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MLA 8th - Referencing Guide

Books

Information

  Give the author's complete name, using as much detail as is given in the source document.

  The given name should be cited in full, if possible.

  Capitalisation practice should be consistent.

  Titles and subtitles of books are given maximal capitalisation.

  Book titles are italicised if typed and underlined if handwritten.

Format

Standard format for citation

Authored work:

Author, Given Names, and Given Names Author. Title: Subtitle. Edition (if not the first), Publisher, Year.

 

Edited work:

Editor, Given Names, and Given Names Editor, editors. Title: Subtitle. Edition (if not the first), Publisher, Year.

Examples

Single author

Boyle, Jimmy. The Pain of Confinement: Prison Diaries. Canongate, 1984.

More than one author or editor

Miller, Casey, and Kate Swift. Words and Women. Updated ed., HarperCollins Publishers, 1991.

Dollimore, Johnathon, and Keith Hall, editors. Political Shakespeare: Essays in Cultural Materialism. 2nd ed., Cornell UP, 1994.

Three or more authors
If there are three or more authors or editors, name only the first and add et al. ("and others").

MacIntosh, Angus, et al. A Linguistic Atlas of Late Mediaeval English. Aberdeen UP, 1987. 4 vols.

Edited work (Anthology or Compilation)

Newcomb, Horace, editor. Television: The Critical View. 6th ed., Oxford UP, 2000.

Later edition

Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer. 2nd ed., edited by F. N. Robinson, Oxford UP, 1957.

Two or more books by the same author

Pilger, John. Distant Voices. Vintage, 1992.

---. A Secret Country. Cape, 1989.

Multivolume work

Summerfield, Geoffrey. Voices: An Anthology of Poetry and Pictures. Penguin, 1968. 3 vols.

Translation

Moliere. Five Plays: Moliere. Translated by John Wood, Penguin, 1953.

Organisation

Australian Copyright Council. Copyright for Book Publishers: A Practical Guide. ACC, 1997.

Government publication

Australian Film Commission. Film Agency Funding in Australia: Government Assistance to the Australian Film Industry Through Federal and State Agencies to June 2002. AFC, 2004.

Government department reports

Australia, Council for the Arts. Writing: Protocols for Producing Indigenous Australian Writing. 2nd ed., ACA, 2007.

Western Australia, Office of Multicultural Interests. The Western Australian Language Services Policy 2008. OMI, 2008.

Please Note: Documents authored by government departments are cited following the jurisdiction they report to. Precede the department name with Australia, Western Australia, etc.