Week 11 — Quiz (auto-graded) · MLA Documentation

Course: English Composition (ENGL 1A) · Silver Oak University (fictional sample) · Prof. Lindgren
Objective tested: Objective 6 — MLA in-text citations, the works-cited entry, the core-elements / container model, and MLA formatting conventions.
Points: 10 (1 each) · Assignment group: Quizzes (10% of grade) · Due: end of Module 11. AI is not permitted on quizzes.

This is the human-readable quiz with its vetted answer key and feedback. The import-ready Classic QTI is in F-quiz-week-11-qti.xml (generated by a validated script — parses with 10 items, every single-answer item exactly one correct). The Canvas placement block is at the bottom of this file. No free-response items — all auto-gradable (MC / multiple-answer / matching / true-false). Every MLA example below is correct MLA 9, verified against the MLA Style Center and the Purdue OWL.

Blueprint

No trick questions; distractors target the Week 11 misconceptions named in the lecture outline (the comma; "References"/"Bibliography"; citation-order lists; source vs. container; inventing paragraph numbers; trusting a generator).

Questions, key, and feedback

Q1 (Matching). Match each MLA core element to what it names in a works-cited entry. (The MLA 9 template orders them: Author. "Title of Source." Title of Container, Contributor, Version, Number, Publisher, Publication date, Location.)
| Core element | Correct description |
|---|---|
| Author | Who created the work (listed last name first; the entry is alphabetized by this element) |
| Title of Source | The name of the specific work you used (an article or talk in quotation marks; a book in italics) |
| Title of Container | The larger whole that holds the source (the website, journal, or anthology), in italics |
| Publisher | The organization responsible for producing or releasing the work |
| Publication date | When the work was published or posted |
| Location | Where the work is found (a page range with pp., a URL, or a DOI) |
Feedback: These are six of the nine MLA core elements, assembled in a fixed order. Watch the classic mix-up: the source (element 2) is the specific work; the container (element 3) is the larger whole that holds it.

Q2 (MC). A student quotes a sentence from page 3 of a print book by Kenneth Burke, and Burke's name is not used in the sentence. Which parenthetical in-text citation is formatted correctly in MLA 9?
- A. (Burke, 3)
- B. (Burke 3) ✅
- C. (Burke, p. 3)
- D. (Burke, page 3)
Feedback: MLA in-text citations put the author's last name and the page number with only a space between them — (Burke 3). No comma, no "p.," no "page." (This matches the Purdue OWL's own example.)

Q3 (MC). In an MLA author-page in-text citation, what goes between the author's last name and the page number inside the parentheses?
- A. A comma: (Smith, 42)
- B. Nothing but a space: (Smith 42) ✅
- C. The abbreviation p.: (Smith p. 42)
- D. A colon: (Smith: 42)
Feedback: Just a space. (Smith 42) is correct; (Smith, 42) is the single most common MLA mistake. The "pp." abbreviation belongs in the works-cited entry (for a page range), not in the in-text citation.

Q4 (MC). How is the list of works cited ordered in MLA style?
- A. In the order the sources are first cited in the essay
- B. Alphabetically by the first element of each entry (usually the author's last name) ✅
- C. By the publication date, newest first
- D. By the type of source: books first, then websites
Feedback: The list is alphabetical by the first element — usually the author's last name. That's what lets a reader who sees a name in your in-text citation find the matching entry quickly.

Q5 (MC). In the MLA core-elements model, what is a container?
- A. The folder on your computer where you save the source file
- B. The larger whole that holds the source you used (such as the website, journal, or anthology the work appears in) ✅
- C. The works-cited list itself
- D. The box at the top of the page that holds your name and the date
Feedback: When your source is part of a larger whole, that whole is the container: a talk's container is TED; an article's container is the website or journal it appears in. The source is element 2; the container is element 3.

Q6 (MC). What is the correct heading for the list of sources at the end of an MLA-style paper?
- A. Works Cited ✅
- B. References
- C. Bibliography
- D. Sources Used
Feedback: In MLA it's Works Cited — centered, not italicized, not in quotation marks. "References" is APA; "Bibliography" is Chicago. The right heading signals the right style.

Q7 (MC). MLA requires a hanging indent for each works-cited entry. What does that mean?
- A. Every line of the entry is indented half an inch
- B. The first line is flush left and every line after it is indented half an inch ✅
- C. The first line is indented and the rest are flush left
- D. The whole entry is centered on the page
Feedback: A hanging indent puts the first line at the left margin and indents the rest — so the alphabetized first elements (usually authors' last names) line up down the left side for easy scanning.

Q8 (True / False). "A citation generator's output is always correct MLA, so you can paste it into your works-cited list without checking it."
- True
- False ✅
Feedback: False. Citation generators routinely mis-order elements, drop the container, use the wrong capitalization, or botch the date. A generator's output is a draft — check every element against the MLA rules and the real source before it ships. (The same goes double for a chatbot, which can also invent the source entirely.)

Q9 (MC). A writer names the author in a signal phrase: "Wordsworth stated that Romantic poetry was marked by a 'spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.'" Following MLA, what belongs in the parentheses at the end of that sentence?
- A. Both the author and the page: (Wordsworth 263)
- B. Just the page number: (263) ✅
- C. Nothing; no citation is needed once the author is named
- D. Just the author: (Wordsworth)
Feedback: When the author is named in the sentence, the parentheses carry only the page number — (263). You still cite (a page is required), but you don't repeat the author's name. (This matches the Purdue OWL's Wordsworth example.)

Q10 (MC). You paraphrase an idea from a web page that has an author but no page or paragraph numbers. How does MLA handle the in-text citation?
- A. Invent a paragraph number from your browser's print preview, e.g., (Lee par. 4)
- B. Give the author's last name with no page number, e.g., (Lee) — or just name Lee in the sentence and use no parenthetical ✅
- C. Cite the full URL in parentheses at the end of the sentence
- D. No citation is required for web sources
Feedback: No stable page or paragraph numbers means no number in your citation — the author's last name alone does the job, and naming the author in the sentence lets you skip the parenthetical entirely. You never invent a paragraph number, and you don't dump the URL into the sentence (the URL lives in the works-cited entry).

Answer key (quick reference)

Quality gate (self-checked): each single-answer item (Q2, Q3, Q4, Q5, Q6, Q7, Q9, Q10, and the T/F Q8) has exactly one correct option; the matching item (Q1) pairs six core elements to six distinct descriptions one-to-one. Every MLA example in this quiz is correct MLA 9, checked against the MLA Style Center (style.mla.org) and the Purdue OWL. The in-text models — (Burke 3), (263) with the author named in the signal phrase, and (Lee) for a web source with no page — and the core-elements order and container definition all match those authorities. The real names used as examples (Burke, Wordsworth) are drawn from the Purdue OWL's own published examples and are not attached to fabricated quotations beyond the short, canonical phrases those examples use; "Smith" and "Lee" are generic placeholder authors, not real-source attributions. No computation in this quiz. No free-response items. Citation-integrity + correct-conventions gate: PASS.

Item-bank entries (for variants + the midterm/final)

All ten items are tagged course=ENGL1A · week=11 · objective=6 · topic=mla-documentation and deposited in Item Bank: Week 11 — MLA Documentation. The final (Week 16) and the per-term variant updates draw fresh items from this bank. (Tags: q1 core-elements-match, q2 in-text-correct, q3 comma-rule, q4 alphabetical-order, q5 container, q6 works-cited-heading, q7 hanging-indent, q8 generator-not-always-correct, q9 signal-phrase-vs-parenthetical, q10 web-source-no-page.)

Canvas placement block

canvas_object   = Quizzes::Quiz
title           = "Week 11 Quiz — MLA Documentation"
assignment_group = "Quizzes"
points_possible = 10
grading_type    = points
due_offset_days = 6        # 6 days after module start
published       = true
shuffle_answers = true
ai_permitted    = false    # AI is not permitted on quizzes
provenance      = "~ Prof. Lindgren's edition · Fall 2026 · built with thecoursemaker.com"