Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

I wasn't sure where to post this, so I thought I'd post it here. Sorry if it's the wrong spot.

In a research paper, according to MLA standards, if I cite an author on page 259 in one paragraph (Author, 259), and 3 paragraphs later cite the same author from the same book but from a different page (Author, 628), how should the works cited entries look? Do I need two separate entries for each citation, or can I make one entry and put pages 259-628 in the works cited listing?

Thanks in advance to any help anyone can give on this.

HI Badger Boy,

You will probably want to double check with your teacher. However, my understanding is that you would list the book once in your works cited list.

For example, I might write in a paper that "Saturn has many rings (de Pater and Lissauer, 457)" and in another part of the paper say that "the age of Saturn's rings is unknown (de Pater and Lissauer, 484)".

In my works cited list I would have one entry, even though I cited the same book twice. The entry would look like this:

de Pater, Imke, and Jack J. Lissauer. Planetary Sciences. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2010. Print.

Thanks for your reply!

Honestly I don't think my professor knows. lol

I'm using the following citation builder,

http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/citationbuilder ... ookchapter

I've had good success with this builder in the past with other professors.

But it calls for page numbers.

So using your works cited example, how would it look with the page numbers? Would I put in 457-484 (457 through 484), or 457, 484 (457 and 484)?

Hi Badger Boy,

Normally I would put the total number of pages in the book (647 p.), but I don't use MLA format most of the time I'm working. You can often leave a field blank in these citation builders without causing a problem. Just double check the actual list when you copy it into your paper to make sure it hasn't put something strange.