MLA Dissertation Writing Tutorial: How To Cite Your Sources

The MLA citation format is one of the most commonly used systems especially when you advance into the later stages of learning. There are so many students who have gotten accustomed to styles such as APA that they never really take their time to learn the MLA style until they are mandated to do so. This makes their work harder, and leaves them prone to a lot of mistakes in the process. What can you do to get out of this problem? Well, you need to take time and learn about the MLA writing style and then from there you can proceed to working on your paper accordingly.

With that in mind, the following are some tips that will come in handy for you when working on this task:

The use of URLs

When you are citing your paper, you no longer need to use URLs in your citations. The reason why this rule was passed is because a lot of websites are no longer static these days. You can access a website today and tomorrow someone purchases it and changes the links, which can make the links you used irrelevant. Apart from that, the domain might cease to exist for different reasons, or expire, leaving your links unusable.

Abbreviations for electronic sources

There are special abbreviations that are used for electronic sources when you are working on any assignment. In the event for example, that you cannot get the names of the publisher or the date of publication, you can use n.p. and n.d. to abbreviate this accordingly.

Citing electronic sources

Citations for electronic sources are perhaps the most controversial in this style, because there is so much that happens which elicits different instructions from different perspectives of teachers. To make your work easier, it will be best for you to gather as much information as you can about some of the sources that you have.

Some of the information that you will need to get include the following:

• The names of the author
• The names of the editor (if you can get them)
• The publication medium
• The date when you had access to the content you are citing
• Note down the page numbers if there are any available
• Provide as much information about the publisher as you can, such as their name and the date of publication
• Get any notes on the version, revision or editions of the content