MLA Bibliography

MLA is set to do a Keyword Search--use this option to search for terms, topics, or literary authors. Enter a word (e.g. mango), writer, (e.g. Dickens), or phrase (e.g. Red Badge of Courage) in the text box. MLA displays your results in the bottom half of the screen. The total number of results is displayed in the Search History box at the top of the screen.

If your first search retrieved too many records, or too many off topic records, then use a Boolean AND in order to retrieve only those items that include both terms (e.g. Dickens AND class). You can also AND together two or more previous searches by clicking the Combine icon at the top of the screen.

If your first search retrieved too few records, then use a Boolean OR to retrieve items that contain either or both terms (e.g. wom?n OR gender). You can also OR together two or more previous searches by clicking the Combine icon at the top of the screen.

To find common plurals and other variants, add a dollar sign ($) at the end of the root. For example, the search industr$ would retrieve the words “industry”, “industrial”, “industrious”, and so forth.

MLA displays your results in the bottom. To increase the size of the display area, click the blue Display button next to the appropriate search set in the Search History box.

Create a list of marked records by ticking the check boxes beside article records. At any point you can e-mail, print, or download these marked records by scrolling down to the Results Manager box at the bottom of the screen.

You can limit your search to English-language articles, or to articles from peer-reviewed journals. These limits can be selected before searching, and are located beneath the main search box. More limits are available by clicking on the Limit icon at the top of the screen.

MLA allows you to limit your search to particular kinds of publications (e.g. Book, Book Article, Journal Article, Dissertation Abstract) on your topic. Publication types can be found by clicking on the Limit icon at the top of the search screen.