Published on February 7, 2020 by Shona McCombes. Revised on May 14, 2020.
When you apply for graduate school, you’ll usually be asked to submit a resume or CV along with your application. A graduate school resume should give a focused, concise overview of relevant experiences and achievements.
The exact sections you include depend on your experiences and on the focus of the program you’re applying to. Ensure your resume gives full details of:
Your college education
Relevant work experience
Relevant voluntary and extracurricular experience
Any awards, honors, publications, or other relevant achievements
Any relevant skills, certifications, and memberships
The main difference from a regular resume is that you’ll put more emphasis on your education and academic interests to show that you’re a good candidate for graduate school.
Download the Word templates and adjust them to your own purposes.
The APA manual (published by the American Psychological Association) is mostly used in social science and education fields.
The MLA handbook (published by the Modern Language Association) is mostly used in humanities fields.
In both styles, a source citation consists of:
A brief parenthetical citation in the text
A full reference at the end of the paper
However, citations look slightly different in each style, with different rules for things like title capitalization, author names, and placement of the date.
There are also some differences in layout and formatting. Download the Word templates for a correctly formatted paper in either style.
This article follows the 8th edition of MLA style and the 6th edition of APA style. The 7th edition of the APA manual is expected to be widely used from spring 2020 onwards.
Published on September 19, 2019 by Shona McCombes. Revised on June 19, 2020.
When you conduct research about a group of people, it’s rarely possible to collect data from every person in that group. Instead, you select a sample. The sample is the group of individuals who will actually participate in the research.
To draw valid conclusions from your results, you have to carefully decide how you will select a sample that is representative of the group as a whole. There are two types of sampling methods:
Probability sampling involves random selection, allowing you to make statistical inferences about the whole group.
Non-probability sampling involves non-random selection based on convenience or other criteria, allowing you to easily collect initial data.
You should clearly explain how you selected your sample in the methodology section of your paper or thesis.
In MLA (8th edition), the Works Cited entry for a lecture looks like this:
MLA lecture citation format
Lecturer Last Name, First Name. “Title of Lecture.” Course or Event Name, Date, Venue, City. Descriptive label.
MLA lecture citation example
Dent, Gina. “Anchored to the Real: Black Literature in the Wake of Anthropology.” Moving together: Activism, Art & Education, 16 May 2018, The Black Archives, Amsterdam. Lecture.
This format also applies to other types of oral presentation, such as a conference panel or a public talk.
Published on August 22, 2019 by Shona McCombes. Revised on October 15, 2019.
The first page of your MLA format paper starts with a four-line left-aligned heading containing:
Your full name
Your instructor’s name
The course name and number
The date of submission
After the heading, the title of the paper is centred on a new line. The heading and title do not take any special styling, and should be the same font and size as the rest of the paper.
MLA style does not require a separate cover page. The main body of your paper starts on the same page, directly under the title.
Include your name and the page number right-aligned in the header on every page.
Published on August 20, 2019 by Shona McCombes. Revised on July 3, 2020.
Survey research means collecting information about a group of people by asking them questions and analyzing the results. To conduct an effective survey, follow these six steps:
Published on August 9, 2019 by Shona McCombes. Revised on October 28, 2019.
When you quote poetry, you have to properly format the quotation and direct the reader to the correct source entry in the Works Cited list.
An MLA 8 poetry citation must include the poet’s last name, either in the main text or in a parenthetical citation. If line or page numbers are available, add these to the parenthetical citation directly after the quote.
In the Works Cited entry, include the full publication details of the source in which you found the poem. You can use our free MLA citation generator to create Works Cited entries and in-text citations.
MLA poetry citation examples
In-text poetry citation
Works Cited source entry
Line numbers
(Eliot, lines 19–20)
Eliot, T.S. “The Waste Land.” 1922. Bartleby, www.bartleby.com/201/1.html. Accessed 09 June 2019.
Page numbers
(Angelou 132)
Angelou, Maya. “Men.” The Complete Collected Poems, Random House, 1994, pp. 132-133.
No numbers
(Mahon)
Mahon, Derek. “A Disused Shed in Co. Wexford.” Poetry Foundation, www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/92154/a-disused-shed-in-co-wexford. Accessed 25 June 2019.
When citing an interview in MLA style (8th edition), the name of the interviewee appears as the author in the in-text citation.
In the Works Cited entry, the interviewee’s name is followed by the title of the interview in quotation marks. If there is no title, use the description “Interview” (with no styling or quotation marks).
If you conducted the interview yourself, add your own name and the date on which the interview took place. If you found the interview in a published source, include the name of the interviewer and full details of the source.
MLA interview citation examples
Works Cited entry
In-text citation
Personal interview
Streefkerk, Raimo. Interview. Conducted by Shona McCombes, 20 July 2019.
(Streefkerk)
Published interview
Spark, Muriel. “Unsentimental Voyager.” Interview by Stephanie Merritt. The Guardian, 10 Sept. 2000, www.theguardian.com/books/2000/sep/10/fiction.murielspark.
Published on August 1, 2019 by Shona McCombes. Revised on September 12, 2019.
To cite a film in MLA (8th edition), you need to know the title, the director, any other relevant contributors, the production company, and the year of release. If there are multiple versions of a film, you also need to identify the version.
Brazil. Directed by Terry Gilliam, performances by Jonathan Pryce and Katherine Helmond, director’s cut, Embassy International Pictures, 1985.
To cite a movie from Netflix (and similar online streaming services), you don’t have to add any extra information. If you watched the movie on an unofficial website or video-sharing platform like YouTube, add the website name, the uploader, the date of upload, and the URL.
Night of the Living Dead. Directed by George A. Romero, Image Ten, 1968. YouTube, uploaded by American Film Institute, 26 Aug 2014, www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZy6P72Uu3Y.
In the in-text citation, include the title (or a shortened version of it) and the time range.
