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MLA style no longer requires a title page or outline, but some professors require one or both. Professors will tell you about requirements. Samples of a title page and of an outline are at the end of this paper.
Note each page will have your last name followed by a space and page number, right-justified.
Type your name, instructor’s name, course number, and the date on separate lines, double-spacing.
Center the title but do not underline, use all capitals, or quotation marks.
For an informative paper, use the introduction to emphasize the newsworthiness and importance of the topic.
Observe that the source of this information is given both in a signal phrase (quoted in The New York Times ) and in parentheses at the end (Woodsen). Note also that the period comes after the parenthesis.
If you give the author’s name in the signal phrase (An article by Milius), you don’t need to give it again at the end of the sentence.
This paragraph begins with a topic sentence that reveals the paragraph’s subject—the biology of the beetle.
To introduce abbreviations, use the term in full and then put the abbreviation in capitals enclosed in parentheses.
Last name 1
Student X. Name
Professor Smith
English 101
January 2001
The Asian Longhorned Beetle:
Another Alien Among Us
The latest “alien” to invade the United States is an inch-long, shiny,
black beetle with white (or yellow) spots on its back. It is called the “starry
sky beetle” in its native China, and the Asian longhorned beetle here in the
United States, and it has, according to entomologists quoted in The New
York Times, the potential for creating the “worst ecological disaster North
American forests have ever seen” (Woodsen 7). An article by Milius in
Science News also quotes Richard Hoebeke, an entomologist and assistant
curator of Cornell University’s insect collection, as saying that this
infestation of the beetle could “easily be on the same level as the gypsy
moth and the Mediterranean fruit fly.” Already 5,000 hardwood trees in the
New York City area, and nearly 1,500 in the Chicago environs, have been
destroyed since the beetle was first identified in this country in 1996, and
beetles have been found in over 20 other cities in the United States
(Woodsen 7). With no natural enemies here in this country, and no known
legal pesticide to curb its spread, the beetle and many scientists are engaged
in biological warfare.
To understand why the beetle is causing so much concern requires
understanding its biology. The Asian longhorned beetle (ALB) belongs to
the family of longhorned beetle, Cerambycidae , and derives its names from
the exceptionally long antennae. Its life begins as a small egg, the size of a
The information for this entire paragraph comes from the article by Milius. Therefore, it requires only a single documentation at the end of the paragraph.
Here’s another example of a new abbreviation being introduced. But see below for the well-known abbreviation of USDA, which doesn’t need to be introduced.
This paragraph continues discussing the biology of the beetle, but now (as the first sentence indicates), the subject changes to why the beetle is such a problem.
We can infer from the pattern of citation here that the first two sentences are from Becker and the last sentence is from Woodsen.
Last name 2
grain of rice, laid in a small groove underneath the bark of the host tree. The
female then plugs the hole with digested wood called “frass.” The egg stage
lasts about 11 days, and the emerging larva begins eating the tree’s
cambium, the soft yellow tissue just below the outer bark. The larva sheds
its skin twice and keeps gnawing its way into the heartwood of the tree,
where it will spend the winter. The following spring the larva
metamorphoses into its pupa stage, a smaller, softer version of the adult, and
then after the body hardens, anytime from late spring through summer, the
adult ALB emerges through a dime-sized hole in the tree. According to a
report of the New Pest Advisory Group (NPAG) the female ALB lives from
14-66 days and the male, 3-40. During its adult stage, the ALB is busy
eating and mating. Chinese scientists have reported some females laying
thirty-five eggs in a forty-two day life span (Milius).
Although the female chews grooves into the trees where she lays her
eggs, and thus does some damage to the tree, it is the eating pattern of the
larvae which is so destructive. As Michael T. Smith, an entomologist at the
USDA Agricultural Research Service explains, when the larvae are eating
the cambium, they are destroying the nutrient-carrying vessels in the trees,
and as they move into the heartwood, they are destroying the water-carrying
vessels (Becker 18-19). Whereas the gypsy moth weakens a tree, the ALB
kills it (Woodsen 8).
Native to China, Korea and Japan, the beetle was first noticed in this
country in 1996 by a homeowner in Greenpoint, a residential section of
Brooklyn, not far from the East River and a maritime port. At first, the
homeowner believed that vandals were trying to destroy the Norway
Here’s another example of a paragraph written from multiple sources. It begins with Woodsen (given in the signal phrase “Woodsen reports” rather than in parentheses), then goes to Raver, then back to Woodsen and finally back to Raver.
Last name 4
Long Island (Milius). By September of 2000, an estimated 50-square-mile
area of Manhattan, Queens, and Brooklyn had been quarantined as had a 16-
mile-square section of the south shore of Long Island around Amityville to
prevent the “artificial spread of disease” (“Federal Quarantine”).
The beetle infestation is not limited to the New York City area. In
July of 1998, only two years after the discovery in Brooklyn, a man in
Ravenswood, a northern section of Chicago, not far from Lake Michigan,
reported that the Asian longhorned beetle was crawling out of his firewood.
Later, smaller infestations were found in several suburbs of Chicago, both
north and southwest of the city (Milius).
In both geographical areas, researchers identified similar patterns.
The trees most infected were nearly all varieties of maples, box elders, horse
chestnuts, black locusts, elms, birches, willows, poplars, and green ash. This
means that in New York City, 45% of the street trees are at risk of being
infested (Raver 49). That percentage does not include yard trees or those in
rooftop gardens. In Central Park alone, of the over 22 thousand trees,
5,500—nearly 25%—are possible hosts to the beetle (“Asian Beetle Poses
Threat”). In Chicago, in the late winter and early spring of 1999, 80% of the
trees in a 14-square-mile area had to be destroyed.
During the late summer and early fall of 1996, when some scientists
were studying the extent of the damage in and around New York City,
others were investigating how the beetle entered this country. Woodsen
reports that fairly quickly, researchers at the United States Department of
Agriculture Otis Plant Protection Center on Cape Cod “made a connection to
China’s export trade with the United States.” As Charles P. Schwalbe,
Here is yet another example of introducing a new abbreviation – APHIS.
Note that when you have a quote within a quote, it is placed in single quotation marks
- ‘nothing.’
Last name 5
Associate Deputy Administrator of the USDA Animal Plant Health
Inspection Service (APHIS), explained, the beetle entered “right under our
noses, in solid wood packing material. Over the past 25 years, China’s
export trade has gone from ‘nothing’ to a multi-billion dollar a year
business” (Raver 49). To meet the demand for packing materials and
shipping crates, the Chinese began planting extensive acres of poplar trees
during a decade from 1977-87. In the same time period, says Vic Mastro,
director of the Otis Plant, the beetle’s population increased in China 500
times. “Then it exploded,” he says. “By 1991, populations were a whopping
6,500 times – that’s roughly 650,000% – greater than before” (Woodsen 8).
One Chinese scientist described the situation as “an ecological disaster with
biblical proportions” (Raver 49).
While major infestations have been reported only from New York
City and Chicago, there are 26 other cities in the United States receiving
cargo from China, including two here in western New York, Rochester and
Jamestown (“Introductions and Warehouse Detections”). The potential is
there for more outbreaks. The need for controlling the insect is necessary on
many fronts. Trees in general give shade and aesthetic appeal, contribute to
air and water quality and provide a habitat for wildlife. Specifically, the
maples of rural New England are critical to the region’s economy which
includes a $20 million a year maple syrup industry (Sixeas 7).
Thus a variety of measures are underway to halt the further spread of
this non-indigenous species. In September of 1998, an amendment was
added to the USDA requirements for accepting logs, lumber and other
unmanufactured wood articles from China. As entered in the Federal
Last name 7
research is taking three basic tacks. One is to simply learn more about the
beetle. During the past two years, Michael T. Smith has made numerous
trips to China to study the behavior of adult beetles. He is trying to pin down
their flight patterns in order to see how beetles spread and how fast a spread
can occur. While that has been going on, Stephen A. Teale of the State
University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry
(SUNY-ESF) in Syracuse and other scientists have been studying the
beetle’s pheromones – the chemicals that an insect gives off to attract the
opposite sex. They have already learned much about the chemical makeup
of the pheromone and have begun formulating an artificial version of it
(Milius).
Second, work is being done to increase the ability to find the beetles
and to identify trees that have been infested. Until now, workers have relied
on visual inspection, using binoculars in New York City and cherry pickers
and tree climbers in Chicago, but that has been expensive, slow and not very
effective. To improve detection, Smith and Teale are developing an acoustic
beetle detector with which searchers can hear beetles boring around inside of
trees. Thus, they will not need to wait until the adult beetle emerges from the
tree in order to detect an infested tree (Milius).
Third, work has begun on ways to control the beetle. So far,
scientists have been able to identify one natural predator, a nematode.
Research has shown that 61-94% of the longhorned beetles are killed when
infected by the nematode, which is one or another of a strain known as
Steinernema bibionis (Qin et al. qtd. in “NPAG Report”). Parasitic wasps
and fungi are also being tested.
Note the technique here for defining a term that might be new to the reader. The definition of “pheromones” is given right after the term.
Two paragraphs in a row are based on Milius, but it’s not enough to use just one citation in this case. Every paragraph that relies on sources must be documented.
Oftentimes, you must refer to information that the article you read has quoted from another article. In this paper, the writer has usually handled this problem by including the quoted person in a signal phrase. Here the person has not been included in a signal phrase, so she must be included in the documentation – Qin et al.
Page numbers are required for in-text citation of direct quotations. However, some articles you view in online databases do not show page numbers, so you will not have page numbers to use. The rule is simple: if you can see page numbers in your source, use them in your paper; if you cannot see page numbers, do not use them.
You have probably been told that informative discourse should be written in denotative language. However, it’s common for writers to violate this rule, especially in concluding paragraphs. Here is an example of this tendency
- “sad irony” and “too painful for her to watch.” The writer may be attempting to hint at the impact of the beetle on the environment. In this case, the conclusion connects with the introduction and the title.
Last name 8
Until the Asian longhorned beetle is eradicated, or at least kept in
check, the main method of control continues to be the elimination of the
infected trees – cutting them down, chipping them and burning them. It is a
task difficult for homeowners to witness. Joe McCarthy, Chicago’s senior
forester, acknowledges the sadness of many residents in Ravenswood.
“People in the neighborhood comment on how exposed they feel” as streets
lose their canopy (Woodsen 9).
There is a sad irony to this “slash and burn” policy. Many of the
Norway maples now being destroyed in Chicago were planted thirty years
ago to replace elm trees destroyed by Dutch elm disease (Woodsen 9). One
76-year-old woman “remembers vividly” when the maple was planted in
from of her house in 1966; at 35 feet high, the tree has provided shade over
her front porch for many summers. It was too painful for her to watch the
tree being cut down. “I’ll never see a full-grown tree on this street
again…I'm too old…it’s an extremely big hurt” (“Naked City” 6). At least
one scientist is optimistic. Mike Stefan, a USDA botanist says that
eradication is “tougher than rocket science, because with a biological pest
there are a lot of gray areas. But if we keep going, I think we can get rid of
it” (Raver 49).
Last name 10
“Possible Progress Posted on Forest Pests.” Wood Technology Jan. 2000: 19.
InfoTrac OneFile. Gale Group. Genesee Com. Coll. Lib., NY. 3 Dec.
2000 http://www.infotrac.galegroup.com.
Raver, Anne. “Imported Pest Raises Fear for Forests.” The New York Times
3 Dec. 2000, natl. ed.: 49.
Sixeas, Virginia M. “Big, Bad and Ugly.” Environment Apr. 2000: 7. InfoTrac
OneFile. Gale Group. Genesee Com. Coll. Lib., NY. 3 Dec. 2000
http://www.infotrac.galegroup.com.
“Solid Wood Packing Material from China: A Summary of U.S. Entry
Requirements According to 7CFR 319.40.” APHIS, USDA. 27 Dec. 2000
http://www.aphis.usda.gov/oa/alb/swpmsum.html.
“USDA Announces Testing of New Lure to Help Combat Asian Longhorned
Beetle.” US Newswire 23 July 1999: 10082. InfoTrac OneFile. Gale
Group. Genesee Com. Coll. Lib., NY. 27 Dec. 2000
http://www.infotrac.galegroup.com.
Woodsen, Mary M. “Cities Under Siege.” American Forests Summer 2000: 7.
InfoTrac OneFile. Gale Group. Genesee Com. Coll. Lib., NY. 3 Dec.
2000 http://www.infotrac.galegroup.com.
The Asian Longhorned Beetle: Another Alien Among Us
Student Name
English 101
Professor Smith
January 1, 2001
This is a sample of a title page, which is no longer required in MLA style. Your professor may request it, however.
Do not underline, capitalize, or put quotation marks around your title.
Include the course and the professor’s name if you use a title page.
