LibGuides: Citation: MLA

Modern Language Association

MLA (Modern Language Association) format is mostly used in humanities courses. It’s in-text and work cited page is focused on the authorship of the work. The formatting style is currently in its ninth edition. For further resources, please see:

MLA Handbook: CALL NUMBER 808.027 M685W 2021 — On Reserve and at Reference Desk
The Little Seagull Handbook: CALL NUMBER: 808.042 B9381L 2017 — On Reserve, at Reference Desk, and on 2nd Floor Circulating Shelves; Purdue Owl; In addition to providing citation information for MLA, APA, and Chicago/Turabian formats, this resource covers grammar and the basics of writing a research paper.

The examples from this subject guide can be attributed to Purdue Owl:
The Purdue OWL Family of Sites. The Writing Lab and OWL at Purdue and Purdue U, 2008, owl.english.purdue.edu/owl. Accessed 5 December 2018.

In-Text Citations

MLA uses parenthetical citations. Use the last name of the author or authors and then cite the page number (if applicable) where the information or quote can be found. Do not put a comma in between the author and the page number. For example:
- “Contempt for the rule of law is deeply rooted in U.S. practice” (Chomsky 17).
When you already include the name of the author within the sentence, just include the page number in the end citation. For example:
- Chomsky theorized that “contempt for the rule of law is deeply rooted in U.S. practice” (17).
All in-text citations must refer to an entry in the works cited list.
If there are two authors for the source, include both authors’ last names linked with “and”. If there are three or more, use the first author’s name followed by “et al.”
If there are two authors with the same last name on the Works Cited page, include the initial of their first name.
- For Example: (A. Smith 11) and
If there is no known author for a source, include the title of the work in parenthesis. If the title is long, you can shorten it, preferably to 4-5 words maximum.
- For example: The source is is from an article titled “The Impact of Global Warming in North America” so in the in-text citation we would use (“Impact of Global Warming”)
If you’re using two different sources written by the same author, include the title of the source in addition to the author’s last name and the page number.
- For example: (Elkins, “Visual Studies” 63)
If the work is in an anthology of collection,cite the author of the work rather than the author of the entire collection.
If you’re using an electronic source, you only cite the author’s last name.

Works Cited

Works cited appear on a separate page at the end of the paper. Citations there should be listed alphabetically by the author’s last name
If there is more than one author, list the authors in the order that they appear on the material cited. If a work is authored by an organization, corporation, or government department, use the name of the institution as the author name. If the author name is completely unknown, start the citation with the title.
Capitalize each word in the titles of articles and books.
If the publication date is not provided, use n.d. If the publisher if not provided, use n.p.
Title the page: Worked Cited. Do not bold, italicize, or underline the title. Place the title at the top center of the page.
List all the sources used for the paper is alphabetical order by author’s last name, or title if there is no author.
Use the “special” indent feature to create a hanging indent for every citation.
Basic formatting for citations:
- Author and/or editor names by last name first.
- “Article name in quotation marks.”
- Title of the website, project, or book in italics
- Any version of numbers, including editions (ed.), revisions, volumes (vol.), issue numbers(no.).
- Publisher information, including the publisher name and date
- page numbers (p.)
- URL, DOI, or permalink
- Date you accessed the material (Date Accessed)