MLA Citation Quiz
Questions: 16 · 10 minutes
1. A source has three authors, with Mei Chen listed first. How should an MLA parenthetical citation identify the authors when citing page 31?
List the surnames of all three authors before the page number.
Give Chen’s surname followed by the words “and others” and the page number.
Give Chen’s surname, insert a comma, and then add “et al.” and another comma before the page number.
Give Chen’s surname followed by “et al.” and the page number: (Chen et al. 31).
2. Your Works Cited page includes two books by Dana Morris: River Memory and Tidal Cities. You cite page 73 of Tidal Cities without naming Morris in the sentence. Which citation is clearest?
(Tidal Cities, p. 73)
(Morris 73)
(Morris 2019, 73)
(Morris, Tidal Cities 73)
3. An online article has no named author and no page numbers. Its title is “Urban Gardens and Heat.” Which parenthetical citation best follows MLA style?
(“Urban Gardens”)
(“Urban Gardens and Heat,” n.p.)
(Urban Gardens 1)
(Anonymous)
4. You paraphrase an idea from page 88 of a book by Sofia Diaz without naming Diaz in your sentence. Which citation is appropriate?
(88)
No citation is needed because the wording was changed.
(Diaz, 2020, p. 88)
(Diaz 88)
5. You read a quotation by Alvarez only as it appears in a book by Harris on page 112. Which citation signals that you used an indirect source?
(Alvarez in Harris 112)
(Alvarez qtd. 112)
(qtd. in Harris 112)
(Harris citing Alvarez, p. 112)
6. How should the titles in a Works Cited entry for Hana Kim’s journal article “Restoring Urban Wetlands,” published in Coastal Studies, normally be styled?
Italicize both the article title and the journal title.
Italicize the article title and put the journal title in quotation marks.
Put the article title in quotation marks and italicize the journal title.
Put both the article title and the journal title in quotation marks.
7. A scholarly article supplies the DOI 10.1234/example.567. Which form is appropriate in an MLA Works Cited entry?
DOI: 10.1234/example.567.
Retrieved from DOI number 10.1234/example.567.
https://doi.org/10.1234/example.567.
Article identifier: 10.1234/example.567.
8. You quote words from page 27 of a book by Lena Lee. Where should the MLA parenthetical citation appear?
Place Lee’s surname and the page number in a footnote after the sentence.
Place (Lee 27) after the closing quotation mark and before the sentence’s final period.
Place the sentence’s final period inside the quotation marks, followed by (Lee 27).
Place (Lee, p. 27) immediately before the quoted words.
9. A book lists Maya Rivera first and Jonah Ellis second. How should the author portion usually begin on the Works Cited page?
Rivera, Maya, and Jonah Ellis.
Rivera, Maya, and Ellis, Jonah.
Rivera, Maya, et al.
Rivera, Maya, & Ellis, Jonah.
10. Your sentence begins, “Owens argues that community archives preserve local memory.” The idea appears on page 64. How should you cite it?
Repeat the author’s surname and add the page number in parentheses.
Add only (64) before the final period because Owens is already named in the sentence.
Add the publication year and page number in parentheses.
Add a footnote containing the author’s full name and page number.
11. A prose quotation would occupy more than four lines in your paper. How should it generally be formatted in MLA style?
Keep it in the paragraph, add quotation marks, and italicize the quotation.
Place it in a footnote so it does not interrupt the paragraph.
Begin it on a new line, indent the entire quotation half an inch from the left margin, and omit quotation marks.
Center it as a separate paragraph and reduce the font size.
12. What normally determines the alphabetical placement of an entry with a named author on an MLA Works Cited page?
The source’s publication date
The order in which the source first appears in the paper
The title of the source’s container
The author’s surname
13. Which description matches standard MLA formatting for the Works Cited page heading?
Use the left-aligned, bold heading “Bibliography” and restart numbering at page 1.
Use the centered, plain-text heading “Works Cited” and continue the paper’s page numbering.
Use the centered, underlined heading “References” without a page number.
Use the right-aligned heading “Sources” in quotation marks.
14. Which sources normally belong on an MLA Works Cited page?
Sources directly cited in the paper, including those quoted or paraphrased
Only sources quoted word for word in the paper
Only books and peer-reviewed journal articles
Every source encountered while researching, whether used or not
15. What indentation should entries on an MLA Works Cited page use?
A first-line indent: the first line is indented, and later lines begin at the margin
A hanging indent: the first line begins at the margin, and later lines are indented
No indentation, provided that a blank line separates each entry
An equal one-inch indent applied to every line of every entry
16. In MLA terminology, what is a “container” when describing a source?
A larger work that holds the source, such as a journal containing an article
The citation management program used to create the entry
The physical or digital folder in which research notes are stored
The parentheses that contain an author and page number