MLA 9 Citation Guide

Learn How it works

Every MLA Works Cited entry follows this pattern. Skip any element you don't have, and keep the punctuation shown.

Author. Last name, First name.
Title of source. Short works (an article, a web page, a poem) go in “quotation marks.” Whole works (a book, a website, a film) go in italics.
Title of container, the larger thing that holds the source: a journal, magazine, website, or anthology. Italicize it.
Other contributors, such as “translated by” or “edited by.”
Version, such as 2nd ed.
Number, such as vol. 12, no. 3.
Publisher,
Publication date, written Day Month Year: 14 Mar. 2024.
Location. Page numbers (pp. 22–31), a DOI, or a URL without https://.

Authors

One author: Morrison, Toni.
Two authors: Lee, Harper, and Truman Capote. Only the first is reversed.
Three or more: Garcia, Ana, et al.
No author: start with the title.

In-text citations

Inside your paper, put the author's last name and the page number in parentheses, with no comma: (Morrison 42). If you name the author in your sentence, give only the page: Morrison argues that… (42). Web pages with no page numbers get just the name: (Garcia et al.).

The Works Cited page

Start a new page titled Works Cited, centered, not bold.
Double-space everything, and use a hanging indent: the first line touches the margin and the rest are indented half an inch.
Alphabetize by the first word of each entry (usually the author's last name).
Use Times New Roman 12 pt with 1-inch margins for the whole paper.

Examples See it done

Book

Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. Anti-Slavery Office, 1845.

Article in a journal (with a DOI)

Nguyen, Linh, and Marcus Hale. “Sleep and Memory in Teenagers.” Journal of Adolescent Health, vol. 68, no. 2, 2021, pp. 210–17. https://doi.org/10.5555/example.2021.0042.

Page on a website

“The Bill of Rights: What Does It Say?” National Archives, 10 Feb. 2023, www.archives.gov/founding-docs/bill-of-rights/what-does-it-say.

Newspaper article online

Brooks, Dana. “Town Opens New Public Library.” The Daily Herald, 3 Sept. 2024, www.dailyherald.example/library.

A sentence using MLA in-text citation

Douglass describes learning to read as “the pathway from slavery to freedom” (Narrative 37).

Note: the newspaper URL above is a made-up example for practice.

Practice Check yourself

Answer, then tap Check. You get an explanation either way.