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Sometimes you may need or want to supply additional information about a work besides what is already included through the core elements. You can do so by adding supplemental elements to the template.
A supplemental element should be inserted after the Title of Source element if it does not pertain to the entry as a whole. Otherwise, it should be inserted at the end of the entry.
Exceptionally, it may be placed between containers if it applies only to the preceding container and not to the container following it.
A period should be placed after a supplemental element. As with core elements, you can include more than one item of information as a supplemental element. List them in whatever order you prefer and separate them with a comma.
Three pieces of information are most likely to appear in the middle supplemental element:
A contributor in the middle supplemental element provides additional information that applies not to the whole container but to the information in the Author and Title of Source elements.
Example:
Fagih, Ahmed Ibrahim al-. The Singing of the Stars. Translated by Leila El Khalidi and Christopher Tingley. Short Arabic Plays: An Anthology, edited by Salma Khadra Jayyusi, Interlink Books, 2003, pp. 140-57.
If a work contained in another work has an original publication date, you must use the supplemental element for the original publication date. This indicates that the original publication date applies to the contained work, not the container of the work.
Example:
United States, Supreme Court. Brown v. Board of Education. 17 May 1954. Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School, www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/347/483.
If the introduction, preface, foreword, afterword, or other section of a work has a unique title as well as a generic label, you can use the middle supplemental element to provide the generic description if you think it will be important for your reader. In general, however, omit the label.
Example:
Groff, Lauren. "On Yūko Tsushima's Quietly Defiant Sensualities." Introduction. Woman Running in the Mountains, by Yūko Tsushima, translated by Geraldine Harcourt, NYRB Classics, 2022.
The final supplemental element is used to clarify something about the entry as a whole, and it should be used judiciously. You may include the following in the final supplemental entry:
An access date for an online work should generally be provided if the work lacks a publication date or if you suspect that the work has been altered or removed (such as when a website no longer exists).
Example:
Eldon, Eric. "Friendster raises $20 million, nabs a Googler to be CEO." VentureBeat, 4 Aug. 2008, https://venturebeat.com/social/friendster-raises-20-million-nabs-a-googler-to-be-ceo/. Accessed 24 Aug. 2017.
Include the medium of publication as a final supplemental element when more than one version of a source is accessible on the same landing page and you are citing a version that is not the default version.
For example, include Transcript of lyrics as a supplemental element when you cite the printed lyrics of a song available alongside a video of the song. Some other possible descriptors include Transcript, Supplementary material, or PDF download.
Cite the final published version of a work whenever possible. If you are citing the draft version of a work, indicate this in the final supplemental element.
The final supplemental element can also be used to indicate the medium of publication for a work whose format would otherwise be ambiguous, or to specify the file type for an electronic edition of a work when that information conveys essential information.
Examples:
Beyoncé. "Break My Soul." Renaissance, Parkwood Entertainment / Columbia Records, 2022, music.beyonce.com/. Credits.
Glass, Erin Rose, and Micah Vandegrift. "Public Scholarship in Practice and Philsophy." CORE, 2018, https://doi.org/10.17613/g64d-gd16. PDF download, draft of working paper.
MLA Handbook. 8th ed., e-book ed., Modern Language Association of America, 2016. EPUB.
The institution conferring the degree and the type of thesis or dissertation (BA, MA, or PhD) are essential to defining the work and should appear as a final supplemental element.
Example:
Klocke, Krista. Envisioning Rural Transformation: Institutional Visual Epideictic and the Celebration of Iowa's Agricultural Landscape. 2023. Iowa State U, PhD dissertation.
Only include details about a source's publication history when writing for a specialist audience and it is important to include this information.
The core elements should provide publication details for the version of the source used; any relevant information about the original publication context can be given in the supplemental element at the end of the entry.
Example:
Johnson, Barbara. "My Monster / My Self." The Barbara Johnson Reader: The Surprise of Otherness, edited by Melissa Feuerstein et al., Duke UP, 2014, pp. 179-90. Originally published in Diacritics, 1982.
Series information, when relevant, can be given as a final supplemental element.
Example:
d'Aragona, Tullia. Dialogue on the Infinity of Love. Edited and translated by Rinaldina Russell and Bruce Merry, U of Chicago P, 1997. The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe.
A column title, section title, or other recurring titled feature in a periodical publication like a magazine or website does not usually need to be included in the works-cited-list entry. When including inessential column or section information, provides it as a final supplemental element.
Example:
"How Do I Style the Name of Fictional Characters?" MLA Style Center, Modern Language Association of America, 18 Oct. 2017, style.mla.org/2017/10/18/names-of-fictional-characters/. Ask the MLA.
The total number of volumes for a multivolume work cited as a whole can be included as a final supplemental element.
When an individual volume of a multivolume work has a unique title, give the title of the work as a whole as a final supplemental element.
Examples:
Murakami, Haruki. 1Q84. Vintage, 2012. 3 vols.
Payne, Ruby K. Safer Students and Less-Stressed Teachers. Aha! Press, 2020. Vol. 2 of Emotional Poverty.
When an individual volume of a multivolume work that does not have a unique title provides the scope of the volume on the title page, the scope should generally be omitted; the volume number is sufficient to distinguish the work.
If, however, you elect to include the scope, treat it as a part of the title. Then the volume number and title of the work as a whole must also be included as a final supplemental element.
Examples:
Dettmar, Kevin, and Jennifer Wicke, editors. The Longman Anthology of British Literature: The Twentieth Century. Longman, 1999. Vol. 2C of The Longman Anthology of British Literature, 6 vols.
Woolf, Virginia. The Essays of Virginia Woolf, 1929-1932. Edited by Stuart N. Clarke, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009. Vol. 5 of The Essays of Virginia Woolf.
At the end of entries for legislative documents, you may want to provide the number and session of Congress, the chamber (Senate or House of Representatives), and the type and number of the publication. Types of congressional publications include bills, resolutions, reports, and documents.
Examples:
Poore, Benjamin Perley, compiler. A Descriptive Catalogue of the Government Publications of the United States, September 4, 1774-March 4, 1881. Government Printing Office, 1885. 48th Congress, 2nd session, Miscellaneous Document 67.
United States, Congress, House. Improving Broadband Access for Veterans Act of 2016. Congress.gov, www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/6394/text. 114th Congress, 2nd session, House Resolution 6394, passed 6 Dec. 2016.
In an entry with two or more containers, a supplemental element that supplies information relevant to only one container may be placed after the container it pertains to.
In the entry below, the information "Indiana U, PhD dissertation" is placed after the first container, which contains only the date of the work; the information does not apply to the second container, the online repository CORE.
Example:
Sewell, Amanda. A Typology of Sampling in Hip-Hop. 2018. Indiana U, PhD dissertation. CORE, https://doi.org/10.17613/M6P850.