Citing Sources
MLA Handbook by ISBN: 1603293515Publication Date: 2021Relied on by generations of writers, the MLA Handbook is published by the Modern Language Association and is the only official, authorized book on MLA style. The new, ninth edition builds on the MLA's unique approach to documenting sources using a template of core elements.
- MLA Formatting and Style Guide (Purdue OWL Guide)
- Please note: There is a citation generator on this site that is not free or recommended. See the list of recommended citation generators on our guide to Style Guides and Manuals
- More Information about Style Guides
Find Journal Articles
These are some useful journal databases for French Language and Literature Studies:
- MLA International Bibliography
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Offers a detailed bibliography of journal articles, books and dissertations. Produced by the Modern Language Association (MLA), the electronic version of the bibliography dates back to 1963 and contains over 1.7 million citations from more than 4,400 journals & series, and 1,000 book publishers. - Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
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This database is a good place to begin when you are looking for articles because it covers all disciplines in both popular magazines and scholarly journals. Academic Search Complete indexes thousands of titles and provides the full-text for many of the articles. Academic Search Complete allows you to print and/or save your results. You can even email articles to yourself already preformatted with the citation style of your choice. - JSTOR
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Searchable multidisciplinary full-text journal backfile collection. Includes journals in film studies and French language, literature, and culture. - Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts (LLBA)
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Abstracts and indexes the international literature in linguistics and related disciplines in the language sciences. Coverage includes phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics, descriptive an historical, comparative, theoretical and geographical linguistics. The database provides abstracts of journal articles and citations to book reviews drawn from over 1,500 serials publications, and also provides abstracts of books, book chapters, and dissertations. - International Medieval Bibliography (IMB)
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Indexes the journal literature (some 4,500 periodicals) covering the European middle ages (c. 300-1500). Limited to three simultaneous users. - Project Muse
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This database is available through Johns Hopkins University Press. Project Muse compiles over 300 humanities, arts, and social science journals from 60 scholarly publishers. One important journal from this collection is Nineteenth-Century French Studies. Issues of this journal are available from spring 2001 - current.
Scholarly vs Popular Articles: Understanding the Difference
Popular Magazine or Newspaper Articles
· Are written by journalists or reporters;
· Are written to inform, to persuade, or to entertain;
· Are intended for a general audience;
· Usually do not contain bibliographies;
· Can be purchased at a grocery store;
· Have glossy covers.
Scholarly Articles
· Are written by professors, researchers or scholars;
· Are written to inform other scholars of original research or experimentation;
· Are written in more specialized or technical language;
· Have footnotes or bibliographies;
· May contain research findings or data;
· Are generally available only by subscription;
· Are lengthy.
How to Get Full-Text
When searching for journal articles, you will notice the View Now button on many of your search results. Clicking on the View Now button will lead you to the article itself, links to the full text of the article, or it will let you know that we do not have full text of the article.
If the full text is not available, you can search InfoKat Discovery for a print copy of the article. If we do not have a print copy, you can request an interlibrary loan (ILL). For articles, these usually arrive pretty quickly.
Have questions? Ask Us for help.
Cited Reference Searching
The Cited Reference search in Web of Science Core Collection or Academic Search Complete searches the footnotes of journal articles. This is very helpful when you need to track down the references to a particular author or article.
