Checkpoint #7

Tweaking your sources to make a perfect Works Cited Page

MRP Works Cited MRP MLA (Basics) Noodletools Link

The Job:
Make it MLA perfect.  Noodletools and Easybib are nice, but they're flawed. Watch for words that are screaming in ALL CAPS and fix them.  Also, watch for punctuation- the first word in every title needs to be capitalized, followed by every major word (not "and", "but", or, "etc".). Specific information is described in the video below, and at the MRP Works Cited link above.

Export
From Noodletools, export the Works Cited page to a Google Doc.  

You'll notice that it:
1) titles the page "Works Cited",
2) automatically uses Times New Roman font in size 12 and
3) double-spaces the entire page. MLA, baby.

Eyeball it one last time in its finished form.

Print (before class): Bring in a hard copy and bring it to our conference for full credit.

How to tweak your Works Cited page to make it perfect

In short:

  • Check the author- This will be the first bit of the citation entry. 
    The format is lastname, firstname.  Sometimes the computer gets it right. Oftentimes, it confuses first and last names, or missed the author altogether.  If no author appears, do a quick double-check of the source.  Authors are generally listed either at the top of the article after the title, or at the end, depending on the kind of article.  You're smarter than the computer.
  • Check the title - Sometimes magazines will have their own style and put titles in ALL CAPS or not capitalize the first letter of important words.  That's fine for them, but it's not MLA format, so fix this when you see it.
  • Check the "publication" This should be italicized.