Electronic Sources

BASIC FORMAT FOR AN ELECTRONIC SOURCE

Not every electronic source gives you all the data that MLA would like to see in a works-cited entry. Ideally, you will be able to list the author's name, the title, any information about print publication, information about electronic publication (title of site, editor, date of first electronic publication and/or most recent revision, name of the sponsoring institution), date of access, and URL. Of those nine pieces of information, you will find seven in the following example.

Johnson, Charles W. "How Our Laws Are Made." Thomas: Legislative
     Information on the Internet 31 Jan. 2000. Lib. of Congress. 5 Apr.
     2005 <http://thomas.loc.gov/home/holam.txt>.

A FEW DETAILS TO NOTE

• AUTHORS: If there is more than one author, list the first author last-name-first and the others first-name-first.
• TITLES: Capitalize the first and last words of titles and subtitles, and all principal words. Do not capitalize a, an, the, to, or any prepositions or coordinating conjunctions unless they begin a title or subtitle. For periodical titles, omit any initial A, An, or The.
• DATES: Abbreviate the names of months except for May, June, or July: Jan., Feb., Mar., Apr., Aug., Sept., Oct., Nov., Dec. Although MLA asks for the date when materials were first posted or most recently updated, you won't always be able to find that information. You'll also find that it will vary—you may find only the year, not the day and month. The date you must include is the date on which you accessed the electronic source.
• URL: Give the address of the Web site in angle brackets. When a URL will not fit on one line, break it only after a slash (and do not add a hyphen). If a URL is very long, consider giving the URL of the site's home page or search page instead. Also keep in mind that if you are accessing an online source through a library's subscription to a database provider (such as EBSCO), you may not see the URL itself. In that case, end your documentation with a period after your access date.

27. PROFESSIONAL WEB SITE

Title of Site. Ed. Editor's First and Last Names. Date posted or last
     updated. Sponsoring Institution. Day Month Year of access URL.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Ed. Edward N. Zalta. 2003.
     Metaphysics Research Lab, Center for the Study of Language and
     Information, Stanford U. 25 July 2004 <http://plato.stanford.edu>.

28. PERSONAL WEB SITE

Author's Last Name, First Name. Home page. Date posted or last
     updated. Day Month Year of access URL.

Chomsky, Noam. Home page. 25 July 2004 <http://web.mit.edu/
     linguistics/www.chomsky.home.aspxl>.

29. HOME PAGE FOR AN ACADEMIC DEPARTMENT

Academic Department. Dept. home page. School. Day Month Year of
     access URL.

English Language and Literatures. Dept. home page. Wright State U
     College of Liberal Arts. 12 Mar. 2003 <http://www.cola.wright.edu/
     Dept/ENG/Index.aspx>.

30. ONLINE BOOK OR PART OF A BOOK

Author's Last Name, First Name. "Title of Short Work." Title of
     Long Work. Original year of publication. Database. Date of
     electronic publication. Day Month Year of access <URL>.

Anderson, Sherwood. "The Philosopher." Winesburg, Ohio. 1919.
     Bartleby.com: Great Books Online. 1999. 7 Apr. 2002 <http://
     www.bartleby.com/156/5.aspxl>.

31. ARTICLE IN AN ONLINE PERIODICAL OR DATABASE

If a source does not number pages or paragraphs, follow the year with a period instead of a colon. Some periodicals have dates; others have volume and issue numbers instead—volume cit_cit_10, issue 3 should be listed as cit_cit_10.3, followed by the year (in parentheses). See the following for examples.

FROM A PERIODICAL'S WEB SITE

Author's Last Name, First Name. "Title of Article." Title of Periodical
     Date or Volume. Issue (Year): Pages or pars. Day Month Year of
     access <URL>.

Landsburg, Steven E. "Putting All Your Potatoes in One Basket:
     The Economic Lessons of the Great Famine." Slate 13 Mar.
     2001. 15 Mar. 2001 <http://slate.msn.com/Economics/01-03-13/
     Economics.asp>.

FROM A DATABASE PROVIDER

Author's Last Name, First Name. "Title of Article." Title of Periodical Date
     or Volume. Issue (Year): Pages or pars. Database. Database provider.
     Library. Day Month Year of access <URL>.

Bowman, James. "Moody Blues." American Spectator June 1999: 64-65.
     Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Paul Laurence Dunbar Lib., Wright
     State U. 15 Mar. 2005 <http://epnet.com>.

32. DOCUMENT ACCESSED THROUGH AOL OR OTHER SUBSCRIPTION SERVICE

Note the keyword you used or the path you followed.

Author's Last Name, First Name. "Title of Document." Title of Longer
     Work. Date of work. Service. Day Month Year of access.
     Keyword: Word.

Stewart, Garrett. "Bloomsbury." World Book Online. 2003. America
     Online. 13 Mar. 2003. Keyword: Worldbook.

Author's Last Name, First Name. "Title of Document." Title of Longer
     Work. Date of work. Service. Day Month Year of access. Path:
     Sequence of Topics.

Hamashige, Hope. "New Pope's Election to Be Shrouded in Ritual,
     Secrecy." National Geographic News. 1 Apr. 2005. America Online.
     25 Apr. 2005. Path: Research and Learning; History; History of Pope
     Selection.

33. EMAIL

Writer's Last Name, First Name. "Subject Line." Email to the author. Day
     Month Year of message.

Smith, William. "Teaching Grammar—Some Thoughts." Email to the
     author. 19 Nov. 2004.

34. POSTING TO AN ELECTRONIC FORUM

Writer's Last Name, First Name. "Title of Posting." Online posting.
     Day Month Year of posting. Name of Forum. Day Month Year
     of access <URL>.

Schafer, Judith Kelleher. "Re: Manumission." Online posting. 27 Jan.
     2004. H-Net List on Slavery. 29 Jan. 2004 <http://h-net.msu.edu/
     cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?trx=lm&list=H-Slavery>.

35. CD-ROM

FOR A SINGLE-ISSUE CD-ROM

Title. CD-ROM. Any pertinent information about the edition, release, or
     version. Publication City: Publisher, Year of publication.

Othello. CD-ROM. Princeton: Films for the Humanities and Sciences, 1998.

If you are citing only part of the CD-ROM, name the part as you would a part of a book.

"Snow Leopard." Encarta Encyclopedia 1999. CD-ROM. Seattle: Microsoft,
     1998.

FOR A PERIODICAL ON A CD-ROM

Author's Last Name, First Name. "Title of Article." Title of Periodical.
     Date or Volume. Issue (Year): Page. Database. CD-ROM. Database
     provider. Month Year of CD-ROM.

Hwang, Suein L. "While Many Competitors See Sales Melt, Ben &
     Jerry's Scoops Out Solid Growth." Wall Street Journal. 25 May 1993:
     B1. ABI-INFORM. CD-ROM. Proquest. June 1993.