MLA Guide: Encyclopedia

If you know the author's name of an article you are citing, use that name as at the beginning of your entry and as the alphabetizing element. If the article or listing you cite is not signed (if you don't know the author's name), list the title first. If you are citing less familiar resources (especially if there was only one edition of a given resource), it would be a good idea to give full publication information.

Works Cited

Feinberg, Joe. "Freedom and Behavior Control." Encyclopedia of Bioethics,
        Ed. Warren T. Reich. 4 vols. 
        New York: Free Press, 1992.

"From OED to OAD." Oxford American Dictionary. 1980.

"Massolo, Arthur James." Who's Who in America.  
        48th ed. 1994.

"Money." Compton's Precyclopedia. 1977 ed.

Raju, P.T. "Religious Existentialism." An Encyclopedia of Religion. Ed.

Vergilius T.A. Ferm. 3 vols. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1968.

"Sybarite." The Oxford English Dictinary. 2nd ed. 1989.

"Tibia." Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary.  
        Electronic ed., version 1.5, 1996.

If you are citing several definitions from a dictionary, it is a good idea to establish within the text of your paper the source you are using and then refer to that dictionary with an abbreviation (OAD, for instance). Since a dictionary (or a similar resource) is invariably arranged in alphabetical order, citing a page or volume number is unnecessary. 

Incidentally, unless you are doing something really interesting with that definition, it is probably not wise to begin a paper with a dictionary definition. Defining a key concept may become the serious business of your essay, but beginning with a dictionary definition is a cliché.

In-Text Citation

Massolo was largely responsible for First Chicago's initial strong position in Malaysian banking ("Massolo").

Shells were used as currency in many Mediterranean countries in the pre-Christian era ("Money").