Comments on: How to cite a short story in MLA

By: Jack Caulfield

Jack Caulfield — Thu, 08 Sep 2022 08:10:35 +0000

Hi Susan,

MLA officially recommends only using locators that are actually marked in the text, so according to them you’d only use paragraph numbers when the paragraphs are officially numbered in the text. That said, I don’t see why you can’t depart from that rule for your purposes and just tell your students to use them in this case. MLA recommends the abbreviation “par.” (or “pars.” for multiple paragraphs).

By: Susan Gray

Susan Gray — Tue, 06 Sep 2022 20:45:16 +0000

I’m teaching Jack London’s The Call of the Wild, and I’m struggling with in text citations because there are several different editions of the story being used in my class of 20 kids. In order to verify my students’ work, I have assigned them to number the paragraphs. I’d like to stick with MLA, but I can’t find any rules for paragraph numbers. What do you suggest? For example: In his old life, Buck would not have considered stealing from his master, the judge, but in his new life as a sled dog in the wilderness, “he stole secretly and cunningly” (ch. 2, para. 23).

By: Jack Caulfield

Jack Caulfield — Thu, 05 May 2022 07:45:28 +0000

In reply to Katharina.

Hi Katharina,

MLA recommends using the date of the publication you read. So you would use the year of the recent publication, not the original date, in both your Works Cited entry and your in-text citation. If you think it’s important, you can mention the original publication date in your text.

By: Katharina

Katharina — Wed, 04 May 2022 15:08:50 +0000

How do I cite a classic short story, that then was published by a big publisher in the recent years? Do I put one of the years in brackets? How does in text referencing work?

By: Jack Caulfield

Jack Caulfield — Mon, 25 Oct 2021 13:06:08 +0000

In reply to Linda Spencer.

Hi Linda,

No, it’s usually sufficient to just cite the whole book when you discuss more than one story from it in the course of your text. You would still likely want to name the individual story you’re referring to in each case within the text though, but this could be separate from the citation itself.

By: Linda Spencer

Linda Spencer — Fri, 22 Oct 2021 20:55:40 +0000

If you cite more than one short story from a collected edition, all of the same author, without an editor listed, do you list each short story separately in the “Works Cited”? Or do you only have to list the book itself once?

By: Jack Caulfield

Jack Caulfield — Mon, 13 Sep 2021 10:01:51 +0000

In reply to Nicole Morais.

Hi Nicole,

In the case of the story you link to, since there are no page numbers or other locators (such as paragraph numbers or line numbers), MLA advises you to just leave out the locator part of your in-text citations. So when you need a citation, you can just use the author’s name alone, i.e. (Gilb).

By: Nicole Morais

Nicole Morais — Fri, 10 Sep 2021 01:49:38 +0000

How do you quote details from an online short story that does not have page numbers? https://genius.com/Dagoberto-gilb-love-in-la-annotated

By: Jack Caulfield

Jack Caulfield — Thu, 22 Apr 2021 13:00:45 +0000

In reply to Paris.

Hi Paris,

That’s the date the story was published on the site.

It’s usually only necessary to include the date you accessed the site if there’s no publication date listed.

By: Jack Caulfield

Jack Caulfield — Thu, 22 Apr 2021 12:36:10 +0000

In reply to Abigail Morton.

Hi Abigail,

A PDF is usually a scan of the story from some sort of print source. If you can figure out from the PDF what kind of source it’s from, then follow the relevant format, adding “PDF file.” at the end to clarify if you like. If you’re not sure or not enough information is provided, then yes, I would recommend going for the website format (again optionally adding “PDF file.” at the end). You can see more tips about citing PDFs here.