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MLA Format Guide for MLA (9th Edition)

MLA citations have two main parts that work together to identify the sources you’ve used for a paper and each of the specific places in your paper where you directly quote or paraphrase from a source:

  • A Works Cited list
    • Located at the end of your paper
    • Contains a list of full references for every source you cited in your paper
    • Alphabetized by author’s last name
  • In-text citations
    • Appear in the text of your paper, after any place where you directly quote or paraphrase from a source
    • Consist of just the author name and relevant page number of the quote source
    • Are written inside

How to Write an MLA Works Cited

The Works Cited list (sometimes also called a reference list or bibliography) contains the full references for every source you used in writing your paper. The references are alphabetized in the list by author’s last name.

Every entry in an MLA Works Cited—whether for a book, website, journal, etc.—is built from up to nine components:

  • Author. “Title of the Source.” Title of the Container, Other contributors, Version, Number, Publisher, Publication date, Location.

If a particular reference you are using doesn’t have any information for one of these components, then you just leave out that component.

Here's a bit more information about each of the components that will let you handle any type of MLA works cited entry.

Author in MLA Format

How you handle the author depends on how many authors the work has, or if the author is an organization rather than a single person.

  • 1 author: Invert the author’s name (Last Name, First Name)
    • Andrews, Julianne
  • 2 authors: Include both authors in the order in which they appear on the work, inverting the first author’s name, followed by an “and” and then the second author’s name written normally.
    • Andrews, Julianne and Arthur Smith
  • 3+ authors: Include the first author listed on the work, inverted, followed by the phrase “et al”
    • Andrews, Julianne, et al
  • Organization: If the work was written by an Organization rather than by a person or group of people, then just write out the name of the organization.
  • No author: If a work has no listed author at all, then you can leave out the Author component entirely and start with the Title of the Source. (Note: when alphabetizing the entry by the first letter of the Title of the Source, ignore articles that start the title such as “The,” “A,” etc.)

Title of the Source in MLA Format

Use the entire title of your source, including subtitles. Subtitles should be separated from the main title by a colon.

The formatting for the source depends on whether it’s self contained or part of a larger whole (such as an entire book, website, or movie), or is part of a larger work (such as a story in an anthology, an article in a magazine, etc.):

  • If the source is a self contained unit: The title should be italicized.
    • Andrews, Julianne. The Friendly Giraffe. Knopf, 2011.
  • If the source is part of a larger work: The title should be placed within quotation marks.
    • Andrews, Julianne. “The Best Game Ever Played.” Essays on Sports, Harcourt, 2017, pp. 17-31.

Regardless of whether it’s inside quotes or italicized, the title of the source should be written in title case, which means you capitalize every word other than articles, conjunctions, and prepositions.

Title of the Container in MLA Format

The “container” refers to a larger work that contains the source, such as a magazine that contains an article. If a source isn’t a part of a longer work (such as an entire book), then leave out the Title of Container component.

The Title of the Container should always be italicized:

  • Andrews, Julianne. “The Best Game Ever Played.” Essays on Sports, Harcourt, 2017, pp. 17-31.

Common examples of containers are:

  • A book containing short stories or essays
  • A magazine or newspaper containing articles
  • An encyclopedia containing entries
  • A website containing articles or other entries
  • A TV series containing episodes

Other Contributors

If there are people who contributed to a work besides the author(s), include those names in the “Other Contributors” component.

Other contributors should be formatted by identifying what the person did and then the person’s name written out normally. For example:

  • Andrews, Julianne. “The Best Game Ever Played.” Great Sports Writing of 2018, edited by Carlos Mendes, Harcourt, 2017, pp. 17-31.

Common types of work that are result in people being included as contributors are:

  • Edited by
  • Translated by
  • Illustrated by
  • Directed by

Version

If there are different versions or editions of your source, specify which version your specific source belongs to:

  • Andrews, Julianne. “The Best Game Ever Played.” Great Sports Writing of 2018, edited by Carlos Mendes, 3rd ed, Harcourt, 2017, pp. 17-31.

Common reasons for the inclusion of a version number for an entry are:

  • A 2nd (or 3rd or 4th, etc.) edition of a source
  • A director’s cut of a movie
  • An anniversary or expanded edition

Number

Many types of sources are numbered in some way, and in such cases the MLA entry should capture that numbering:

  • Andrews, Julianne. “The Best Game Ever Played.” Great Sports Writing of 2018, edited by Carlos Mendes, 3rd ed, vol. 3, Harcourt, 2017, pp. 17-31.

Numbering most often occurs for sources that have containers. Common examples include:

  • Journals are often divided into volumes (“vol. 3”)
  • Magazines and some periodicals may be numbered (“no. 16”)
  • Television shows often have season and episode numbers (“Season 4, Episode 2”)

If a source has multiple numbers, separate the numbers with commas (“vol 3, no. 16”).

Publisher

Not all sources will have a publisher—this component usually only applies to books and to movies. For movies, the production company is treated as the “publisher.”

  • Andrews, Julianne. “The Best Game Ever Played.” Great Sports Writing of 2018, edited by Carlos Mendes, 3rd ed, vol. 3, Harcourt, 2017, pp. 17-31.

Publication date

You should include as specific a publication date as possible, which can range from just the year all the way down to the minute. Ranges are acceptable.

  • Andrews, Julianne. “The Best Game Ever Played.” Great Sports Writing of 2018, edited by Carlos Mendes, 3rd ed, vol. 3, Harcourt, 2017, pp. 17-31.

The most common ways to represent the publication date are:

  • Year: 2001
  • Month/Year: Apr. 1976 (note that months should be abbreviated to their first three letters followed by a period, such as “Apr.”)
  • Day/Month/Year: 2 Apr. 1976 (note that the day should precede the month)
  • Precise time and date: 2 Apr. 1976, 5:15 p.m.
  • Year Range: 1975-1977
  • Month/Year Range: Apr. 1976–Apr. 1977
  • If there’s no date: If you can’t find a publication date, instead use the day/month/year format for the day on which you accessed the information and use the word “Accessed” to make clear the distinction.
    • Andrews, Julianne. “The Best Game Ever Played.” Great Sports Writing, edited by Carlos Mendes, Accessed 2 Apr. 2018, www.greatsportswriting.com/best.

Location

The location component generally only applies to references that either have containers or that is an event or physical object that occurred or you encountered in a physical place.

  • For a chapter, essay, story, or other part of a book: Include a page range.
    • Andrews, Julianne. “The Best Game Ever Played.” Great Sports Writing of 2018, edited by Carlos Mendes, 3rd ed, vol. 3, Harcourt, 2017, pp. 217-231.
  • For a web page: Include the URL, leaving out the “http://” or “https://”.
    • Andrews, Julianne. “The Best Game Ever Played.” Great Sports Writing, edited by Carlos Mendes, Accessed 2 Apr. 2018, www.greatsportswriting.com/best.
  • For a printed periodical article: Include a page range.
    • Andrews, Julianne. “The Best Game Ever Played.” The Sports Magazine, 2 Jan. 2022, 25-39.
  • For an online journal: There are two options
    • Include a URL, leaving out the “http://” or “https://”
      • Andrews, Julianne. “A Statistical Analysis to Identify the Best Games Ever Played.” Sports Analytics , Accessed 2 Apr. 2018, www.sportsanalytics.org/1249.
    • A DOI—digital object identifier—which are sometimes assigned to journal articles to provide a link to that article that will never change. If an article has one, use it instead of a URL
      • Example: doi: 11.1633/tox.31266
      • Andrews, Julianne. “A Statistical Analysis to Identify the Best Games Ever Played.” Sports Analytics , Accessed 2 Apr. 2018, doi: 11.1633/tox.31266.
    • For a physical object located in a specific place: Include the place where you encountered the object, including the name of any institution and the location of that institution.
      • Goldsworthy, Andy. The Wall that Went for a Walk. 1999, Storm King Art Center, Windsor, NY.

How to Write MLA In-Text Citations

In-text citations do two things:

  • They identify the places in your paper where you either directly quote or paraphrase a source.
  • They contain just enough information to refer to the full entry in the Works Cited list, so a reader can tell which source you quoted or paraphrased from.

MLA In-Text Citations Format

MLA in-text citations follow two basic formats:

  • The author’s last name and a page number or other location inside parentheses:
    • The greatest game ever played wasn’t “great because of what happened on the field, but because of what happened off of it” (Andrews 71).
  • If the author is named in the sentence, then the in-text citation can include just the page:
    • As Andrews puts it, the greatest game every played wasn’t “great because of what happened on the field, but because of what happened off of it” (71).

Additions to Basic In-Text Citations Format

There are a few scenarios in which the formatting of in-text MLA citations changes just a bit:

  • Two authors: Use the last names of both authors separated by an “and.”
    • (Andrews and Smith 71).
  • Three authors: Within the parentheses, include the last name of the first author along with “et al.” When mentioning the authors outside the parentheses, use the last name of the first author along with the phrase “and colleagues.”
    • (Andrews et al. 71).
  • No author: Within the parentheses, include an abbreviated reference to the first two or three words of the source title in the Works Cited entry, and format the in-text citation to match the use of italicization or quotation marks in Works Cited entry. Outside the parentheses, use the entire source title, formatted correctly with quotation marks or italics.
    • (The Best Game 71).