by Craig Medlin

Created on: August 11, 2008

When you are writing that term paper for your High School English class, and you decide to cram in some additional information the night before it's due, it can be tough to find out exactly how to format your sources in the bibliography. There's no teacher to ask and you probably don't want to call your friends because it's too late. What can you do?

There are plenty or internet resources that will show you how to write a bibliography in the Modern Language Association, MLA, format. A simple google search for 'MLA Bibliography' returned over four hundred thousand results. So just because it's late doesn't mean you can't figure out how to properly format your bibliography. If however, you weren't all that lazy and have decided to write your bibliography well before the determined deadline, you should direct your attention to a great resource for Modern Language Association guidelines, MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. If you were to cite this using MLA formatting it would look something like this:

Gibaldi, Joseph. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. 6th ed. New York: MLA, 2003.

Well, that doesn't help you much now does it? Here are a few of the most popular resources with formatting examples in MLA format.

1 ~ Book with one author or editor

Bell, Stewart. The Martyr's Oath: The Apprenticeship of a Homegrown Terrorist.
Mississauga, ON: Wiley, 2005.

Biale, David, ed. Cultures of the Jews: A New History. New York: Schocken, 2002.

2 ~ No place of publication listed [N.p]

Bowker, Michael. Fatal Deception: The Untold Story of Asbestos: Why It Is Still Legal
and Still Killing Us. N.p.: Rodale, 2003.

3 ~ Book with two authors or editors

Bohlman, Herbert M., and Mary Jane Dundas. The Legal, Ethical and International
Environment of Business. 5th ed. Cincinnati, OH: West, 2002.

Heath, Joseph, and Andrew Potter. The Rebel Sell: Why the Culture Can't Be Jammed.
2nd ed. Toronto: Harper, 2005.

4 ~ Book with more than three authors or editors.
Although unlikely, if a book you are using has more than three individual authors there are a few ways of listing it according to MLA rules. You can either list all the authors and editors:

Nelson, Miriam E., Kristin R. Baker, Ronenn Roubenoff, and Lawrence Lindner.
Strong Women and Men Beat Arthritis. New York: Perigee, 2003.

Or you can list the first editor and add , "et al" meaning "and others" in latin.

Nelson, Miriam E., et al. Strong Women and Men Beat Arthritis. New York:
Perigee, 2003.

5 ~ Book with no stated author or editor.
A

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