The MLA style uses author-page references in the text and then provides more extensive information about the references in the bibliography at the end of the text. The bibliography is headed “Works Cited” if all references are works cited in the text itself, or “Works Consulted” if the reference list also includes works that have been used as background material but which are not cited in the text.

Here is an example of what an MLA citation looks like in the text:

In order to succeed as a politician, Roosevelt changed his image and became known as the “Cowboy from the Dakotas” (Bederman 170-71).

The corresponding entry in the bibliography looks like this:

Bederman, Gail. Manliness & Civilization: A Cutural History of Gender and Race in the United States 1880-1917. Chicago: The U. of Chicago P., 1995.