Documenting Your Paper -- MLA Style

For the best website on how to do your parenthetical documentations and how to prepare your "Works Cited" page, visit the following website:

www.dianahacker.com

Diana Hacker is a professor of English whose book, A Writer's Reference, is one of the most used grammar books at the university. Her publisher has created her website and when you visit it, click on MLA Guide. You will then be directed to several strands which will give you all the information you need.

Visit "MLA in-text citations" It features a pull down screen to show you different ways to do your parenthetical documentations (depending on the information you have).

Also, visit "MLA list of works cited" to see how to create your citation for whatever source you have (whether it's a novel, a website, or a reference article).

It will take you about fifteen minutes to navigate her website, but once you see her system, you'll understand it completely.

Bookmark this fabulous cite and use it throughout your high school career when you're required to use MLA (or any other) format.

Hacker's site also includes a sample MLA style paper (done in PDF version) so you can see how a full-length student paper looks.

Student Sample of Biographical Chapter

C.S. Lewis – Biographical Sketch


Clive Staples Lewis was born on November 29, 1898 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. His father, Albert Lewis, was a successful police solicitor whose father had emigrated from England. Clive’s mother, Florence Hamilton, had a degree in mathematics and logic from Queen’s College, and came from a long line of Christian clergymen. Warren Hamilton, or “Warnie,” who was three years older than Clive, was his only sibling. In August of 1908, when Clive was only nine years old, Florence passed away from cancer. Albert suffered endless grief during this time, for his father had passed away a few months before his wife, and his brother Joseph died only a few weeks later (Hooper 1-17).

Slowly, everything comforting and safe was pulled away from Clive. His father, trying to do the best he could, moved his son into a boarding school in England to be with his brother. Clive went through five changes of schools and tutors between England and Ireland before he settled down at Oxford University. Nevertheless, he left again in 1917 to join the army and fight in the First World War. He was wounded in battle against the final German attack on the Western Front, and years later, he returned to Oxford (Hooper 1-17).

Through his school career, Clive’s once happy Christian upbringing turned to atheism, but wit the steady help of friends such as J.R.R. Tolkien, he slowly came back to Christianity. His final conversion happened, surprisingly enough, in the sidecar of his brother’s motorcycle on the way to the Whipsnade Zoo. The other great joy in his life was the formation of the “Inklings,” a group of friends who met to read and talk about their compositions. The group started in 1933 and continued until Clive died in 1963.