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HONR 211: World of Fairy Tales

History, Reference, and Primary Sources

Citing Your Primary Sources

Works Cited Page

While you'd most often see Chicago style citations for anything written in the discipline of Museum Studies, for this class you will be using MLA.

To cite artwork including sculptures and figures you will want to include the following parts of a citation:

  • Artist Name
  • Title of Artwork in italics
  • Date of composition
  • Name of the institution housing the artwork
  • Location of Institution (unless the location is in the institution name, for example, The Art Institute of Chicago)

Dalí, Salvador. King Solomon. 1975, Nasher Museum, Durham.

Usually, in MLA, the medium and/or materials (for example, oil on canvas) isn't used in a citation, nor are the dimensions if known. However, this can be really important information especially for a digital exhibit where viewers can't get a ready idea of the scale. If you know these details you may include the medium at the end of the citation (or in the caption of a Figure in your text) and the size as part of the Figure caption.

Dalí, Salvador. King Solomon. 1975, Nasher Museum, Durham. Drypoint etching on paper with stencil.

Illustrations in Text

Your museum catalog will include the images you chose for your exhibit. In MLA you should provide a figure number (Fig. 1) with a caption that includes source information under the figure. While the figure itself should be noted with an uppercase F, when referring to the figure in the rest of your text you should use a lower case f.

When including a brief source of information you will use a comma between each element, artist, title, year, etc. For example, "Fig. 1: Salvador Dalí, King Solomon, 1975, etching on paper, 65.7 x 50.2 cm." and then include the full source information on your works cited page.

You may decide to include the full source information within your caption, if so you need not include it on the works cited page but the caption needs to follow the same formatting as it would show on the works cited page with the exception of the artist which would appear with first name followed by last name. For example, "Fig. 1: Salvador Dalí, King Solomon, 1975, Nasher Museum, Durham, etching on paper."

Adapted from Purdue OWL.