How to cite a dictionary definition à la MLA

Hat tip to Mariana for the question!

Again the caveat: do not spend time formatting your essay according to MLA arcana when you could spend that time working over your analysis and argument. Analysis and argument are 90% of your essay grade; MLA formatting is 0%.

Parenthetical citation:

Jane’s image of Georgiana as “the cynosure of a ball-room” has a mocking undertone (Brontë 280). Brontë compares Georgiana’s intent to marry into money to the meaning of “cynosure” introduced into English in 1596 by Sir Francis Drake: the Pole-star and, figuratively, “Something that serves for guidance or direction” (“Cynosure,” defs. 1 and 2a).

Entry under Works Cited:

“Cynosure.” Defs. 1 and 2a. OED Online. Oxford University Press. 6 July 2008 <http://dictionary.oed.com&gt;.

(That, by the way, is the simplified format; perfectionists may turn to this PDF from SUNY to learn more rigorous formatting rules.)

Three quick usage rules:

1. Incorporate a definition into your essay only when that definition is unusual and interesting—as a general rule, give definitions only for meanings that are uncommon (example: the theological sense of disgrace) or that have gone out of use since Shakespeare’s time.
2. Use the definition to further your argument. If you take the space to spell out an unusual meaning of disgrace but don’t explain how that unusual definition betters our understanding of the sonnet, that space will be wasted.
3. Don’t begin an essay with a definition. Although this might give you a way to break the blank page, your reader is more interested in the argument of your essay than in the OED definition of “love.”

Citing Renana Brooks

Here is the correct Works Cited entry for Brooks’s article:

Brooks, Renana. “A Nation of Victims.” The Nation 12 June 2003. 24 June 2008 <http://www.thenation.com/doc/20030630/brooks&gt;.

(The second and third lines should both be indented half an inch, and, of course, there shouldn’t be that wonky spacing.)

How could you have known this? The Writer’s Handbook (created by our very own Writing Center here at UW–Madison) has a page on citing electronic sources according to the rules of the Modern Language Association (MLA).

I’m not picky about citation: it’s important to me that you cite your sources, and that all the information is there in case I want to track down your evidence, but your grade will never change because you put the title and the date in the wrong order or anything picky like that.