NVOL Digital Learning Commons: MLA Style Referencing

There are free online tools that can help you to generate citations and a Works Cited page in MLA style.

These tools are only as good as the person using them: it is still your responsibility to check that you have the correct information for your sources of information and that it has been correctly formatted.

If you use paid online databases (e.g. Canada in Context) or encyclopedias (e.g. World Book) for locating information for your projects, you will be provided with the citation for each source you use. This can save you a lot of time and will provide you with an accurate citation.

These citations are often located at the end of the article and would look like this:

• Ricou, Laurie R. "Atwood, Margaret." World Book Advanced, World Book, 2020, www.worldbookonline.com/advanced/article?id=ar037230. Accessed 27 Feb. 2020.

• "Two-thirds of Indigenous people don't feel respected in Canada, according to pre-election survey." The Canadian Broadcasting   Corporation, 1 July 2019. Gale In Context: Canada, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A591752845/CIC?u=39sbo&sid=CIC& xid=05568d85. Accessed 27 Feb. 2020.

*Note that you may need to reformat as copying and pasting sometimes removes the correct layout: this is shown in both the examples above where the indents have not been made for the second and third lines of the citation.

You can often collect your research within the database and then create a works cited page to export, or you may be able to export it to a different tool.

Access to this type of database and encyclopedia are available through your home school and NVDLS; if you have a public library card, you can often access them through the local public library website too once you are logged in.