches what is shaped wrong; the facts audit catches what is wrong in a perfect shape. You need both, and only the real source can run the second.

Misconception check — "a citation generator's output is correct." Students often paste a generator's entry straight into the list. It is tempting because the output looks official and saves time. But generators work from whatever data they find, and they mis-order, mis-punctuate, and drop elements. The cure is the two-level audit: check the shape against the template, then check every fact against the source itself. An honest caveat: a chatbot that "cites" a source you never opened may be describing a source that does not exist, so open the source before any entry goes in.

In practice (your tools). Keep the source open in one browser tab and your draft in another. For each element of a machine-made entry, find the matching detail on the source's own page: the byline for the author, the headline for the title, the site's name for the container, the date line for the publication date, and the address bar for the location. Correct anything that does not match before the entry goes into your list.

Key terms

documentation — The system of in-text citations and a works-cited list that tells a reader who said each borrowed thing and exactly where to find it. (first used: 1. Meet the rulebook: MLA style and the ninth edition)
MLA style — The documentation system set by the MLA Handbook; this course teaches its ninth edition, published in 2021. (first used: 1. Meet the rulebook: MLA style and the ninth edition)
in-text citation — The short pointer placed in a sentence, usually in parentheses, that names the source of a borrowed idea or set of words and leads the reader to the matching works-cited entry. (first used: 2. Cite inside the sentence: the author-page form)
author-page form — MLA's pattern for an in-text citation: the author's last name and the page number, separated by one space with no comma and no "p.", as in (Beland and Murphy 61). (first used: 2. Cite inside the sentence: the author-page form)
parenthetical form — An in-text citation that puts both the author's name and the page inside the parentheses at the end of the borrowed material. (first used: 2. Cite inside the sentence: the author-page form)
signal-phrase form — An in-text citation in which the author is named in the sentence itself, so the parentheses hold only the page, or nothing at all when the source has no pages. (first used: 2. Cite inside the sentence: the author-page form)
works-cited entry — The full record of one source in the list at the end of a paper, built from the MLA template of core elements so a reader can find that exact source. (first used: 4. Build the entry from the template of core elements)
template of core elements — The MLA's nine building blocks for any entry, in a fixed order: Author, Title of Source, Title of Container, Contributor, Version, Number, Publisher, Publication Date, Location. (first used: 4. Build the entry from the template of core elements)
container string — The run of elements that describes one container, from its title through its location, separated by commas and closed with a period. (first used: 4. Build the entry from the template of core elements)
container — The larger whole that holds a source, such as the journal that holds an article or the website that holds a page or a speech transcript. (first used: 5. Find the container: source vs. container)
title case — Capitalizing the first word and every major word of a title, the way MLA sets titles in an entry even when the source prints its headline differently. (first used: 6. Assemble the running draft's four entries)
running head — The writer's last name and the page number placed in the upper right corner of every page of an MLA paper. (first used: 7. Format the page and the list)
Works Cited — The heading of the MLA source list at the end of a paper, centered and without italics, under which the entries run in alphabetical order by their first element. (first used: 7. Format the page and the list)
hanging indent — The layout of a works-cited entry in which the first line starts at the margin and every later line is indented half an inch. (first used: 7. Format the page and the list)
matched pair — The rule that whatever word begins an in-text citation also begins the works-cited entry it points to, so the reader can follow the trail. (first used: 8. Keep the matched pair)
two-level audit — Checking a machine-made citation first against the MLA template for format and then against the real source for facts such as the author, title, volume, and date. (first used: 9. Audit the machine: format and facts)

Summary

Documentation answers "says who?" and "where can I find it?" for every borrowed idea.
This course teaches the MLA Handbook, ninth edition (2021).
In-text: the author's name and the page, one space, no comma, no "p.".
Name the author once: in your sentence or in the parentheses.
A source with no pages gets the name alone, never an invented number.
Every entry follows the nine core elements in order and includes only the ones the source has.
The source is what you used; the container is what holds it.
One-inch margins, double spacing, a running head, a half-inch first-line indent.
"Works Cited", alphabetical by first element, a half-inch hanging indent, title case.
The same word starts the in-text citation and its entry.
Audit every machine-made entry twice: format against the template, facts against the source.

Check your understanding

Work these before looking at the answers — they are ungraded, and the answers (with reasoning) are at the bottom of the page.

A classmate's draft (illustrative) ends one quotation with (Smith, 42) and another with (Smith p. 42). Rewrite both correctly, and say what the classmate would write instead if the sentence already began "Smith points out that".
For each item, name the source and the container, or say that the item stands alone.
- (a) A short story printed in an anthology of new fiction.
- (b) One episode of a cooking show posted on a video site.
- (c) A novel you read as a single printed book.
A student is citing an illustrative hiking-safety page that has no author and no page numbers, so its works-cited entry begins with its title, "Trail Safety in Summer Heat." She cites it in-text as (par. 7). What is wrong, and what should she write?
Put these five element labels in template order: Publication Date; Title of Container; Author; Location; Title of Source.

Answers (worked reasoning — read after attempting)

Both become (Smith 42): the name, one space, the bare number. The first form loses its comma; the second loses its "p.". If the sentence already began "Smith points out that", the name is in the signal phrase, so the parentheses hold only the page: (42). This item catches the comma-and-"p." misconception and the rule that the name appears once.
Each item has its own answer. This item catches the source-and-container confusion.
- (a) The short story is the source; the anthology is its container.
- (b) The episode is the source; the video site is its container.
- (c) The novel stands alone, so it has no container; its title goes in italics in the Title of Source slot.
She invented a paragraph number for a page that numbers none, and her citation does not match her entry's first element. For a source with no pages, the in-text citation is the first item of the entry, and here that item is the title, so she writes ("Trail Safety in Summer Heat"), in quotation marks, exactly as the entry has it. A reader then finds the entry that begins with those words. This item catches the invented paragraph number and the matched-pair rule.
Author; Title of Source; Title of Container; Publication Date; Location. The template's order runs from who made it, to what it is, to what holds it, to when, to where. The other four elements, Contributor, Version, Number, and Publisher, would fit between the container and the date if a source had them.

Next up in this module: the Readings & Resources page, the lecture tutorial, the practice set, and the quiz — and next week, The Research-Based Argument uses the matched-pair rule across a whole essay.

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