The abbreviation M. L. A. means Modern Language Association, it is a format for writing. It specifies guidelines for formatting manuscripts and provides the writer with referencing of his information.
The referencing allows readers to know where the writer got his material from. This is good for researchers who may want o locate your sources for their own projects. Most importantly the M. L. A. style can prevent accusations of plagiarism.
There are basic guidelines for formatting a paper in M. L. A. style, however you should always follow your instructor’s guidelines. Some of the guidelines are that you should double space your paper, set the margins of the document to one inch on all sides, use either underlining or italics throughout your essay for highlighting the titles of longer works and providing emphasis, and if you have any notes include them on a page before your work. In the M.
L. A. style, referring to other people’s work in text can be done in two ways. You can paraphrase or qoutes them directly, you should provide the author’s name and the page number in parenthesis or you can put qoutation marks. Like this people can see where you got your information and can look it up themselves for their own research. If you add a word or words in a quotation you should put it in brackets to show that they are not part of the original text.
If you take out a word or words form a quotation, you should indicate the word (s) you took out by using ellipsis marks surrounded by brackets.
The Essay on Luigi Boccherini Music Works Style
Luigi Boccherini was a prolific composer, particularly of chamber music with a distinctive and highly wrought style, and he is the chief representative of Latin instrumental music during the Viennese Classical period. Boccherini was also an exceptional cellist. Luigi Boccherini (his baptismal first name Rudalfo was never used) was the son of a cello or double bass player, Leopoldo Boccherini. ...