MLA guidelines Essays - Bibliography, Punctuation, Reference

1.APA-does not refer to a writing style; it is the editorial style developed by the American Psychological Association for use in books and journals 2.MLA-based on the agreement of teachers, librarians, and other teachers in the fields of language and literature on the preferred way to document research to write a paper (we use this most often) a.Developed by the Modern Language Association and has been used since 1951 b.MLA also has rules for plagiarism, evaluating the authenticity of sources, and the reliability of web-based writings 3.How to write a paper- a.Type/print text from a word-processing program on one side of standard 8.5x11 inch paper b.Double space text c.12pt font size d.margins are 1 in. e.create a header and number the pages in order in the right hand upper side of the paper f.header is inch from the top and flush with right margin g.include endnotes on a separate page before works cited page (endnotes are used to avoid long, explanatory, notes in body of text) h.notes page should be titled Notes (centered, do not bold, italicize, or underline; use Note if there is only one note) i.Notes are double-spaced and listed by consecutive Arabic numbers that are same as notation in the text j.Place a period and space after each endnote number k.Notes are indented 5 spaces; every other line in a note is flush w/ left margin 4.Using quotations in your writing a.Quoting and paraphrasing are used to refer to works of others that you wrote in your paper b.When quoting/paraphrasing, always; i.Write authors name (or title of work if no author) and page, paragraph, or line number in parenthetical citation ex. (Smith 16). The period goes on the outside of citation ii.Use full citation information for the work in your works cited list iii.All quotes/parenthetical references included must match information in list of works cited 5.Using abbreviations a.Do not use in a research paper unless in parentheses) b.Do not begin sentence with lowercase abbreviations c.Spell out whole names of places (ex. USA is United States of America) d.When writing initials of person, put a period and a single space after each letter (J. A. Smith) 6.Using capitalization a.In a title-capitalize 1st word, last word, and important words in title/subtitles b.Also for headings in your paper c.In a sentence-capitalize 1st word, 1st word after colon, and proper nouns d.Do NOT capitalize articles (a, an, the), prepositions (against, between in, of, us), conjunctions (and, but, for, nor, or, so, yet), or infinitive (to) unless beginning they begin a title or follow a colon 7.Using numbers: a.Big numbers written in arabic numerals (250, 7349) b.If you need numbers for % or to explain results, use numbers but write out numbers for everything else c.Hyphenate compound numbers (twenty-one) d.Do not begin a sentence with a number e.Do not mix numbers with written out numbers