Works Cited

God bless my students. You've got to love the way they mangle their Works Cited pages. I am not the pedantic sort, so while teaching the basics of proper MLA formatting, I rarely groan with anal retentive fury when they inevitably make a mess of things. Instead, I smile and remember that I too was once a freshman -- clueless, preoccupied with matters more organic, impulsive, hormonal, and soulful than the exacting standards of academic documentation. I dutifully identify mistaken patches and hope that, in time, they will develop a higher awareness of good MLA style before graduation. From the current batch of research papers, I have logged many variant titles used on the Works Cited page. Our benchmark rule is to place an underlined title Works Cited centered at the top of the page. Now, onto the creative violations, with commentary in brackets:

• no title [The vanishing act: "Works Cited has left the building..."]
  
• Works Cited (not underlined) [the slightest of oversights...]
  
• Work Cited [the "all is one" version ... works gone singular, monotheistic documentation dogma?]
  
• "Works Cited" [ironic quotation perhaps?]
  
• Work Sited [work was seen, located, left uncorrected]
  
• WORK CITED [aggressive declaration in ALL CAPS]
  
• WORK CITED PAGE [in case you forgot what that thin surface of dried pulp was in your hands]
  
• Sources Cited [alternative word choice]
  
• Bibliography [old school word choice]
  
• References [unreformed APA student who refuses to cross over to the humanities dark side]
  
• Works Citied [metropolitan version, perhaps a metrosexual flourish?]
  
• Work's Cited [errant possession]
  
• Woks Cited [oriental cooking version, and my current favorite]