Creating a Works Cited Page

A Works Cited page is a list of all references cited by a writer in the body of an MLA, or Modern Language Association, style essay. Creating a Works Cited page is required if an author has borrowed words or ideas from outside sources. It contains the titles, names of the authors, date, and city of each source’s publication. For example, if a writer chooses to use a paragraph written by someone else to support their own work, the writer must cite the original source of the paragraph using in-text citations, and a Works Cited page. Even if the writer changes a few of the words before including them in their paper, the writer must cite the work because they are borrowing another author’s ideas.

A Works Cited page lists all of the sources used by the author of an MLA Style paper to support their work.

Works Cited Page vs. Bibliography

In addition to MLA style, there are other styling formats for citing sources. Other formats include APA, Chicago, and Turabian styles. The lists of references in each style have different names. For example, the list of references cited by a writer in a Chicago or Turabian style paper is called a bibliography. It is quite simple to explain the definition of a bibliography, as it is virtually the same as a Works Cited page. A bibliography is a list of references cited by the author of a paper written in Chicago or Turabian style. The table below illustrates the main differences between a Works Cited page and a bibliography.

Avoiding Plagiarism

There are two steps that a writer must take to cite their sources properly. First, the writer must create an in-text citation to give the reader a brief synopsis about where they collected the information. An in-text citation includes the last name of the source’s author followed by the page number on which the information was found. Second, a writer must create a Works Cited page so that the reader may find more detailed information about that source. Including a Works Cited page in an essay is one way a writer can avoid plagiarism.

When a writer uses the words or ideas of others in their work without giving those people proper credit, that writer is committing plagiarism. Creating a Works Cited page gives proper credit where credit is due. Plagiarism is harmful to both the original content writers as well as the person who plagiarizes that content. The negative consequences of plagiarism include failing an assignment, failing a class, losing one’s job, and in some cases, legal action.

How to Make a Works Cited Page in MLA

To know how to create a Works Cited page, a writer must follow specific formatting guidelines determined by the Modern Language Association. The following sections explain the MLA style guidelines in more detail.

What Does a Works Cited Page Look Like?

What does a Works Cited page look like? A Works Cited page must always begin on a new page at the end of the essay, separate from the main body of the text. A proper Works Cited page adheres to the following formatting guidelines :

• The title, Works Cited, is centered at the top of the page;
• consistent font style and size for both the title of the page and the entries;
• one-inch page margins;
• a page header listing the writer’s last name and page number; and
• double spacing between all lines of text.

All papers written in MLA style must use these guidelines to format the Works Cited page of the paper.

Presenting Entries on Works Cited Page

MLA Style guidelines inform writers on how to set up a Works Cited page. For book references, entries should include information about the title, author, as well as the location, company, and year of the source’s publication. Each entry must be formatted according to the following guidelines:

• the author’s last name should be written first, followed by a comma and then the first name, followed by a period;
• entries are alphabetized by source author’s last name;
• the source title is italicized and followed by a period;
• the city of publication is followed by a colon, the name of the publishing company, followed by a comma, and the year of the most recent publication; and
• any additional lines after the first line of each entry must be indented by 0.5 inches, also called reverse indentation.

To illustrate, here is an example of a Works Cited entry for a print book:

Riley, Lucinda. The Seven Sisters. New York: Atria, 2015. Print.

Works Cited entries for print books may include different information than entries for other types of sources like websites, ebooks, and images.

How to Write a Works Cited Page for Other Formats

Another aspect of knowing how to create the Works Cited page is knowing how to properly cite different types of sources, for example, how to do Works Cited for a website.

For websites, e-books, and images, the formatting may be slightly different than the formatting for a print book. The table below illustrates how these types of sources may be properly formatted according to MLA style.

Lesson Summary

A Works Cited page is a list of all references cited by a writer in the body of an MLA style essay. Including a Works Cited page is required if an author has borrowed words or ideas from any other sources. If a writer does not give proper credit to the sources that they used to support their ideas, the writer is committing plagiarism.

To properly cite a source, a writer must include both in-text citations as well as a Works Cited page. A Works Cited page must always begin on a new page at the end of the essay, separate from the main body of the text. The MLA style formatting guidelines require:

• the title Works Cited is centered at the top of the page;
• the same font style and size for both the title and text;
• double spacing between all lines of text;
• reverse indentation of the second and following lines of an entry; and
• entries alphabetized by author’s last name.

Individual entries on a Work Cited page may be cited slightly differently according to which type of source they are. For example, an entry for printed books should include the city of publication, while the entry for an e-book should not. Entries for both websites and online images should include the URL where the source was found, but only entries for images should include the date on which the sources were accessed.