If your college instructor wants you to cite every fact or opinion you find in an outside source, how do you make room for your own opinion? Paraphrase, quote selectively, and avoid summary. –Dennis G. Jerz (Jerz’s Literacy Weblog)
Choose a form, fill it out, and push the button… you will get an individual entry for a “Works Cited” page, which you may then copy and paste into your word processor. My “BibBuilder” is more like a guide than a full-fledged utility, but you may nevertheless find it helpful.
Find everything you need to know about formatting a paper, name, number, quotations, works cited, and more in MLA format!
This guide to formatting MLA style papers is incredibly detailed and helpful! It’s great to have step-by-step instructions for setting up everything from margins to citations correctly. Thanks for sharing—this will definitely make writing research papers in MLA format much easier!
The information was very helpful
Pingback: Academic Argument: an evidence-based defense of a non-obvious position on a complex issue. | Jerz's Literacy Weblog (est. 1999)
Thanks for sharing such an informative post with us.
fantastic information
Thanks for info!
hello i am nate sedmack i am here to kill all the furries for what they did to gavin born
I’m learning more writing a paper
it was very informational and helped me a lot
Pingback: Flipped Classes: Omit Housekeeping Mechanics from Recorded Lectures to Lengthen Their Shelf-life | Jerz's Literacy Weblog
Curious how you would Cite this webpage? haha…
awesome reminders
what about if when your using a quote and there is no name just anonomus
Honestly, I’d say find another way to make your point. An anonymous saying like “A stitch in time saves nine” won’t help you demonstrate your ability to write the kind of scholarly paper that MLA is designed for. Certainly investigate the quote to find out whether it maybe comes from Shakespeare or some other source that you can quote. I might identify the example I used as “English proverb,” but since I won’t be marking your paper, you really should check with your instructor.
This article..thing is the only reason I am passing my online college class. Especially the citation builder. Thank you!
I would Like You To Give Simple Instructions Not Complicated Ones , and Include also how much Papers Should be worked on.
Khalid, if there is any particular detail you are confused about, please let me know what question you have and perhaps I can help. There is no specific answer to how much a paper should be worked on. It depends on what grade you want to earn, how much time you have, whether your instructor is willing to meet with you before the due date, whether your instructor will give you the chance to revise your work, and many other factors.
hahahah xD me too same
How do I cite a photo that I found online?
Is it a historical photograph or a photograph published in a book that someone scanned and posted on line, is it a photograph of something like a sculpture? Is your paper focused on the work of the photographer, the makeup artist who prepared the model, the digital image enhancer who altered the image, the model? There is no single correct way to cite a photograph, because there are many different reasons to cite a photograph. Your instructor would be able to give you more specific advice. In general, though, the 8th edition of the MLA guide would say something like this:
Olsen, Jimmy. “Superman Rescues Boy Scouts from Lava Pit.” Photograph. The Daily Planet . July 22, 1956.
If you found the picture on a blog or a Flickr gallery, adjust the citation accordingly. If you found the image as the result of a Google search for something, you might very well end up finding a page that re-uses someone else’s picture without appropriately giving credit. There are many variables. Talk to your instructor, who will be the one grading your work, and will therefore be the right person to advise you on what to do.
is the text or what you wrote supposed to be centered in the page or to the left margin
Left margin.
Pingback: New Graphic for MLA Style Paper Handout | Jerz's Literacy Weblog
cool it was helpful
Pingback: Business Question of the day! Thursday, March 10, 2016 | thebuzinessbreakdown
I think you should include online resource citation instructions
Click on “Citing” at the top of the page. One of the options on the other end of that link is how to cite a web page.
Pingback: How To Put Double Space On Microsoft Works – Information
which writing style (MLA, APA) have more importance for students of social sciences, media sciences and business?
It depends on the instructor or editor who’s calling the shots. http://subjectguides.library.american.edu/c.php?g=175008&p=1154150
Very informative. It helped introduce my tired old mind to the MLA format. So, I can better help coach and prepare my wife for her English course. Thank you very much.
Pingback: For Future Reference: MLA Formatting | wr115fisette
Pingback: For Future Reference: MLA Formatting | wr115mhcc
I’m using a book title and author as my paper heading. How is that formatted?
I would tell my own students that a book title and the name of an author is not a good paper title, and I would ask them to write a title that catches the reader’s attention, identifies the topic, and identifies what position the paper is going to take on the topic. But if you are not my student, then I’m not the person who will be evaluating your paper. MLA style puts the book title in italics. Other than that, I really don’t have any advice for you.
Thank you very much for this useful information. As a freshman in highschool, my biology teacher asked for me to write an essay in mLA format about evolution. I had no clue what mLA format was,so I searched it up and it brought me here. In middle school I never wrote an essay in this format before,but I feel very confident to type my first mLA essay and I’m excited to do so! (Right after I finish my draft >.<) thank you very much! (⌒▽⌒)✌
This wasn’t helpful at all
Shavez, what were you looking for? This page is about formatting a paper you have already written. The first section includes links to pages about how to write essays.
u a real nigga dennis
really dude my collies and I would prefer that you didn’t use any profane language due to younger children that may be reading this
thank u i got an A 97 percent
this was very helpful i got an A 95 percent
hi my name is Jessie i have to writ a 2 pages Essay about MLA can someone help me
Dennis, what lends itself to science in the APA system? And what lends itself to the Humanities with the MLA? TIA.
As compared to MLA papers, APA papers tend to be shorter, and divided up into sections. Authors who use APA style tend to publish more frequently, because their knowledge goes out of date more quickly; so the date is prominent in APA citations, and page numbers are rare.
By contrast, people who use MLA style tend to write longer essays that aren’t divided up into standard sections like “procedure” and “conclusions.” Humanities scholarship generally doesn’t go out of date quickly. Instead of conducting experiments, humanists read and write a lot of longer essays and books, re-interpreting and quoting passages from them. MLA style makes the page numbers prominent, so that other scholars can easily find and re-read those same passages for themselves, and further the work of scholarship as it is conducted in the humanities.
Thanks for the reply. What do you mean by ” MLA style tend to write longer essays that aren’t divided up into standard sections like “procedure” and “conclusions.”? Are we not suppose to use conclusions in MLA format? In my English class, we use MLA with conclusions, but what do you mean by “procedure” and “conclusions”? I understand each instructor is different but is it right to use conclusions in an MLA paper…or am I getting confused?
Typically papers written in MLA style DO have a conclusion, but it would not be set off in a separate section under the subheading “Conclusion.” MLA papers tend NOT to follow a standard, particular structure. Papers written in the sciences DO have a fairly rigid set of sections, with separate subheadings. But it’s best for you to talk to your teacher about the specifics of any asisgnment.
Ok, thanks. I just wanted to ask and clarify it. Also, doesn’t the word “humanist” means something else entirely? The Humanist term today implies ‘human’ and is often used for atheists, for example… or am I wrong?
I used the term “humanist” to mean “a person who studies the culture of humans,” without intending the more specific meaning you mention. At my school, the humanities division includes theologians.
seems easy enough
We get asked often about what “format” the college application essay should be in. Although not generally… http://t.co/v1TTNxtE4e
Pingback: Academic paper style guide research | Screenin' Culture
When using MLA format, do you list the book title, the title of the article or both?
For guidance on citing individual sources, see the link in item 4, above. This page is about formatting the paper once you’ve already written it.
I wrote a paper and it looks just like your example. I followed everything to the “t” and my professor says that my header is indented and my paragraphs are double indented and the page numbers are in wrong format. What can I do?
Winston, I suggest you talk to your professor. I have been teaching from thiis handout for years, and when a student makes a formatting error on a rough draft, I just ask them to fix it for the revision. But your instructor is the one who designed the assignment and who evaluates your submissions, so he or she is the person to approach with questions.
I agree. .let me ask you this. Are your headers indented?
The screenshot was taken from a page that I created following the instructions for using MS-Word with a MacBook Pro. I followed the instructions that are on the page. But surely your instructor gave you guidelines, in a handout or an assigned textbook, which is why I encourage you to have this conversation with your instructor. Whether your instructor does or does not agree with the information on this page really doesn’t matter, since your instructor created the assignment and evaluates it according to his or her own criteria. I suggest you let your your teacher know you are confused about what you did wrong, and ask for an opportunity to make minor formatting changes to a paper that, we hope, met all the major criteria.
How do you add footnotes to an MLA style paper?
Most word processors will have an Insert -> Footnote or Insert -> Note (footnote or endnote) option. Most short college papers don’t need footnotes. (They aren’t for documenting sources — use an in-text citation and a Works Cited list instead.) I suggest you talk to your instructor about whether you really do need to use a footnote.
RT @DennisJerz: MLA Format Papers: Step-by-step Instructions for Writing Research Essays #mlastyle http://t.co/B6pGb3Pkeh
Thank you so much!! I love the Bib builder!!
I’m glad to hear you found it helpful!
Dear Dr. Jerz,
I am writing to request permission to link your webpage, “MLA Format Papers: Step-by-step Instructions for Writing Research Essays” to our website.
Marie Walcroft Librarian Lansdale School of Business
I am glad you found this page helpful. Yes, you are welcome to include a link and a brief extract.
Can you put what information is supposed to be in each paragraph???
Emma, I’m afraid I don’t understand the question. I feel like you’ve asked me what emotions are supposed to be in each verse of a song, or what colors are supposed to be in a painting. The many different kinds of songs or paintings are all created for different reasons; likewise, paragraphs are assigned, written, and read for a whole range of different reasons, so there’s no answer that covers all possible cases.
that was beautiful
I really find this useful (especially fudging the line spacing to 2.1). Good job!
Im in middle school and I have to do this. I have never heard of MLA Format and this helped ALOT. Thanks so much! Hopefully I get a good grade on this paper!
“@pretti_slimm: @Thyler_Jonzy http://t.co/QIf00vlgws try this site looks helpful”I just found a sample paper on Google
Pingback: MLA Format Papers: Step-by-step Instructions for Writing Research Essays - My Blog
Pingback: Freshman English Composition Resources
Is the Table of Contents double spaced – MLA?
i think you should add an explanation about page header. that was what i was looking for
See item 2 from the table of contents: http://jerz.setonhill.edu/writing/academic1/mla-style-papers/#page-header
when you say page numbers (Wordworth-Fuller 20), are you referring to the page number within the MLA document or the page number the text appears on within the authors works?
In this case, your paper would be referring to something you found on page 20 of the text by Wordsworth-Fuller.
With your delicate information about to write MLA format essay in right way will lead me to successful college year.
Thank you for useful information about how to write MLA format essay. Before my college year I didn’t know there were many different forms of essay. When my professor asked me to write MLA format I had no idea how to write it, but with your delicate information I think I will survive my college year. Thank you again.
I’m glad to know you found this page helpful. Most instructors will be happy to help if you stop by during their office hours, and if your prof is too busy for that most universities will have a writing center where you can get help at any stage of any assignment involving writing.
Thank you for valuable information. Before my college year in America I didn’t know what MLA Format was, but with this delicate information I will survive my college year.
Pingback: How to Write a Successful Research Paper with MLA | Critical Approaches to the American Renaissance
That means the quote is from page 20 of the book or article written by Wordsworth-Fuller.
Very good information, I really needed this incite on research paper formats. It has such thorough details and that make it so much easier to understand.
How do you in text cite a website? I didnt really see much about that.
I think you should add an explanation about page numbers. That was what I was looking for, but I couldn’t find the significant area.
Section 2 explains how to put page numbers in the header, and section 4 discusses page numbers in citations.
read it… it’s there.
Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *
Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.
Inserting headers into essays.
According to the MLA (the Modern Language Association), each page of an essay, including the first page, should include the writer's last name and the page number inserted as a header in the upper right corner of the page, as illustrated below:
The header should not be typed where the text of your papers should be. It should be inserted as a header in your word processor so that your last name and the page number appear slightly above the first line of text on each page.
This page explains how to insert a header using Microsoft Word 2010. The procedure for inserting a header will vary depending on what type of word processor you are using, but a similar approach to what is explained below should work in other word processors.
Begin by opening in your word processor the document in which you want to add the header.
Double left mouse click anywhere outside of the header area to return to the text area of your document.
If you need to make changes to the header after you have added it, just double left mouse click in the header area of the document.
If you do not see the header added to your document, the problem most likely is the "View" you are using. To see the document with the header, just make the "View" ribbon active and click "Print Layout."
Copyright Randy Rambo , 2019.
Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts
This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice.
Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.
The following overview should help you better understand how to cite sources using MLA 9 th edition, including how to format the Works Cited page and in-text citations.
Please use the example at the bottom of this page to cite the Purdue OWL in MLA. See also our MLA vidcast series on the Purdue OWL YouTube Channel .
MLA is a style of documentation that may be applied to many different types of writing. Since texts have become increasingly digital, and the same document may often be found in several different sources, following a set of rigid rules no longer suffices.
Thus, the current system is based on a few guiding principles, rather than an extensive list of specific rules. While the handbook still describes how to cite sources, it is organized according to the process of documentation, rather than by the sources themselves. This gives writers a flexible method that is near-universally applicable.
Once you are familiar with the method, you can use it to document any type of source, for any type of paper, in any field.
Here is an overview of the process:
When deciding how to cite your source, start by consulting the list of core elements. These are the general pieces of information that MLA suggests including in each Works Cited entry. In your citation, the elements should be listed in the following order:
Each element should be followed by the corresponding punctuation mark shown above. Earlier editions of the handbook included the place of publication and required different punctuation (such as journal editions in parentheses and colons after issue numbers) depending on the type of source. In the current version, punctuation is simpler (only commas and periods separate the elements), and information about the source is kept to the basics.
Begin the entry with the author’s last name, followed by a comma and the rest of the name, as presented in the work. End this element with a period.
Bhabha, Homi K. The Location of Culture. Routledge, 1994.
The title of the source should follow the author’s name. Depending upon the type of source, it should be listed in italics or quotation marks.
A book should be in italics:
Henley, Patricia. The Hummingbird House . MacMurray, 1999.
An individual webpage should be in quotation marks. The name of the parent website, which MLA treats as a "container," should follow in italics:
Lundman, Susan. "How to Make Vegetarian Chili." eHow, www.ehow.com/how_10727_make-vegetarian-chili.html.*
A periodical (journal, magazine, newspaper) article should be in quotation marks:
Bagchi, Alaknanda. "Conflicting Nationalisms: The Voice of the Subaltern in Mahasweta Devi's Bashai Tudu." Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature , vol. 15, no. 1, 1996, pp. 41-50.
A song or piece of music on an album should be in quotation marks. The name of the album should then follow in italics:
Beyoncé. "Pray You Catch Me." Lemonade, Parkwood Entertainment, 2016, www.beyonce.com/album/lemonade-visual-album/.
*The MLA handbook recommends including URLs when citing online sources. For more information, see the “Optional Elements” section below.
The eighth edition of the MLA handbook introduced what are referred to as "containers," which are the larger wholes in which the source is located. For example, if you want to cite a poem that is listed in a collection of poems, the individual poem is the source, while the larger collection is the container. The title of the container is usually italicized and followed by a comma, since the information that follows next describes the container.
Kincaid, Jamaica. "Girl." The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Short Stories, edited by Tobias Wolff, Vintage, 1994, pp. 306-07.
The container may also be a television series, which is made up of episodes.
“94 Meetings.” Parks and Recreation, created by Greg Daniels and Michael Schur, performance by Amy Poehler, season 2, episode 21, Deedle-Dee Productions and Universal Media Studios, 2010.
The container may also be a website, which contains articles, postings, and other works.
Wise, DeWanda. “Why TV Shows Make Me Feel Less Alone.” NAMI, 31 May 2019, www.nami.org/Blogs/NAMI-Blog/May-2019/How-TV-Shows-Make-Me-Feel-Less-Alone . Accessed 3 June 2019.
In some cases, a container might be within a larger container. You might have read a book of short stories on Google Books , or watched a television series on Netflix . You might have found the electronic version of a journal on JSTOR. It is important to cite these containers within containers so that your readers can find the exact source that you used.
“94 Meetings.” Parks and Recreation , season 2, episode 21, NBC , 29 Apr. 2010. Netflix, www.netflix.com/watch/70152031?trackId=200256157&tctx=0%2C20%2C0974d361-27cd-44de-9c2a-2d9d868b9f64-12120962.
Langhamer, Claire. “Love and Courtship in Mid-Twentieth-Century England.” Historical Journal , vol. 50, no. 1, 2007, pp. 173-96. ProQuest, doi:10.1017/S0018246X06005966. Accessed 27 May 2009.
In addition to the author, there may be other contributors to the source who should be credited, such as editors, illustrators, translators, etc. If their contributions are relevant to your research, or necessary to identify the source, include their names in your documentation.
Foucault, Michel. Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason. Translated by Richard Howard , Vintage-Random House, 1988.
Woolf, Virginia. Jacob’s Room . Annotated and with an introduction by Vara Neverow, Harcourt, Inc., 2008.
If a source is listed as an edition or version of a work, include it in your citation.
The Bible . Authorized King James Version, Oxford UP, 1998.
Crowley, Sharon, and Debra Hawhee. Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students. 3rd ed., Pearson, 2004.
If a source is part of a numbered sequence, such as a multi-volume book or journal with both volume and issue numbers, those numbers must be listed in your citation.
Dolby, Nadine. “Research in Youth Culture and Policy: Current Conditions and Future Directions.” Social Work and Society: The International Online-Only Journal, vol. 6, no. 2, 2008, www.socwork.net/sws/article/view/60/362. Accessed 20 May 2009.
Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria. Translated by H. E. Butler, vol. 2, Loeb-Harvard UP, 1980.
The publisher produces or distributes the source to the public. If there is more than one publisher, and they are all are relevant to your research, list them in your citation, separated by a forward slash (/).
Klee, Paul. Twittering Machine. 1922. Museum of Modern Art, New York. The Artchive, www.artchive.com/artchive/K/klee/twittering_machine.jpg.html. Accessed May 2006.
Women's Health: Problems of the Digestive System . American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 2006.
Daniels, Greg and Michael Schur, creators. Parks and Recreation . Deedle-Dee Productions and Universal Media Studios, 2015.
Note : The publisher’s name need not be included in the following sources: periodicals, works published by their author or editor, websites whose titles are the same name as their publisher, websites that make works available but do not actually publish them (such as YouTube , WordPress , or JSTOR ).
The same source may have been published on more than one date, such as an online version of an original source. For example, a television series might have aired on a broadcast network on one date, but released on Netflix on a different date. When the source has more than one date, it is sufficient to use the date that is most relevant to your writing. If you’re unsure about which date to use, go with the date of the source’s original publication.
In the following example, Mutant Enemy is the primary production company, and “Hush” was released in 1999. Below is a general citation for this television episode:
“Hush.” Buffy the Vampire Slayer , created by Joss Whedon, performance by Sarah Michelle Gellar, season 4, Mutant Enemy, 1999 .
However, if you are discussing, for example, the historical context in which the episode originally aired, you should cite the full date. Because you are specifying the date of airing, you would then use WB Television Network (rather than Mutant Enemy), because it was the network (rather than the production company) that aired the episode on the date you’re citing.
“Hush.” Buffy the Vampire Slayer, created by Joss Whedon, performance by Sarah Michelle Gellar, season 4, episode 10, WB Television Network, 14 Dec. 1999 .
You should be as specific as possible in identifying a work’s location.
An essay in a book or an article in a journal should include page numbers.
Adiche, Chimamanda Ngozi. “On Monday of Last Week.” The Thing around Your Neck, Alfred A. Knopf, 2009, pp. 74-94 .
The location of an online work should include a URL. Remove any "http://" or "https://" tag from the beginning of the URL.
Wheelis, Mark. "Investigating Disease Outbreaks Under a Protocol to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention." Emerging Infectious Diseases , vol. 6, no. 6, 2000, pp. 595-600, wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/6/6/00-0607_article. Accessed 8 Feb. 2009.
When citing a physical object that you experienced firsthand, identify the place of location.
Matisse, Henri. The Swimming Pool. 1952, Museum of Modern Art, New York .
The ninth edition is designed to be as streamlined as possible. The author should include any information that helps readers easily identify the source, without including unnecessary information that may be distracting. The following is a list of optional elements that can be included in a documented source at the writer’s discretion.
Date of original publication:
If a source has been published on more than one date, the writer may want to include both dates if it will provide the reader with necessary or helpful information.
Erdrich, Louise. Love Medicine. 1984. Perennial-Harper, 1993.
City of publication:
The seventh edition handbook required the city in which a publisher is located, but the eighth edition states that this is only necessary in particular instances, such as in a work published before 1900. Since pre-1900 works were usually associated with the city in which they were published, your documentation may substitute the city name for the publisher’s name.
Thoreau, Henry David. Excursions . Boston, 1863.
Date of access:
When you cite an online source, the MLA Handbook recommends including a date of access on which you accessed the material, since an online work may change or move at any time.
Bernstein, Mark. "10 Tips on Writing the Living Web." A List Apart: For People Who Make Websites, 16 Aug. 2002, alistapart.com/article/writeliving. Accessed 4 May 2009.
As mentioned above, while the MLA handbook recommends including URLs when you cite online sources, you should always check with your instructor or editor and include URLs at their discretion.
A DOI, or digital object identifier, is a series of digits and letters that leads to the location of an online source. Articles in journals are often assigned DOIs to ensure that the source is locatable, even if the URL changes. If your source is listed with a DOI, use that instead of a URL.
Alonso, Alvaro, and Julio A. Camargo. "Toxicity of Nitrite to Three Species of Freshwater Invertebrates." Environmental Toxicology , vol. 21, no. 1, 3 Feb. 2006, pp. 90-94. Wiley Online Library, doi: 10.1002/tox.20155.
Although the MLA handbook is currently in its ninth edition, some information about citing in the text using the older (eighth) edition is being retained. The in-text citation is a brief reference within your text that indicates the source you consulted. It should properly attribute any ideas, paraphrases, or direct quotations to your source, and should direct readers to the entry in the Works Cited list. For the most part, an in-text citation is the author’s name and the page number (or just the page number, if the author is named in the sentence) in parentheses :
When creating in-text citations for media that has a runtime, such as a movie or podcast, include the range of hours, minutes and seconds you plan to reference. For example: (00:02:15-00:02:35).
Again, your goal is to attribute your source and provide a reference without interrupting your text. Your readers should be able to follow the flow of your argument without becoming distracted by extra information.
Entire Website
The Purdue OWL . Purdue U Writing Lab, 2019.
Individual Resources
Contributors' names. "Title of Resource." The Purdue OWL , Purdue U Writing Lab, Last edited date.
The new OWL no longer lists most pages' authors or publication dates. Thus, in most cases, citations will begin with the title of the resource, rather than the developer's name.
"MLA Formatting and Style Guide." The Purdue OWL, Purdue U Writing Lab. Accessed 18 Jun. 2018.
Let's say your professor wants you to format in MLA style, and you have no idea how to do it. Where do you start? And why do you need to use a format anyway?
There are a few reasons why professors ask you to use a specific format. One reason is to provide consistency between papers while grading. Can you imagine what it would be like to grade 150 papers, and every single one is formatted differently? It would take them quite a bit of time to grade your paper! On top of that, they may be looking for specific things like citations, page numbers, certain paragraphs or names, etc., and using a consistent format helps them find what they looking for quickly and easily, resulting in a faster grade for you!
Another reason to learn a format is to prepare you for upper-division classes in your major. It's worth noting that every discipline has its formatting style preference, and learning a citation style like MLA, APA, or Chicago will give you an understanding of how basic style rules work.
Your paper should be written using a standard (8.5x11 inch) sheet of paper with a common font such as Times New Roman. Some professors may request a different font, but Times New Roman is the most commonly accepted.
The entire document should be double-spaced, including the header and bibliography. You can easily double-space a paper by highlighting the entire document, then pressing the Ctrl button on your keyboard and pressing the 2 (Ctrl + 2).
Margins on the page's sides, top, and bottom are 1 inch. The only exception is with the page number and your name on the right-hand side of the header, which is 1/2 inch from the top of the page.
Pages should be numbered, along with your last name, in the top-right header of the paper.
Now that you've read this far and have an idea of what you need to do, there is a big shortcut you can use. Word has a few templates for various paper formats, including MLA, APA, and others. To locate these templates, select 'new' under file and type MLA in the search box . Then select the template you wish to use. Download the Word document to your computer, open the template, and begin typing.
Don't miss out
Subscribe to STAT+ today, for the best life sciences journalism in the industry
By Jonathan JK Stoltman and Mishka Terplan July 22, 2024
I n a ground-breaking settlement with the Federal Trade Commission, two online addiction and mental health treatment companies, Monument and Cerebral , admitted to deceptively and widely sharing sensitive personal and health information with third-party advertising platforms including Meta (Facebook) and Google. They aren’t alone.
Our research at the Opioid Policy Institute has found more than a dozen other online addiction treatment companies engaging in similar deceptive behavior that contradicts their claims of private, secure, or confidential services. Perhaps the most shocking aspect of these business practices is the role of federal funding for these services.
advertisement
The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) is the premier drug addiction research branch of the National Institutes of Health. For decades, NIDA’s work to reduce opioid overdose deaths has been stymied by long-standing gaps in treatment, with fewer than 25% of people receiving evidence-based medications for opioid addiction. One way NIDA has been working to address addiction treatment gaps is through encouraging grant proposals for digital health.
Digital health approaches to addiction treatment and recovery are thought to increase connections between people seeking treatment or in long-term recovery to prescribers, psychological services, or recovery supports through websites or apps. The goal is to reduce barriers like travel time, difficulty accessing providers, and isolation. But as with all technology, this digital approach comes with readily anticipated, potentially severe, and completely preventable privacy risks.
Among the 23 opioid addiction treatment and recovery companies the Opioid Policy Institute monitors , 22 engaged in activity similar to that found to be illegal in the FTC’s recent cases. Twelve of the 23 received NIDA funding. These companies conspicuously claimed to be “private,” “confidential,” or “HIPAA compliant” while surreptitiously sharing personal and health data with outside firms that can then use this information to target advertising. This means information like drug use history, health insurance, and detailed personal information can be used to determine what ads are served — or not served — to people who browse these services, contributing to silent and illegal discrimination based on their health condition.
Thirteen companies — five of which received NIDA funding — used Facebook Pixel , a tracking tool that reports users interactions with a website to Facebook. That means when people interacted with digital health websites that used Facebook Pixel, information including specific interactions like purchases and form responses (things like drug use history and insurance type) was sent to Facebook and used to target ads on Facebook and related properties such as Instagram.
To confirm a connection between visiting digital health websites and Facebook receiving interaction data for advertising purposes, researchers at the Opioid Policy Institute used a validated technique that included visiting all the monitored addiction treatment and recovery websites. Next we visited the off-Facebook activity page for a dummy Facebook profile (Bill Wilson) we set up. The off-Facebook activity page provides people who have a Facebook profile with an interaction summary originating from non-Facebook websites that use Facebook’s business tools like the Facebook Pixel. Any website visit that occurred on the Bill Wilson off-Facebook activity page established that a Facebook Pixel had been installed and was sending website interaction data to Facebook tagged to the specific profile establishing a clear and illegal link between seeking treatment and ad tracking. This occurs even though Meta prohibits companies that handle sensitive health information from using these ad tools.
Meta is not the only company that fails to address this problem by not enforcing its terms of service. Google also prohibits the use of its tools , like Google Analytics, when a company handles sensitive health information. Yet when notified that the companies our organization monitors are violating their terms of service, neither Google nor Meta took action to prevent their tools being used in this way.
Thirteen of the companies we studied received taxpayer dollars (a total of $16.7 million in funding from the NIH or NIDA) to support their development and commercialization. Of these, 12 engaged in activity similar to that found to be illegal in the FTC’s recent cases against Monument and Cerebral. Effectively, taxpayers have funded the development of privacy-destroying companies that put people who use drugs at significant risk.
It’s not clear how things got to this point. NIDA knows that privacy is a core part of addiction treatment, harm reduction, recovery, and research. These 23 companies, including those funded by NIDA, also appear to know privacy is important to people seeking addiction support because they frequently mention they offer private, secure, confidential treatment and recovery support on their websites, apps, and advertisements. It’s a standard — and deceptive — part of their sales pitches.
People who use drugs rank privacy as an essential aspect of addiction support because they have historically been marginalized, overpoliced, and exploited. Knowledge about an individual’s drug use — past or present — has led to substantial harm across employment, housing, and other human rights violations. These are not hypothetical harms: people who use drugs face these barriers daily.
Yet no one appears to be protecting the privacy of vulnerable people using these services. It appears that these NIDA-funded digital health companies said they were private, secure, and confidential, and both the funder and people seeking care took their word on it. This is unacceptable.
One could argue that a funder should not have to ensure that the entity it is funding meets federal privacy regulations. It is the responsibility of the funded entity to not deceive users — or the funder — or engage in illegal business practices.
We believe that the primary blame for these wide-ranging privacy issues and deceptive claims lies with the digital health companies. Blame also falls on Meta/Facebook, Google, and other companies that created privacy-violating tools with little oversight of their use when handling sensitive health data. Blame can also be assigned to funders of these services, like Y Combinator, Palantir, Mark Cuban, and NIH/NIDA.
NIDA’s role in funding addiction research is unmatched. One mechanism that it administers is funding through Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) grants . These grants are designed to facilitate business pitches to the country’s leading addiction research organization. Receiving SBIR funding confers tremendous prestige, and sets up companies for larger outside funding rounds. Future investors see the federal government stamp of approval as an important signal. SBIR funding is also non-dilutive, meaning that the current ownership shares are not further divided and allocated to the funder, therefore future funding rounds have more shares available to sell for larger sums. To addiction treatment providers, federal funding may also provide these companies credibility in a nascent and turbulent field.
The smartest thinkers in life sciences on what's happening — and what's to come
For these reasons, and because taxpayer dollars are being used, NIDA must do more to ensure that funding does not further marginalize people already experiencing significant harm.
There are clear fixes to this disastrous funding approach beyond much-needed FTC actions to clean up the mess.
NIDA must look inward. If it does not have the expertise to evaluate the services it funds, other governmental agencies such as the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the Food and Drug Administration, and the FTC should be included in planning these grants, evaluating the services offered, and creating best practice guidelines. NIDA must require initial and ongoing privacy and security audits, as is done for other federal research grants. NIDA should also restrict how its funding is discussed by the companies in line with other grant funding: the funding must not be portrayed as an endorsement that deceives patients, providers, and other funders. Importantly, NIDA should also take steps to claw back funding that was used to facilitate privacy violations of people seeking addiction treatment.
As shown by the Monument and Cerebral cases, problems with privacy and addiction treatment are not limited to companies receiving grants from the NIH or NIDA. A dozen other non-NIDA-funded companies in our research also violate existing privacy laws. Yet NIH and NIDA have a unique role to play in righting the wrongs of the past and ensuring that future funding does not harm people seeking care. The FTC should not be alone in policing this space. Funders have a responsibility to ensure that taxpayers’ money does not hurt people who desperately need help.
Addiction treatment and recovery support can certainly benefit from digital approaches. But accessing addiction treatment and recovery support cannot come at the expense of individual’s federally protected privacy rights. NIDA cannot afford to be naïve about these risks. The costs to people using these services are too great.
Jonathan JK Stoltman is director of the Opioid Policy Institute and co-director of Reporting on Addiction , a collaboration of addiction science experts, journalists, and journalism educators focused on improving addiction reporting. Mishka Terplan is medical director and senior research scientist at Friends Research Institute and senior physician research scientist at the Opioid Policy Institute .
Have an opinion on this essay submit a letter to the editor here ., about the authors reprints, jonathan jk stoltman, mishka terplan.
STAT encourages you to share your voice. We welcome your commentary, criticism, and expertise on our subscriber-only platform, STAT+ Connect
To submit a correction request, please visit our Contact Us page .
WASHINGTON - American actor George Clooney, a high-profile supporter of President Joe Biden, argued in an op-ed that the Democratic party needs a new nominee.
“We are not going to win in November with this president. On top of that, we won’t win the House, and we’re going to lose the Senate,” wrote Clooney in a New York Times piece published Wednesday.
“This isn’t only my opinion; this is the opinion of every senator and congress member and governor that I’ve spoken with in private. Every single one, irrespective of what he or she is saying publicly.” he added.
Clooney, a self-described lifelong Democrat, was among a group of A-list celebrities that co-hosted a glitzy Hollywood fundraiser last month for Biden’s campaign that brought in $30 million.
But in his op-ed, Clooney said Biden was not the same person at the fundraiser in Los Angeles that he’s known for years, writing that the one battle Biden can’t win is the “fight against time.”
"It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe “ big F-ing deal ” Biden of 2010. He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate," Clooney wrote.
Actor and filmmaker Rob Reiner wrote on X, formerly Twitter , that Clooney "has clearly expressed what many of us have been saying."
"We love and respect Joe Biden. We acknowledge all he has done for our country. But Democracy is facing an existential threat. We need someone younger to fight back. Joe Biden must step aside," he wrote.
Violence stalks the president who has rejoiced in violence to others.
Listen to more stories on hark
When a madman hammered nearly to death the husband of then–House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Donald Trump jeered and mocked . One of Trump’s sons and other close Trump supporters avidly promoted false claims that Paul Pelosi had somehow brought the onslaught upon himself through a sexual misadventure.
After authorities apprehended a right-wing-extremist plot to abduct Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, Trump belittled the threat at a rally. He disparaged Whitmer as a political enemy. His supporters chanted “Lock her up.” Trump laughed and replied , “Lock them all up.”
Fascism feasts on violence. In the years since his own supporters attacked the Capitol to overturn the 2020 election—many of them threatening harm to Speaker Pelosi and Vice President Mike Pence—Trump has championed the invaders, would-be kidnappers, and would-be murderers as martyrs and hostages. He has vowed to pardon them if returned to office. His own staffers have testified to the glee with which Trump watched the mayhem on television.
Now the bloodshed that Trump has done so much to incite against others has touched him as well. The attempted murder of Trump—and the killing of a person nearby—is a horror and an outrage. More will be learned about the man who committed this appalling act, and who was killed by the Secret Service. Whatever his mania or motive, the only important thing about him is the law-enforcement mistake that allowed him to bring a deadly weapon so close to a campaign event and gain a sight line of the presidential candidate. His name should otherwise be erased and forgotten.
It is sadly incorrect to say, as so many have, that political violence “has no place” in American society. Assassinations, lynchings, riots, and pogroms have stained every page of American political history. That has remained true to the present day. In 2016 , and even more in 2020, Trump supporters brought weapons to intimidate opponents and vote-counters. Trump and his supporters envision a new place for violence as their defining political message in the 2024 election. Fascist movements are secular religions. Like all religions, they offer martyrs as their proof of truth. The Mussolini movement in Italy built imposing monuments to its fallen comrades. The Trump movement now improves on that: The leader himself will be the martyr in chief, his own blood the basis for his bid for power and vengeance.
Christopher R. Browning: A new kind of fascism
The 2024 election was already shaping up as a symbolic contest between an elderly and weakening liberalism too frail and uncertain to protect itself and an authoritarian, reactionary movement ready to burst every barrier and trash every institution. To date, Trump has led only a minority of U.S. voters, but that minority’s passion and audacity have offset what it lacks in numbers. After the shooting, Trump and his backers hope to use the iconography of a bloody ear and face, raised fist, and call to “Fight!” to summon waverers to their cause of installing Trump as an anti-constitutional ruler, exempted from ordinary law by his allies on the Supreme Court.
Other societies have backslid to authoritarianism because of some extraordinary crisis: economic depression, hyperinflation, military defeat, civil strife. In 2024, U.S. troops are nowhere at war. The American economy is booming, providing spectacular and widely shared prosperity. A brief spasm of mild post-pandemic inflation has been overcome. Indicators of social health have abruptly turned positive since Trump left office after years of deterioration during his term. Crime and fatal drug overdoses are declining in 2024; marriages and births are rising. Even the country’s problems indirectly confirm the country’s success: Migrants are crossing the border in the hundreds of thousands, because they know, even if Americans don’t, that the U.S. job market is among the hottest on Earth.
Yet despite all of this success, Americans are considering a form of self-harm that in other countries has typically followed the darkest national failures: letting the author of a failed coup d’état return to office to try again.
One reason this self-harm is nearing consummation is that American society is poorly prepared to understand and respond to radical challenges, once those challenges gain a certain mass. For nearly a century, “radical” in U.S. politics has usually meant “fringe”: Communists, Ku Kluxers, Black Panthers, Branch Davidians, Islamist jihadists. Radicals could be marginalized by the weight of the great American consensus that stretches from social democrats to business conservatives. Sometimes, a Joe McCarthy or a George Wallace would throw a scare into that mighty consensus, but in the past such challengers rarely formed stable coalitions with accepted stakeholders in society. Never gaining an enduring grip on the institutions of state, they flared up and burned out.
Trump is different. His abuses have been ratified by powerful constituencies. He has conquered and colonized one of the two major parties. He has defeated—or is on the way to defeating—every impeachment and prosecution to hold him to account for his frauds and crimes. He has assembled a mass following that is larger, more permanent, and more national in reach than any previous American demagogue. He has dominated the scene for nine years already, and he and his supporters hope they can use yesterday’s appalling event to extend the Trump era to the end of his life and beyond.
The American political and social system cannot treat such a person as an alien. It inevitably accommodates and naturalizes him. His counselors, even the thugs and felons, join the point-counterpoint dialogue at the summit of the American elite. President Joe Biden nearly wrecked his campaign because he felt obliged to meet Trump in debate. How could Biden have done otherwise? Trump is the three-time nominee of the Republican Party; it’s awkward and strange to treat him as an insurrectionist against the American state—though that’s what Trump was and is.
David Frum: Biden’s heartbreaking press conference
The despicable shooting at Trump, which also caused death and injury to others, now secures his undeserved position as a partner in the protective rituals of the democracy he despises. The appropriate expressions of dismay and condemnation from every prominent voice in American life have the additional effect of habituating Americans to Trump’s legitimacy. In the face of such an outrage, the familiar and proper practice is to stress unity, to proclaim that Americans have more things in common than that divide them. Those soothing words, true in the past, are less true now.
Nobody seems to have language to say: We abhor, reject, repudiate, and punish all political violence, even as we maintain that Trump remains himself a promoter of such violence, a subverter of American institutions, and the very opposite of everything decent and patriotic in American life.
The Republican National Convention, which opens this week, will welcome to its stage apologists for Vladimir Putin’s Russia and its aggression against U.S. allies. Trump’s own infatuation with Russia and other dictatorships has not dimmed even slightly with age or experience. Yet all of these urgent and necessary truths must now be subordinated to the ritual invocation of “thoughts and prayers” for someone who never gave a thought or uttered a prayer for any of the victims of his own many incitements to bloodshed. The president who used his office to champion the rights of dangerous people to own military-type weapons says he was grazed by a bullet from one such assault rifle.
Conventional phrases and polite hypocrisy fill a useful function in social life. We say “Thank you for your service” both to the decorated hero and to the veteran who barely escaped dishonorable discharge. It’s easier than deciphering which was which. We wish “Happy New Year!” even when we dread the months ahead.
Adrienne LaFrance: Thoughts, prayers, and Facebook rants aren’t enough
But conventional phrases don’t go unheard. They carry meanings, meanings no less powerful for being rote and reflexive. In rightly denouncing violence, we are extending an implicit pardon to the most violent person in contemporary U.S. politics. In asserting unity, we are absolving a man who seeks power through the humiliation and subordination of disdained others.
Those conventional phrases are inscribing Trump into a place in American life that he should have forfeited beyond redemption on January 6, 2021. All decent people welcome the sparing of his life. Trump’s reckoning should be with the orderly process of law, not with the bloodshed he rejoiced in when it befell others. He and his allies will exploit a gunman’s vicious criminality as their path to exonerate past crimes and empower new ones. Those who stand against Trump and his allies must find the will and the language to explain why these crimes, past and planned, are all wrong, all intolerable—and how the gunman and Trump, at their opposite ends of a bullet’s trajectory, are nonetheless joined together as common enemies of law and democracy.
More Stories
The Harris Gamble
This Crew Is Totally Beatable
Indecision is a path to certain defeat, by chauncey devega.
Joe Biden is still the president of the United States. Americans do not have a king or queen, but they do have a president. The presidency is much bigger and more important than the person who occupies it.
As president, Biden has stood as a type of national father figure; the embodiment of the country’s idealized values and ideals. These feelings of respect for President Biden are felt deeply by his supporters and others who admire and respect him, and what he has accomplished in the horrible aftermath of his predecessor, the convicted felon, coup plotter, and aspiring tyrant Donald Trump. So Biden’s defeat in the CNN debate , and the cascading siege from all sides he's faced since, is a type of emotional and psychic injury not just to Biden but millions of Democrats who believe in his quest to protect democracy. The president has now been made fully mortal and vulnerable.
Time is a luxury that President Biden, the American people and our democracy do not have.
On Wednesday, it was announced that Biden has COVID. On Thursday, Republicans held their coronation for aspiring dictator Trump at their convention in Milwaukee, where he delivered the longest acceptance speech in history . In contrast, Biden's illness is one more reminder of how it feels as though fate is conspiring against him.
After surviving an attempted assassination attempt at his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on Saturday, Trump is now viewed by his MAGA followers as singularly protected by “god”, in essence anointed, and some type of immortal martyr. That horrific event and what it means for a nation where political violence is becoming normalized has served as a trauma bond between Donald Trump and his MAGA devotees. The loss of personal identity to the Great Leader and movement is so extreme that Trump's MAGA people are now wearing bandages on their ears in an act of hero worship, and as an expression of a desire to be similarly "anointed" by fate and destiny.
On this, historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat explains in her newsletter how, “Trump had always told his devoted followers that the “enemies” were not going after him, but rather going after them , and he was ‘just standing in the way.’ This awful assassination attempt will seem to validate that claim, especially since a person attending the rally was killed by the shooter.”
Trump's fighting spirit is likely entrancing to many other Americans outside of the Republican Party and the MAGAverse as well. As David Sirota compellingly argues in a new essay at The Lever, "Crazed and Howard Beale-ish as they may be, Republicans’ primal screams at least seem like proof of life in a dying world. Democrats, by contrast, don’t seem alive at all, and not just because they have been led by an octogenarian who drifts in and out of consciousness....The Democrats’ current brand contrast could not be more tone deaf to the times. Where Trump fist pumps after getting shot and his minions instantly blame their opponents for the violence, Democrats reflexively stand down and apologize ."
For many people, the concerns about President Biden’s age and what it means for his capacity to function effectively—and for his overall health and mortality—are deeply personal if not immediate. Most, if not all human beings, will experience physical and mental decline as they age. This is perfectly normal and a fundamental part of the human experience. Such public discussions about President Biden’s frailty trigger the anxieties (what experts describe as mortality salience) that many people have about their own aging and independence, and of loved ones and other people they care for who will also be weathered and eventually defeated by time.
In a recent essay at the Washington Post, Maura Judkis deploys the analogy of taking away a beloved elder’s car keys because it was becoming dangerous for him to drive:
Say you have a beloved elder relative — a proud patriarch used to calling the shots — who is showing signs of decline. He’s slower, frailer than he used to be. Your relative might lose his train of thought; another person’s relative might get stuck in verbal cul-de-sacs of nonsense. (Again with the loopy rant about dying by electrocution versus dying by shark, Grandpa?) Say you’re in the car with him — this is a hypothetical, of course — and he’s not really noticing the speed bumps. He blew through a stop sign. On one particular trip late last month he drove through a red light into a fender bender. No one was hurt. Maybe he was just tired, and this was a one-off? But he’s a little bruised up, and so is his ego, because afterward, the family had the Big Talk, to ask: Is it time to take the car keys away from Grandpa? Some relatives think so. Others disagree. Grandpa has, historically, been a really good driver. He has been driving for, say, 54 years — big, cross-country trips, sometimes on challenging roads. He’s driven ancient Hondas and fancy Porsches. He insists he is still capable of driving. Just maybe not at night? But so much is at stake: his safety, our peace of mind, the greater good. It’s a tough spot, for anyone. For everyone. Some families ignore their relative’s decline; some families obsess over it. How should we, as a countr — er, a family — have this conversation?
At the Atlantic, David Frum offers some powerful writing about President Biden and his and our national dilemma :
The great frustration of Biden’s life must be getting the presidency so late. He sought it in 1988, and again in 2008. He wanted it in 2016. Had he gained the Democratic nomination that year, the country might have been spared the Trump presidency, and Biden might now be completing his second term—uncontroversially aged by the office, but still recognizably himself. Instead, the presidency came to him when he still possessed the vigor and skill to do the job, but while the strength to gain and keep it was ebbing from him. At his press conference, he reminded me of an athlete who still knew where to aim the shots, but who could no longer muster the force to send them home…. If Biden loses to Trump, the nation Biden believed in does not outlive him. A different America replaces it, one where the presidency can be contested by violence, with judicially conferred immunity for an attempted seizure of power. Collective security will be junked, with American military power at risk of being hired by whichever dictators pay bribes to the president and his family. Biden’s career has been based on the clear-eyed calculus of political risk. But just as the clarity of his presence is fading with the passage of time, so also does the clarity of his perception seem to be degrading. He remembers what he was, and he wants to hold that former being forever. But time has no mercy for human yearning. It takes, and it does not give back.
To my eyes, this reads like it hurt Frum to write these words – or perhaps that is just me projecting.
We need your help to stay independent
Documentary filmmaker Michael Moore spoke with CNN’s Abby Phillip about President Biden and if he should cede the nomination to Vice President Kamala Harris or another Democrat, who presumably would have a better chance of defeating Donald Trump and saving the country’s democracy. Moore, as is his way, told some uncomfortable truths.
This isn’t about being loyal to Joe Biden. This isn’t about being grateful as I am for his three-and-a-half years of what he’s done. I’ve said he’s probably the most progressive president we have had in my lifetime. He has done so much – so much good that I don’t want to diminish any of that. But you don’t let somebody keep playing anything or doing anything just because they’ve done 30 or 40 or 50 years of great stuff. It’s about how are you doing it now? And can you do it now?
Moore then explained what he believes must happen next to save the country’s democracy:
I will insist, everybody watching me right now, that if Biden is the candidate on the ballot, every single one of us has to get out there and vote and vote for him in November. And you have to bring five people to the polls with you because I’m telling you this is the only way Trump can win Michigan, or, I think, the majority of the swing states. He’s going to have to count on people being so depressed, the depressed vote, staying home, or showing up like Michiganders did in Democratic districts in 2016.
I mostly agree with Michael Moore .
I will support President Biden no matter what. Donald Trump is not an option. Even If President Biden is substantially diminished by his age and other factors, he still believes in America’s democracy and its institutions, and he will have advisors and other people around him who will do that work. If President Biden decides to step down, his replacement would also be someone who would defend democracy and freedom against the neofascist onslaught.
Public opinion polls and other data show that many millions of Americans feel the same way: Donald Trump and his MAGA movement and the larger antidemocracy movement must be kept away from the White House. President Biden’s age or other health concerns are of secondary concern and importance to achieving that goal. A new poll from the AP-NORC also shows that a majority of Democrats now want President Biden to step aside and let a new candidate lead the party and defeat Donald Trump and the Republicans in the 2024 Election. Are these deeply felt beliefs or a fleeting blip and reflection of how the mainstream news media and other public voices and elites in the Democratic Party have piled on President Biden with the goal of shaping the public mood with the goal of forcing him to step down? And at this point do the causal arrows even matter if Biden's political obituary has already been written—by members of his own party and other supporters?
President Biden and his advisors need to decide, very soon, if not immediately, if they are going to move forward with his candidacy. The assassination attempt on Donald Trump has delayed this decision. The appearance of national unity and Biden’s steady leadership was judged to be more important than deciding what to do about his political future. That moment, a week that feels like much longer, in a society in crisis where time feels broken, has now passed. The Republicans and Donald Trump have not paused. The convention and his coronation will only give them more momentum. Indecision is a path to defeat in a political or any other type of battle.
It is now being widely reported that senior members of the Democratic Party, including Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and Hakeem Jeffries have counseled President Biden to drop out of the race. Barack Obama and Bill and Hillary Clinton also do not support President Biden remaining the party's nominee. As Axios summarized on Thursday , "The private message, distilled to its bluntest form: The top leaders of his party, his friends and key donors believe he can't win, can't change public perceptions of his age and acuity, and can't deliver congressional majorities....Don't underestimate how badly some Democrats simply want a ticket that can win in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Win those, and Democrats likely win the presidency. Lose them, they're toast."
Time is a luxury that President Biden, the American people and our democracy do not have. There will in all probability not be another opportunity to stop Donald Trump and the Republican fascists after they take power in 2025.
about the current state of the 2024 election
Chauncey DeVega is a senior politics writer for Salon. His essays can also be found at Chaunceydevega.com . He also hosts a weekly podcast, The Chauncey DeVega Show . Chauncey can be followed on Twitter and Facebook .
Related articles.
Published on April 2, 2019 by Courtney Gahan . Revised on March 5, 2024.
In MLA style , source titles appear either in italics or in quotation marks:
All major words in a title are capitalized . The same format is used in the Works Cited list and in the text itself.
Place in quotation marks | Italicize |
---|---|
When you use the Scribbr MLA Citation Generator , the correct formatting and capitalization are automatically applied to titles.
Instantly correct all language mistakes in your text.
Upload your document to correct all your mistakes in minutes
Capitalization in mla titles, punctuation in mla titles, titles within titles, exceptions to mla title formatting, sources with no title, abbreviating titles, titles in foreign languages, frequently asked questions about mla titles.
In all titles and subtitles, capitalize the first and last words, as well as any other principal words.
Part of speech | Example |
---|---|
in Time | |
and Me | |
for It | |
Girl | |
in Love | |
of You |
Part of speech | Example |
---|---|
(a, an, the) | Road |
(against, as, between, of, to) | Africa |
(and, but, for, nor, or, so, yet) | the Chocolate Factory |
“To” in infinitives | Run |
Professional editors proofread and edit your paper by focusing on:
See an example
Use the same punctuation as appears in the source title. However, if there is a subtitle, separate it from the main title with a colon and a space, even if different (or no) punctuation is used in the source.
The exception is when the title ends in a question mark, exclamation point or dash, in which case you keep the original punctuation:
Sometimes a title contains another title—for example, the title of an article about a novel might contain that novel’s title.
For titles within titles, in general, maintain the same formatting as you would if the title stood on its own.
Type of title | Format | Example |
---|---|---|
Longer works within shorter works | Italicize the inner work’s title | → “ and the Cacophony of the American Dream” |
Shorter works within shorter works | Use single quotation marks for the inner title | “The Red Wedding” → “‘The Red Wedding’ at 5: Why Game of Thrones Most Notorious Scene Shocked Us to the Core” |
Shorter works within longer works | Enclose the inner title in quotation marks, and italicize the entire title | “The Garden Party” → & Other Stories |
Longer works within longer works | Remove the italicization from the inner title | and → Richard II Henry V |
Titles and names that fall into the following categories are not italicized or enclosed in quotation marks:
Words that indicate a particular section of a work are not italicized or placed within quotation marks. They are also not capitalized when mentioned in the text.
Examples of such sections include:
Descriptive terms such as “introduction”, “preface”, “foreword” and “afterword” are capitalized if mentioned in an MLA in-text citation or in the Works Cited list, but not when mentioned in the text itself.
In-text citation: (Brontë, Preface )
In text: In her preface to the work, added in a later edition, Brontë debates the morality of creating characters such as those featured in Wuthering Heights .
If there is a unique title for the introduction, preface, foreword or afterword, include that title in quotation marks instead of the generic section name when referencing the source in the Works Cited list or an in-text citation.
For sources with no title, a brief description of the source acts as the title.
Follow these rules for capitalization:
There are some exceptions to this general format: descriptions including titles of other works, such as comments on articles or reviews of movies; untitled short messages, like tweets; email messages; and untitled poems.
Source type | Rules | Example |
---|---|---|
Comment/review of a work | Sam. Comment on “The Patriot’s Guide to Election Fraud.” , 26 Mar. 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/03/26/opinion | |
Tweet or other short untitled message | @realDonaldTrump. “No Collusion, No Obstruction, Complete and Total EXONERATION. KEEP AMERICA GREAT!” , 24 Mar. 2019, 1:42 p.m., twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status | |
Labrode, Molly. “Re: National Cleanup Day.” Received by Courtney Gahan, 20 Mar. 2019. | ||
Untitled poem | Shelley, Percy Bysshe. “O! there are spirits of the air.” , edited by Zachary Leader and Michael O’Neill, Oxford UP, 2003, pp. 89–90. |
If you need to mention the name of a work in the text itself, state the full title, but omit the subtitle.
If you need to refer to the work multiple times, you may shorten the title to something familiar or obvious to the reader. For example, Huckleberry Finn for The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn . If in doubt, prefer the noun phrase.
If the standalone abbreviation may not be clear, you can introduce it in parentheses, following the standard guidelines for abbreviations. For example, The Merchant of Venice ( MV ) . For Shakespeare and the Bible , there are well-established abbreviations you can use.
When you abbreviate a title, make sure you keep the formatting consistent. Even if the abbreviation consists only of letters, as in the MV example, it must be italicized or placed within quotation marks in the same way as it would be when written in full.
Titles should normally be given in full in the Works Cited list, but if any of your sources has a particularly long title (often the case with older works), you can use an ellipsis to shorten it here. This is only necessary with extremely long titles such as the example below.
In the Works Cited list, if you are listing a work with a title in a language other than English, you can add the translated title in square brackets.
If you are using the foreign-language title in the text itself, you can also include the translation in parenthesis. For example, O Alquimista ( The Alchemist ) .
You don’t need to include a translation in your reference list or in the text if you expect your readers to be familiar with the original language. For example, you wouldn’t translate the title of a French novel you were writing about in the context of a French degree.
For works in a language that does not use the Latin alphabet, such as Arabic, Chinese, Greek, Hebrew, Japanese, or Russian, be consistent with how you mention the source titles and also quotations from within them.
For example, if you choose to write a Russian title in the Cyrillic form, do that throughout the document. If you choose to use the Romanized form, stick with that. Do not alternate between the two.
Yes. MLA style uses title case, which means that all principal words (nouns, pronouns , verbs, adjectives , adverbs , and some conjunctions ) are capitalized.
This applies to titles of sources as well as the title of, and subheadings in, your paper. Use MLA capitalization style even when the original source title uses different capitalization .
In MLA style , book titles appear in italics, with all major words capitalized. If there is a subtitle, separate it from the main title with a colon and a space (even if no colon appears in the source). For example:
The format is the same in the Works Cited list and in the text itself. However, when you mention the book title in the text, you don’t have to include the subtitle.
The title of a part of a book—such as a chapter, or a short story or poem in a collection—is not italicized, but instead placed in quotation marks.
When a book’s chapters are written by different authors, you should cite the specific chapter you are referring to.
When all the chapters are written by the same author (or group of authors), you should usually cite the entire book, but some styles include exceptions to this.
The title of an article is not italicized in MLA style , but placed in quotation marks. This applies to articles from journals , newspapers , websites , or any other publication. Use italics for the title of the source where the article was published. For example:
Use the same formatting in the Works Cited entry and when referring to the article in the text itself.
The MLA Handbook is currently in its 9th edition , published in 2021.
This quick guide to MLA style explains the latest guidelines for citing sources and formatting papers according to MLA.
If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.
Gahan, C. (2024, March 05). MLA Titles | How to Format & Capitalize Source Titles. Scribbr. Retrieved July 22, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/mla/titles/
Other students also liked, mla format for academic papers and essays, creating an mla header, author names in mla | citing one or multiple authors, "i thought ai proofreading was useless but..".
I've been using Scribbr for years now and I know it's a service that won't disappoint. It does a good job spotting mistakes”
Advertisement
Like Donald J. Trump, the Ohio senator has been skeptical of American intervention overseas and argues that raising tariffs will create new jobs.
By Adam Nagourney
Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio, Donald J. Trump’s newly chosen running mate, has made a shift from the Trump critic he was when he first entered politics to the loyalist he is today. It was a shift both in style and substance: Now, on topics as disparate as trade and Ukraine, Mr. Vance is closely aligned with Mr. Trump.
Here’s a look at where the senator stands on the issues that will most likely dominate the campaign ahead and, should Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance win in November, their years in the White House.
Mr. Vance opposes abortion rights, even in the case of incest or rape, but says there should be exceptions for cases when the mother’s life is in danger. He praised the U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade. As he ran for Senate in 2022, a headline on the issues section of his campaign website read simply: “Ban Abortion.”
Mr. Vance has said that he would support a 15-week national ban proposed by Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. He has also said the matter is “primarily a state issue,” suggesting states should be free to make more restrictive laws. “Ohio is going to want to have a different abortion policy from California, from New York, and I think that’s reasonable, he said in an interview with USA Today Network in October 2022.
Mr. Vance has been one of the leading opponents of U.S. support for Ukraine in the war with Russia. “I think it’s ridiculous that we’re focused on this border in Ukraine,” he said in a podcast interview with Stephen K. Bannon, the former Trump adviser and longtime ally. “I’ve got to be honest with you, I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or the other.”
He led the battle in the Senate, unsuccessfully, to block a $60 billion military aid package for Ukraine. “I voted against this package in the Senate and remain opposed to virtually any proposal for the United States to continue funding this war,” he wrote in an opinion essay for The New York Times early this year challenging President Biden’s stance on the war. “Mr. Biden has failed to articulate even basic facts about what Ukraine needs and how this aid will change the reality on the ground.”
We are having trouble retrieving the article content.
Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access.
Already a subscriber? Log in .
Want all of The Times? Subscribe .
IMAGES
VIDEO
COMMENTS
Revised on March 5, 2024. The first page of your MLA format paper starts with a four-line left-aligned header containing: Your full name. Your instructor's name. The course name and number. The date of submission. After the header, the title of the paper is centred on a new line, in title case. The header and title do not take any special ...
4. Hover over "Top of Page" and select "Plain Number 3". 5. For the MLA header, enter your last name along with the page number, both right-aligned. For the APA header, input the abbreviated version of the title in all capital letters and press the "Tab" key. MLA essay header example. APA essay header example.
There are five levels of heading in APA Style. Level 1 is the highest or main level of heading, Level 2 is a subheading of Level 1, Level 3 is a subheading of Level 2, and so on through Levels 4 and 5. The number of headings to use in a paper depends on the length and complexity of the work. If only one level of heading is needed, use Level 1.
At the outset, make a plan for how you will deal with matters of capitalization, formatting and sequencing of headings. Headings at the same level should be formatted the same. For instance, "Section 2.2" should get the same treatment as "Section 4.1". They should also have parallel structure.
Headings and subheadings provide structure to a document. They signal what each section. is about and allow for easy navigation of the document. APA headings have five possible levels. Each heading level is formatted differently. Note: Title case simply means that you should capitalize the first word, words with four or more letters, and all ...
The paper or chapter title is the first level of heading, and it must be the most prominent. Headings should be styled in descending order of prominence. After the first level, the other headings are subheadings—that is, they are subordinate. Font styling and size are used to signal prominence. In general, a boldface, larger font indicates ...
MLA Heading vs. MLA Header. You have graduated from 5-paragraph essays to MLA research papers, so it is time to learn what an MLA heading vs. a header is in MLA format. MLA headings are found on the first page and provide identifying information. MLA headers are identifiers found on every page of your paper.
To create one in Microsoft Word, follow the steps below: Go to Insert > Page number > Top of page. Choose the option that shows the page number on the right side. 2. Add your last name and make sure the font style and size match with the rest of your paper. Your header should now appear on each page of your paper.
In the case of a group project, list all names of the contributors, giving each name its own line in the header, followed by the remaining MLA header requirements as described below. Format the remainder of the page as requested by the instructor. In the upper left-hand corner of the first page, list your name, your instructor's name, the ...
For the pages that follow the first page, set the heading like this: instead of the whole heading, you would use the header feature on your word processing program and including the following information: Your Last Name and the Page Number. ... It should only be on the first page of the essay. Reply. Terry August 19, 2014, 10:52 am. This is ...
Creating MLA Headers in Microsoft Word. If you're writing your paper in Microsoft Word, follow these steps: Click Insert. Scroll down to Page Numbers and click on it. Set the position to "Top of Page (Header)". Set the alignment to "Right". Make sure there's no checkmark in the box for "Show number on first page".
In MS Word, you can create a header under the "Insert" menu. Double-click the top of the page. Click the "Insert" menu in the toolbar. Click "Page Number", hover over "Top of Page", and click "Plain Number 3". Enter your last name along with the page number, both right-aligned. Now that you know how to format an MLA running ...
An MLA Heading should only appear on the first page of your paper. You might confuse an MLA Heading with an MLA running head. However, the running head should appear on every page before the page number. How Do You Create An MLA Running Header in Google Docs and Word? To create an MLA running header in Google Docs or Word, follow these steps:
An MLA-formatted research paper does not need a title page (unless your instructor requires one, of course). Instead, include at the top of your first page a heading - consisting of your name, your instructor's name, the course number, and the date - and the title of your paper. The title should be centered and double-spaced.
Be consistent throughout your essay. Choose a pattern and stick with it throughout the entirety of the assignment. If you start off by having a heading for each paragraph, keep it that way until the end. Also, make sure the format remains the same.
2.1 Adding the Page Header in MS-Word (Windows) Insert -> Page Number -> Top of Page -> (choose the right-justified "Plain Number" option) The cursor will jump automatically to the right place for you to type your surname. Click anywhere in the body of the paper to exit the header area. 2.2 Adding the Page Header in MS-Word (Mac)
English Composition 1 Inserting Headers into Essays. According to the MLA (the Modern Language Association), each page of an essay, including the first page, should include the writer's last name and the page number inserted as a header in the upper right corner of the page, as illustrated below:
MLA (Modern Language Association) style is most commonly used to write papers and cite sources within the liberal arts and humanities. This resource, updated to reflect the MLA Handbook (9th ed.), offers examples for the general format of MLA research papers, in-text citations, endnotes/footnotes, and the Works Cited page.
MLA format is a widely used citation style for academic papers. Learn how to format your title page, header, and Works Cited page with our free template and examples. Watch our 3-minute video to see how easy it is to apply MLA rules to your document.
Your paper should be written using a standard (8.5x11 inch) sheet of paper with a common font such as Times New Roman. Some professors may request a different font, but Times New Roman is the most commonly accepted. The entire document should be double-spaced, including the header and bibliography. You can easily double-space a paper by ...
NIDA should beware of funding companies that violate people's privacy Readers respond to essays on philanthropy and nursing schools,… Readers respond to essays on philanthropy and nursing ...
We'd have had Bartlet drop out of the race and endorse whoever had the best chance of beating the guy. The problem in the real world is that there isn't a Democrat who is polling significantly ...
NIDA should also restrict how its funding is discussed by the companies in line with other grant funding: the funding must not be portrayed as an endorsement that deceives patients, providers, and ...
As a condition of the grants, the Energy Department should have required those utilities to provide electric meter data in a "portable" format so the information could move easily among ...
WASHINGTON - American actor George Clooney, a high-profile supporter of President Joe Biden, argued in an op-ed that the Democratic party needs a new nominee. "We are not going to win in ...
His name should otherwise be erased and forgotten. It is sadly incorrect to say, as so many have, that political violence "has no place" in American society. Assassinations, lynchings, riots ...
Joe Biden is still the president of the United States. Americans do not have a king or queen, but they do have a president. The presidency is much bigger and more important than the person who ...
The review should be four to eight hours with components recommended by the American Academy of Neurology, and assess memory, language and problem-solving skills and other cognitive abilities.
MLA format for academic papers and essays Apply MLA format to your title page, header, and Works Cited page with our 3-minute video, template, and examples. 1650. Creating an MLA header Start with a header containing your name, instructor's name, course, and date, followed by the paper's title. 486.
Like Donald J. Trump, the Ohio senator has been skeptical of American intervention overseas and argues that raising tariffs will create new jobs. By Adam Nagourney Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio ...