Writing Instruction Tutorial

Research

Documentation Format Examples

Books

MLA Format

Withey, Lynne. Dearest Friend: A Life of Abigail Adams. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1981.

Note: Last name of the author, followed by first name. Title of book: and subtitle underlined. Place of publication: Publishing Co., year of publication.

MLA style now accepts italics. Double spacing is acceptable.

APA format

Withey, L. (1981). Dearest friend: A life of Abigail Adams. New York: Simon and Schuster.

Note: Last name of the author, followed by initials and up to six authors are treated this way and after six use abbreviation et al. (Year of publication). Title of work: Capital letter also for subtitle in italics. Location always includes the city but also includes the state if the city is unfamiliar or if the city could be confused with one in another state. Publisher.

Author, A. A. (Year of publication). Title of work: Capital letter also for subtitle. Location: Publisher.

Chicago Format

Withey, Lynne. Dearest Friend: A Life of Abigail Adams. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1981.

Note: Last name of author, first name of author. Title in italics. Place of publication: Name of publisher, year of publication.

Single space format is preferred.

Observe the differences in style in the same work for all three examples.

Articles in Periodicals, Scholarly Journals, and Newspapers

Periodicals and newspapers are popular research sources. Journal articles are important tools for research in all fields. The basic information required for citation format includes the following:

  1. Author's name
  2. Title of the article
  3. Title of the periodical, scholarly journal or newspaper in italics or underlined
  4. Date
  5. Page numbers

For journal articles, volume and issue numbers must be included.

First line of citation is flush with the margin, and subsequent lines are indented five spaces for Works Cited (MLA), References (APA), and Bibliography (Chicago).

Periodicals

MLA Format

Burke, James R. "John Adams, David McCullough and History and Science." New Republic Aug 2005: 17+

Note: The order of information, punctuation and capitalization that is used for MLA format with periodicals. Periods follow the author's full name with last name, comma, first name and middle initial. The title of the article is in quotation marks with key words capitalized and a period inside the quotation marks. The title of the periodical is in italics followed by the date of publication, which includes the month abbreviated followed by the year. There is no punctuation between the periodical title and the month, but a colon separates the date from the page number(s).

APA Format

Burke, James R. (2005, August). John Adams, David McCullough and history and science. New Republic, 33, 17-29.

Note: Differences occur in format concerning order of information, capitalization and punctuation. The last name of the author and initials are used. Next, the date of publication is in parentheses and a comma separates the year from the month. The title of the article follows with no quotations marks, and only the first word of the title and proper names are capitalized. The title of the periodical is capitalized and italicized followed by the volume number also in italics, comma and inclusive page numbers.

Chicago Format

Burke, James R. "John Adams, David McCullough and History and Science." New Republic. August 2005, 17-29.

Note: Differences occur among all three formats. For Chicago style, use the last name of the author, followed by first name and middle initial. Title of the article is in quotation marks with key words capitalized, followed by a period inside the quotation marks. Title of the periodical is italicized followed by a comma separating it from the month, not abbreviated, and the year. No punctuation separates the month from the year, but a comma follows the year to separate the date from the inclusive pages with a period at the end.