A. Faulty physical format

The sources must be

• Double spaced
• with a hanging indent (first line comes to margin, second and succeeding lines indented one tab stop)

B. Minimum sources required

The research paper has the following minimum requirements regarding sources:

• A minimum of five sources required
• One source must be one of the Narrative Biographies from the Biography Resource Center
• One source must be from one of the other Chattanooga State Library databases

C. Problems with databases--original publication information

Failure to cite full information about the original publication. You must include the full MLA citation information about where an article was originally published before it was included in the database. This means you must include the author of the article (if listed), the article title (surrounded by quotation marks), the original book, journal, magazine, newspaper, or whatever print source where the original article was printed (title italicized), and the publication info appropriate to that type of source (c.f., for books, the publisher and date of publication; for journals, the volume, issue, date of publication, and pages where the article originally appeared; and so on).

D. Problems with databases--proper format for listing the database

For articles in databases, first list the information in MLA format for where the article was first published. After listing the information about where an article was first published, include the citation information for the database. The proper format for listing databases is to include the following information in the order given (the database title is italicized):

Name of Database. Publisher of Database. Library name and location. Date article accessed. <Root address of database>.

The library has examples listed for all of the databases available through our library under Writing Tools, MLA Citation Examples <http://library.cstcc.cc.tn.us/cite.pdf>. (If there is a note on your paper to check the library site or to check the MLA Citation Examples on the library web page, this is the page you should refer to).

E. Problems with articles from reference books

When documenting articles from reference books, include not only the name and editor of the reference book, but also the name of the author of the article and the title of the article. In most cases the article title is the name of the person you are researching. The author of the article will appear either at the beginning of the article or at the end of the article. The title of the article should appear in quotation marks, and the reference book title should be italicized. See MLA example #6 for how to properly format citations of articles in reference books.

F. Problems with articles from journals

MLA has a specific way in which the volume, issue, date of publication, and page numbers of an article should be formatted. See MLA examples #21 and #22 for the correct format.