Painting, Sculpture, or Photograph

To cite a painting or sculpture, state the artist's name first. Underline the title. Name the institution that houses the work (such as a museum) or who owns it and follow the name by a comma and the city. If you use a photograph of a painting or sculpture, also include the complete publication information for the source in which the photograph appears, including the page, slide, figure, or plate number, whichever is relevant. If you wish to indicate when a work of art was created, add the date immediately after the title. Cite a photograph in a museum or collection as you would a painting or sculpture. 

Example: Rembrandt van Rijn. Aristotle Contemplating the Bust of Homer. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Artist's last name, first name. Title of artwork. Museum or owner, city.

Example of photograph of painting or sculpture: Cassatt, Mary. Mother and Child. Wichita Art Museum. American Painting: 1560-1913. By John Pearce. New York: McGraw, 1964. 274.

Artist's last name, first name. Title of artwork. Museum or owner, city. Book title. By author's first name, last name. City of publication: publisher, year of publication. Page/figure or plate number.

Misc. Print & Nonprint Sources (including Primary Sources)

(See above for interview, music, video/film, or cartoon primary sources.) MLA citation styles are available for: t.v. and radio programs; sound recordings; film/video recordings; a performance; a musical composition; a painting, sculpture, or photograph; an interview; a map or chart; a cartoon; an advertisement; a lecture, a speech, an address or a reading; a manuscript or typescript; a letter or memo; and a legal source. Each is unique. Refer to a print copy of the MLA Handbook for details. The handbook is available in the Ahmanson Library or from your English teacher. Generally speaking, however, you need to add the following information to your bibliographical example:

Author of original piece, "Title of Original Piece." Translator of the piece (if relevant). Year the original piece was written. Rest of citation for source using normal MLA citation. Page number if from print source.

Example of a primary source from a book: (doublespace & hanging indent, of course!)
Sieyes, Emmanuel Joseph. "What is the Third Estate?" 1789. Sherman, Dennis, ed. Western Civilization: Sources, Images, and Interpretations.  Boston: McGraw Hill, 2000. 162-163.

Internet Sources

Note: "Date Accessed" means the date you viewed the source.

Primary Source from a Web Site

(See above for additional notes on primary sources. Generally speaking, however, you need to add the following information to your bibliographical example: Author of original piece, "Title of Original Piece." Translator of the piece (if relevant). Year the original piece was written. Rest of citation for source using normal MLA citation. Page number if from print source.  
Example (doublespace & hanging indent, of course!)
Robespierre, Maximilien. "The Cult of the Supreme Being." 1794. "Modern World History Sourcebook: Maximilien Robespierre: The Cult of the Supreme Being." Modern World History Sourcebook. 11 December 2002 <http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/robespierre-supreme.html>.

Internet Text Sources

Author’s last name, first name. "Title of Page Section." Title of Complete Site. Accessed date month year <URL>.

Witcombe, Christopher. "Prehistoric Art: General." Art History Resources on the Web. 27 September 2005 <http://witcombe.sbc.edu/ARTHLinks.html>.

Internet Pictures, Images, Photograph, Sculpture, Painting and/or Graphics

Artist’s last name, first name. Title of Art Work. Year created. Name of owner (usually a museum), city. Title of Complete Site. Accessed date month year <URL>.

Example: Delacroix, Eugene. Death of Ophelia. 1853. Louvre, Paris. Web Gallery of Art. 24 December 2005 <http://www.wga.hu/welcome.html>.

Example: book_page_flip_lg_nwn. 2001. Animation Factory. 14 February 2005 <http://www.animationfactory.com/animations/school/books/11596b/>.

Online Newspapers & Magazines
(see below for articles from the library's online subscription databases such as eLibrary)

Author’s last name, first name. "Article Title." Name of newspaper. Edition, section: date of publication, page. Accessed date month year <URL>.

Online Encyclopedia

Author's last name, first name. "Article Name." Name of encyclopedia. Edition. Accessed date month year <URL>.

(Remember that Britannica Online provides you with a complete citation. Simply copy and paste it into your bibliography. Make sure it is the MLA style citation and not another citation style.)

Note: if the database only provides the starting page number of an article's original print publication, give the number followed by a hyphen, a space, and a period: "192- ."

Author’s last name, first name. "Article Title." Original print source of article. Date of original source: page numbers.  Database Name. Name and city & state of library. Accessed date month year <URL of the database's search page>.

Example: Shepard, Paul. "Bond Issue Passes." Newsweek. July 17, 2000:  3-4. eLibrary. Ahmanson Library, North Hollywood, CA. 20 June 2005 <http://elibrary.bigchalk.com/libweb/curriculum/do/search>.

Online Book

Author's last name, first name. Title of work. Publication information for the original print version, if given in the source (e.g., city of publication, name of publisher, year of publication). Electronic publication information (e.g., title of the Internet site (underlined), editor of site, date of electronic publication, anme of any sponsoring institution or organization). Date of access and URL for the book.

Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. Ed. Henry Churchyard. 1996. Jane Austin Information Page. 6 September 2002 <http://www.pemberley.com/janeinfo/pridprej.html>.

Web Site for an Academic Course or Department

Last name, first name of teacher. Title of course. Title of page. Dates of the course. Name of the Department, name of school. Date month year accessed <URL>.

Smith, Jane. Underwater Basketweaving. Course home page. Sept. 2004-June 2005. Department of Art, University of Who Cares. 1 April 2004 <http: www.whocares.edu/~smithj/default.html>.

Formatting Hints

Important Note: The web site citations above are NOT indented correctly!  All MLA citations should be formatted with the first line of an entry flush left and successive lines indented 1/2 ". Use a hanging indent (in Word, go to Format, paragraph. Under "Indentation", open the "special" more options area and select hanging). Don't forget to double space and alphabetize!

• Double-space the entire works cited list, both between adn within entries. Double-space between the title and the first entry.
• Begin the first line of an entry flush left and indent successive lines ½". (If you are using "Microsoft Word", the hanging indent function under format paragraph, indent and spacing, will easily do this for you.)
• List entries in alphabetical order according to the first word in the citation. Drop any initial article (e.g. "A", "The", "An").
• If no author is given, start the citation with the title.
• Separate author, title, and publication information with a period followed by one space.
• Paginate the bibliography as a continuation of your text.

Parenthetical Documentation

• Although the list of works cited appears at the end of your paper, you need to draft the works cited list in advance so that you will know what information to give in parenthetical references as you write.
• Key brief parenthetical citations in your text to your alphabetical list of works cited.
• References in the text must clearly point to specific sources in the list of works cited.
• Identify the location of the borrowed information as specifically as possible. Give the relevant page number(s) in the parenthetical reference.
• Keep parenthetical references as brief and as few as clarity and accuracy permit.
• Place the parenthetical reference where a pause would naturally occur (preferably at the end of a sentence), as near as possible to the material documented.
• When your works cited lists only one work by an author, you give only the author's last name and page number(s) in the parenthetical citation: (Patterson 193). 
• If more than one work by an author is in the list of works cited, a shortened version of the title is also included in the parenthetical documentation.
• Internet sources also follow these rules. Therefore, the URL is NOT used in the parenthetical citation. Instead, you will use the first "thing" in your works cited list e.g. the author's name or the title of the web page (not of the site) etc.
• If the author's name is mentioned in the text of your work, only the page number appears in the citation.

Annotated List of Works Cited

• An annotated bibliography, also called Annotated List of Works Cited, contains descriptive or evaluative comments on the sources.
  Example:
  Thompson, Susan. The Folktale. New York: Dryden, 1946. A comprehensive survey of the most popular folktales, including their histories and their uses in literary works.
• All the guidelines for parenthetical documentation apply.

Works Cited Checklist

• Are your sources in alphabetical order?
• You didn't number your sources or using bullets, dashes, etc., right?
• Is the whole page double-spaced?
• Did you use a hanging indent?
• Do you have a period at the end of each citation?
• Did you capitalize all titles and names?
• Did you underline all book titles and put quotes around or italicize articles or poems?
• Did you include the date accessed for Internet sources? Is it written out in international format i.e. 25 February 2005?
• Did you remember to include citations for the images used in your paper?
• Did you use Times New Roman 12 point font?
• Did you remove any live hyperlinks?

Revised June 2005 (as)
MLA Sixth Edition (2003)

Gibaldi, Joseph. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers (6th ed). New York: The Modern Language Association of America, 2003.

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