MLA Style  

MLA publishes a style book called the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers.  This manual is the standard used for most Humanities disciplines.  

All examples provided in this guide are based on the official style guidelines outlined in the MLA Handbook:

  MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers 7th Edition

Significant updates were made to MLA style guidelines effective April, 2009. They are:

• Use italics, not underlining
• URLs are unnecessary (but they may be added if you think the information is helpful)
• Continuous pagination doesn't matter - instead, always include volume and issue when citing a scholarly journal article
• Add the medium (format) of the publication being cited (e.g. "Print" or "Web")
• Abbreviations will be used to acknowledge missing details within citations for online publications ("n.d." for no date, "N.p." for no publisher, "n. pag." for no pagination, "n.p." for no place of publication)

Adapted from: OWL at Purdue University.  

Changes in the 7th Edition