Now located in the Wilkens Library Learning Commons on the first floor, the Reading and Writing Resource Center is staffed by Learning Specialists and Peer Tutors and offers drop-in tutoring for students looking for assistance in their writing and reading assignments as well as with MLA, APA and Chicago forms of documentation.
Now located in the Wilkens Library Learning Commons on the first floor, the Tutoring Center offers In-Person and Zoom appointments for one-on-one support in academic subjects across the curriculum, including writing support!
Brainfuse offers live help with writing (and other subjects!). It also has a writing lab. You can upload your paper and receive feedback within 24 hours.
The Wilkens Library provides a citation tool (NoodleTools) at no cost to you! NoodleTools supports MLA, APA, and Chicago styles at this time. You can use the tool to create your bibliographies/works cited page as well as plan and organize your papers.
For more information check out our NoodleTools page.
MLA (Modern Language Association) style is a widely used citation and formatting style primarily employed in the humanities, including literature, languages, arts, and related disciplines. It provides guidelines for writers and researchers to structure their academic papers and cite sources properly.
Here's a brief explanation of MLA style:
Formatting: MLA style typically requires double-spaced text with a legible font (e.g., Times New Roman) and 12-point font size. The text should be aligned to the left margin, and there should be a one-inch margin on all sides of the page.
In-text citations: In MLA style, in-text citations are used to acknowledge sources within the text of your paper. They usually consist of the author's last name and the page number where the information was found, enclosed in parentheses. For example: (Smith 45).
Works Cited page: At the end of your paper, you should include a "Works Cited" page that lists all the sources you cited in your work. The entries are arranged alphabetically by the author's last name. The specific format for each type of source (e.g., book, article, website) follows a standard pattern, including elements such as author's name, title, publication date, and publication medium.
The basic format for an MLA Works Cited entry varies depending on the type of source being cited (e.g., book, article, website).
Author's name: The author's full name (last name, first name).
Title of the source: The title of the book, article, website, or other material being cited. It should be in italics for longer works (e.g., books) and in quotation marks for shorter works (e.g., articles, poems, web pages).
Title of the container (if applicable): For sources that are part of a larger container (e.g., articles within journals, chapters within books), include the title of the container in italics after the title of the source.
Publisher: The name of the publisher, followed by a comma.
Publication date: The year of publication.
Location: For print sources, include the page numbers of the specific material cited (e.g., page range for articles, page numbers for book chapters). For online sources, include the URL or DOI (Digital Object Identifier) for web pages, articles, or online documents.
Adapted from a ChatGPT conversation: OpenAI ChatGPT. "MLA Citations." ChatGPT, 13 July 2023.
There are thousands of resources available online to help with creating your MLA citations and formatting your papers. Below are some of the resources recommended by Wilkens Library staff.
MLA Handbook by 
A Pocket Style Manual by