Mythlore Style Sheet
Last Updated: September 2006
MLA Style
All in-text citations and your works cited list should conform to MLA style. See the latest MLA Handbook for complete details.
- Use parenthetical in-text citations rather than footnote or endnote citations:
“It needs but one for to breed a war” (Tolkien, Return of the King 264), said Éowyn.
- Abbreviations or short titles are acceptable in in-text citations but should in most cases be spelled out the first time used:
(Lewis, The Horse and His Boy [HB] 32)
(Tolkien, “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics” [“Monsters”])
- See the MLA Handbook for further guidance on shortening subsequent in-text citations.
Works Cited/Bibliography
In MLA style, short citations in the text refer the reader to a bibliography at the end of the work. Any full citations in your text should be replaced with abbreviated citations and moved to your bibliography.
- Use MLA format (with year at the end rather than after the author) for works cited list:
Tolkien, J.R.R. The Return of the King. New York: DelRey, 1983.
Gaarden, Bonnie. “‘The Golden Key’: A Double Reading.” Mythlore 24.3/4 (Winter/Spring 2006): 35-52.
Footnotes
Use footnotes in preference to endnotes. Use Arabic numerals. Citations within footnotes should also be in MLA format, and cited materials should appear in your bibliography.
Additional Mythlore Style Points
- Use US English spelling and punctuation except when quoting original text that uses other spelling and punctuation styles.
- Titles should be italicized, not underlined.
- Commas and periods generally go inside quotes; colons and semicolons outside. All go after parentheses in most cases. Use “curly” quotes, not "straight" quotes.
“Up Eorlingas! Fear no darkness,” he shouted. This was Théoden’s “battle-cry”; it struck fear into the Southrons (RotK 126).
- Parentheses nested inside parentheses should be replaced with brackets.
Tolkien enjoyed Haggard (Lewis did as well [“Haggard” 97]).
- When you replace material deleted from a quotation with ellipses, enclose the ellipses in brackets. Ellipses in the original should be spaced out.
“Why, it’s like a young cathedral. […] How big is your parish, then?” (Sayers, Nine Tailors 7).
“[D]ear me! have you any luggage? . . . Ah! down at Frog’s Bridge?” (Sayers 6).
- Use the serial comma after the next-to-last item in a series:
Tolkien, Lewis, and Williams
Dickens, Austen, or Twain
- For the possessive of a name ending in s, add ’s.
Lewis’s, Williams’s, James’s
- Use the em-dash with no spaces to indicate a dash between words.
Chesterton—who enjoyed his pint—wouldn’t begrudge a drink […]
- Also use the em-dash to indicate additional works by the same author in the works cited:
Tolkien, J.R.R. Farmer Giles of Ham.
—. Leaf by Niggle.
Citing Web Sites
- In the text, use black text and remove underlining.
http://www.mythsoc.org
- In the works cited, follow MLA guidelines, which call for <> around the URL.
<http://www.mythsoc.org>
Please give all your quotations and your works cited another check for accuracy. It can be surprising how many transcription errors you see after being away from a paper for a while!
Janet Brennan Croft
Editor of Mythlore
mythlore@mythsoc.org