Contemporary American Fiction: ENG 3332

In English Studies, the MLA style is a set of standards for writing and documentation used by writers to:

• find and evaluate information;
• alert audiences to the trustworthiness of their findings through citation;
• shape the expression of their ideas in conversation with others.

These standards are laid out in the MLA Handbook. Since 2021, the MLA Handbook is in its 9th edition. Some classes and professors may still be using the 8th edition, though. 

Find print copies of the 8th edition and 9th edition at the Libraries. The MLA Style Center website also offers:

• Works Cited Quick Guide
• An Interactive Practice Template to build citations with
• Helpful videos on Using the Practice Template and Quoting and Paraphrasing in MLA Format
• Frequently Asked Questions
• FAQ: How do I cite generative AI in MLA Style?

Tip: Pay attention to the edition offered by citation generator and management tools, and choose accordingly.

Use any of these citation generators to quickly create citations. 

Use with caution, though. Not all are 100% accurate. Some miss finer details like capitalization or punctuation. Proof the final citations according to a style manual.

The Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) contains writing resources and instructional materials focused on the writing process, academic writing, mechanics, grammar, punctuation, and more. 

Need help creating annotated bibliographies? Below are a few sources that help explain what should be included in the annotations:

• Annotated Bibliographies from The Online Writing Center at Purdue University
• Annotated Bibliographies from The Writing Center at University of Wisconsin-Madison
• Writing an Annotated Bibliography from University of Toronto

A good annotation summarizes and evaluates each source. A good annotation does the following:

• discusses the writer's background/credibility
• summarizes the content of the source
• describes the usefulness of the source
• draws connections between the source content and the student's research topic
• begins with a properly formatted citation