What is MLA Citation?
MLA stands for the Modern Language Association and its style of citing sources and formatting research papers. MLA style, sometimes called MLA format, is often used when writing papers in language arts, cultural studies, and other humanities disciplines.
When writing research papers in these disciplines, it’s important to use MLA style to avoid plagiarism. Plagiarism occurs when a writer presents someone else’s words or ideas as their own. When quoting from another text, a citation is required, along with quotation marks, to clarify where the quoted language came from. Also, when paraphrasing another person’s ideas, a citation is required to identify the author and source of those ideas and avoid plagiarism.
This lesson shows how to create MLA citations for several common types of sources.
The Two Types of Citations
A full MLA citation consists of two main parts: the in-text citation and the works cited page citation. The in-text citation and the works cited page citation are different types of citation. Both types must be included in a paper.
The citation on the works cited page at the end of the paper contains all the required information about every source used for the paper, such as books and articles. If the reader wants to review the same source that the writer has referred to, the reader will use the works cited page because it contains all the information needed to locate it.
The in-text citation is included in a sentence within the paper itself. It lets the reader know that the author of the paper used ideas or quoted language from another source. This is an essential step to avoid plagiarism. The MLA in-text citation contains just enough information that the reader can know which source on the works cited page was used to provide the information in the paragraph.
In-Text Citation
When quoting or paraphrasing information or ideas from outside sources, in-text citations are included to let the reader know the source of the information, ideas, or exact language. Quotations use the exact language from a source, enclosed in quotation marks. Paraphrasing involves rewording the ideas of another author using one’s own language. In both cases, it is essential to include the author’s last name and the page number of the source that contains the author’s language or idea. This information is enclosed in parentheses, like this: (Quinn 169).
These two pieces of information are usually included at the end of the sentence that contains the cited idea and should be placed before the period:
- When Poe attended West Point, cadets were prohibited from keeping novels, poetry, or books that were unrelated to their studies, unless they had special permission (Quinn 169).
Alternatively, when the author’s name is included as part of the sentence, the in-text citation will include only the page number:
- Quinn notes that when Poe attended West Point, cadets were prohibited from keeping novels, poetry, or books that were unrelated to their studies, unless they had special permission (169).
- As Quinn has observed of Poe’s poem ”Fairyland”, “The remainder of the poem is an almost impish fancy of Poe’s, pretending to criticize the very imaginative conception he has just established” (164).
The reader only needs the author’s last name and page number because the works cited page will contain a full citation for the source.
In-text citations can vary depending on the number of authors. When a source has two authors, both authors’ last names are included in the in-text citation, like this: (Woodward and Bernstein 34). If there are three or more authors, only one name is needed and should be followed by “et al.”: (Franck et al. 287). For sources with no known author or editor, the title can be used in place of an author’s name: (“Hand-Eye Development” 15).
Works Cited Page
A works cited page contains a list of all the sources used to write the paper. The works cited page comes at the end of a paper on a separate page.
The page begins with the phrase ”Works Cited” centered on the top line. After that, the first line of each citation is aligned with the left margin and the subsequent lines of each citation are indented 0.5 inches to the right. This is called ”hanging indentation”. All citations are double spaced and end with a period.
Citations are presented in alphabetical order. When more than one work by the same author is cited, they are ordered alphabetically by title, and after the first source, the author’s name is replaced by three hyphens.
When creating citations for the works cited page, capitalize each word in titles of articles, books, and other sources, except for the articles the, a, and an, prepositions, and conjunctions, as long as they are not the first word of the title or subtitle. Use italics for the titles of large works such as books, films, newspapers, and magazines. Use quotation marks around the titles of short works such as poems, short stories, articles, and essays.
Specific examples of book, textbook, and essay citations below illustrate these rules.
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MLA Book Citation
The information needed to cite a book can be located on its front cover and first pages, including the copyright page. The exact information included will vary depending on how many authors there are and whether the book also has an editor.
Book with One Author
The format of a citation for a book with one author is:
- Last Name, First Name. Title of Book. City of Publication, Publisher, Publication Date.
Two notes are important to remember about this and other types of book citations:
- The city of publication is only included when the publisher has offices in multiple countries, when the book was published before 1900, or when the publisher is not known in North America.
- While the medium, or type of source, was included in previous editions of the MLA style, the medium is no longer required.
An example of a works cited page citation for a book with one author is:
- Johnson, Spencer. Who Moved My Cheese? An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life. Putnam, 1998.
This citation illustrates the italicization of the title of larger works, such as books. It also illustrates how articles, prepositions (‘in,’ ‘with’), and conjunctions (‘and’) are not capitalized, unless they begin the title or subtitle, as seen in An Amazing. In this example, and in those that follow, the city of publication does not need to be included based on the date and publisher.
Book with Two Authors
The format of a citation for a book with two authors is:
- Last Name, First Name, and First Name Last Name. Title of Book. City of Publication, Publisher, Publication Date.
Notice that the first and last names are inverted only for the first author. The second author’s name is presented as it would normally be written in a sentence.
An example of a citation for a book with two authors is:
- Woodward, Bob, and Carl Bernstein. All the President’s Men. Simon and Schuster, 2014.
Book with One Author and One Editor
When a book has both an author and an editor, include both the author and editor in the citation.
The format of a citation for a book with one author and one editor is:
- Last Name, First Name. Title of Book, edited by First Name Last Name. City of Publication, Publisher, Publication Date.
An example of a citation for a book with one author and one editor is:
- Dickens, Charles. A Tale of Two Cities, edited by James Weber Linn. Ginn and Co., 1906.
Citing a Textbook in MLA
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A citation for a textbook is similar to a citation for a book. As with a book, the information needed to cite a textbook can be located on the textbook’s front cover and its first pages, including the copyright page. The exact information included will vary depending on how many authors there are and whether the textbook also has an editor.
The information needed to cite a textbook can be located on its front cover and first pages, including the copyright page.
Textbook with One Author
The format of a citation for a textbook with one author is:
- Last Name, First Name. Title of Book. City of Publication, Publisher, Publication Date.
An example of a citation for a textbook with one author is:
- Vendler, Helen. Poems, Poets, Poetry: An Introduction and Anthology. 3rd ed., Macmillan, 2018.
As seen in this example, when a book edition after the first edition is cited, the edition number is included after the title.
Textbook with No Author and One Editor
The format of a citation for a textbook with no author and one editor is:
- Last Name, First Name, editor. Title of Book. City of Publication, Publisher, Publication Date.
An example of a citation for a textbook with no author and one editor is:
- McComb, James, editor. Florida History. Cengage Learning, 2019.
Textbook with Three or More Authors
When a textbook has three or more authors, only the first author’s name is included. The first name is followed by ‘et al.’ This Latin phrase is short for et alia, which means ”and others.” This phrase takes the place of the other authors’ names. Here is an example:
- Aufses, Robin Dissin, et al. Conversations in American Literature. Macmillan, 2014.
Citing an Essay
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Shorter essays can take several forms, including a chapter in an edited book, a journal article, a magazine article, or a newspaper article. The information included in the citation will vary depending on the format of the publication.
Since an essay is a short work, quotation marks surround its title. Since the book, journal, magazine, or newspaper that contains the essay is a larger work, its title is italicized.
Chapter in an edited book
The format of a citation for a chapter in an edited book is:
- Last Name, First Name. “Title of Essay.” Title of Collection, edited by Editor Name(s). Publisher, Year, pp. page range of entry.
An example of a citation for a chapter in an edited book is:
- Grund, Peter J. “Writing the Salem Witch Trials.” A Companion to American Literature, edited by Susan Belasco, et al. John Wiley and Sons, 2020, pp. 73-88.
Article in a Journal
The format of a citation for an article in a scholarly journal is:
- Author(s). “Title of Article.” Title of Journal, Volume, Issue, Year, pp. page range of entry.
Include the volume number after ‘vol.’ and the issue number after ‘no.’ Separate them with commas.
An example of a citation for an article in a journal is:
- Hoffman, Daniel. “Edgar Allan Poe: The Artist of the Beautiful.” The American Poetry Review, vol. 24, no. 6, 1995, pp. 11-18. www.jstor.org/stable/27781913
In this case, the article was accessed through an online database, so the URL or DOI is included after the page range.
Article in an Online Magazine
When citing an article in an online magazine, provide the author’s name, the title of the article in quotation marks, the title of the magazine in italics, the publisher’s name if available, the publication date, the URL or permalink, and the date of access. When providing a URL, eliminate ”https://” and begin with ”www”.
An example of a citation for an online magazine article is:
- Lepore, Jill. “The Humbug: Edgar Allan Poe and the Economy of Horror.” The New Yorker, 27 Apr. 2009, www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/04/27/the-humbug. Accessed 25 September 2021.
As seen in this example, month names that are longer than four letters are abbreviated: Jan., Feb., Mar., Apr., Aug., Sept., Oct., Nov., Dec. The date comes before the month, and there are no commas between the date, month, or year.
This example also illustrates the optional use of the word ‘Accessed’ in MLA style to indicate when a webpage was last visited by the writer. This date is not required but can be included in cases where the content of the page is likely to change over time.
Lesson Summary
The citation style of the Modern Language Association is commonly used when writing papers in language arts, cultural studies, and other humanities disciplines. A complete MLA citation consists of two main elements: the in-text citation and the works cited page citation.
An in-text citation is included when quoting the language of another author or paraphrasing ideas or information obtained from another author. In-text citations are included at the ends of sentences before the periods. An in-text citation consists of the author’s last name and the page number that contains the author’s words or ideas like this:
- (Quinn 169)
- (Woodward and Bernstein 34)
The works cited page is a separate page at the end of the paper that contains complete information about the source.
- The correct formatting for a basic book or textbook citation is: Last Name, First Name. Title of Book. City of Publication, Publisher, Publication Date.
- When a book or textbook has both an author and an editor, include both the author and editor in the citation.
- When a book or textbook has two authors, present their names in this order in the citation: Last Name, First Name, and First Name Last Name.
The information needed to cite a book or textbook can be located on the front cover and first pages, including the copyright page.