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MLA Style for Communications

Communications at TRU may include marketing and promotional text in print or on the TRU website, program and service information, internal announcements, news stories, events listings and other non-scholarly written material for community or public consumption. When such communications mention publications such as newspapers, magazines, or academic journals, works of art or music, novels, films or other works, TRU Style follows the Modern Language Association (MLA) Handbook style in citing those works, as evidenced in this guide.

This page provides a few examples of commonly used in-text citations and works cited for reference; for a comprehensive manual, please consult the MLA Handbook, Eighth Edition. The TRU Library also has an online MLA Guide.

Italics and quotation marks in title

Italicize titles of books, plays, poems that are published as a book, pamphlets, periodicals (newspapers, magazines, and journals), websites, online databases, movies, television and radio broadcast series, musical albums, dance performances, long musical compositions (e.g. operas), artwork, and all ships, aircraft, and spacecraft.

The new issue of Bridges Magazine was mentioned on CFJC Midday.

Put quotation marks around titles of articles and essays, stories and poems (unless published as a book), book chapters, pages on a website, a television episode or individual radio broadcast, short musical compositions (e.g. a song), and all unpublished work (e.g. lectures or speeches).

“The Way We Were” features TRU’s growth over the past four decades.

Italicizing uncommon and foreign words

Italicize words in other languages (such as Latin) and words unfamiliar to your audience.

The European fire ant (Myrmica rubra) is invasive, aggressive and prolific.
The Secwepemctsin language is spoken locally in the Thompson-Nicola region.
Electroencephalography is a recording of electrical activity within brain neurons used to diagnose epilepsy.

See Punctuation and spelling and Word list.

Citing publications for public communications

For documents distributed to the TRU or larger community (the President’s Report being a frequent example) follow MLA style for works cited when listing recent publications. List the entries in alphabetical order by surname. For each entry give the full names of all authors as listed in the journal or on the book’s cover. Publications appearing in online journals often lack pagination. Use "n. pag." to indicate no page numbering available.

Categories from the President’s Report are used for the examples below. See the latest edition of the MLA Handbook for many more types of citations. For how to capitalize titles of works, see Capitalization.

Presentation citations

Last name, first name and first name last name for those following. Title of presentation in quotation marks, ending with a period. Conference/event name, complete conference/event dates (in day month year format: 21-23 Sept. 2016), venue, and add the city only if not included in the venue name. For three or more presenters/authors, use "et al" after the first author.

Blackstock, Sheila. "The Impacts of Organizational Factors on Horizontal Bullying and Turnover Intentions in the Nursing Workplace." Keynote Presentation. 8th Cardiovascular Nursing and Nurse Practitioners Meeting, 8-9 Aug. 2016, Embassy Suites by Hilton Las Vegas.

Dumouchel, Lian, and Kyra Garson. "Engaging Faculty as Agents of Change for Internationalization." 2016 Summer Seminar, BC Council for International Education, 19-22 June 2016, Fairmont Empress Hotel, Victoria.

Ng, Alex et al. "Doing Good - Good for Business? The Investment Performance of Corporate Members of the United Nations Global Compact." Administrative Sciences Association of Canada Conference, 3-4 June 2016, MacEwan University, Edmonton.

Journal citations

Last name, first name and first name last name for those following. Title of journal article in quotation marks, ending with a period. Name of journal in italics, vol. #, year, page numbers as pp. ##-##. If the entry is in an online journal, include the URL or DOI. For President's Reports, we embed the URL in the title of the article.

Dagne, Tesh W. "The Narrowing Transatlantic Divide: Geographical Indications in Canada’s Trade Agreements." European Review of Intellectual Property Law, vol. 10, 2016, pp. 598-609.

McDonald, Blair. “Friday Essay: The Quest for Legacy – How Pop Music Is Embracing High Art.” The Conversation, US ed., 5 May 2016.

Smith, Brenda, and Leva Lee. "Librarians and OER: Cultivating a Community of Practice to Be More Effective Advocates." Journal of Library and Information Services in Distance Learning, 3 Oct. 2016, pp. 1-17. 

Chapter citations

Last name, first name and first name last name for those following. Title of chapter in quotation marks, ending with a period. Book title in italics, edited by full name(s), publisher, year of publication, page numbers as pp. ##-##.

Hull, J. S. "The French Shore Historical Society: Creating New Tourism Experiences for Visitors." The Social Side of Tourism, edited by M. Lueck et al, Martin Meidenbauer, 2015, pp. 59-70.

Stokes, Jackie. “Child Neglect Decision Making: Missed Opportunities.” Child Maltreatment: Emerging Issues in Practice, Care and Prevention, edited by Angelo P. Giardino, Nova Science, 2016, pp. 57-84.

Book citations

Last name, first name and first name last name for those following. Book title in italics, ending with a period. Publisher, date of publication.

Hofmann, Karen. After Alice. NeWest Press, 2014.

Robertson, Jeanette, and Grant Larson, editors. Disability and Social Change: A Progressive Canadian Approach. Fernwood Publishing, 2016.

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