Citation

In the pervious section, you went through how you'd cite sources in the body of your paper, but that's not all there is to do. You need to prepare your citations for the works cited page. It is very important that your do this right and that you have all the correct pieces so that when you are ready to type up your works cited page, all you need do is plug in the citations you've already made.

To illustrate, let's walk through a hypothetical situation . . .

You have a paper coming up, and you've found the following types of information you'd like to use:
a song, an interview with a musician, an article about contemporary jazz, a book chapter about bassists in Chicago, and a book about the evolution of jazz. You've been busy researching, and as you may have guessed, your paper is about jazz.

Being the wise, careful student that you are, you were sure to write down all the information you could find about each of your sources. Now you have to figure out how to arrange the details. Luckily, you have your MLA handbook to help you.

First, let's start with the song.

MLA states that the following information is necessary in a song citation:

The name of the artist
The name of the song
The title of the album
The manufacturer (e.g., EMI, Tommy Boy, Warner Brothers)
The year it was produced

It will look like this in MLA format:
Doe, John. "Song Title." Album Title. Manufacture, Year.

Now you try:
Here's your information.
Song Title: Metamorph Artist: Sandra Damon Album: Intraspective
Year: 1998 Manufacturer: Alley Productions

Which of the following is correct?
A. Damon, Sandra, "Metamorph." Intraspective. Alley Productions, 1998.
B. Damon, Sandra. "Metamorph" Intrapective, Alley Productions, 1998.
C. Damon, Sandra. "Metamorph." Intaspective. Alley Productions, 1998.