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Cite It Right!

Citation information to be used with the Cite It Right - Got Research? workshops

What is an MLA Citation?

What is an MLA Citation?

MLA is a style guide for citations from the Modern Language Association (MLA). 

Citation style guides show you what information to include in each citation and how to organize your list of citations.

MLA citation style is primarily used for research papers in English classes although some instructors in other subject areas also use MLA.

MLA Style uses “core elements” that are listed in a specific order.

  1. Author.
  2. Title of source.
  3. Title of container,
  4. Contributor,
  5. Version,
  6. Number,
  7. Publisher,
  8. Publication date,
  9. Location.

An MLA citation requires as much of the information listed above as possible.
**Not all citations will have all nine elements. Only use the ones that apply to the source you cite.

MLA uses the concept of “containers” which are larger elements that contain a specific source. For example, a scholarly article is “contained” in a journal. Be sure each citation includes the container of your source which could be the name of a website, the name of a journal, or the title of a book.
    

What Does an MLA Citation Look Like?

Scholarly Article 

Hinnant, Charles H. “Jane Austen’s ‘Wild Imagination’: Romance and Courtship Plot in the Six Canonical Novels.” Narrative, vol. 14, no.3, 2006, pp. 294-310. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/20107392. 

In this example there are two containers – Narrative which is the title of the journal, and JSTOR, which is  the database that contains the journal.  

Website (No author) 

2005 Assisted Reproductive Technology Success Rates: National Summary and Fertility Clinic Reports.  United
  States Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and  Prevention, Oct. 2007,
  www.cdc.gov/art/ART2005/508PDF/2005ART508.pdf 
 

Article on a website:

"Giant Panda." Smithsonian National Zoological Park, Smithsonian Institute, 
     www.nationalzoo.si.edu/animals/giantpandas/pandafacts.

Citation for an article with no author

White, Lori. "The Newest Fad in People Helping People: Little Free Pantries."  Upworthy, Cloud Tiger Media, 3. Aug.
     2016. www.upworthy.com/the-newest-fad-in-people-helping-people-little-free-pantries.

Newspaper Article 

Victor, Daniel. “Why Saying ‘All Lives Matter’ is Such a Perilous Phrase” The New York Times, 15 July  2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/16/us/all-lives-matter-black-lives-matter.html 

Whole Book  

Halperin, Laura. Intersections of Harm: Narratives of Latina Deviance and Defiance. Rutgers UP, 2015.  

Chapter of a Book  

Copeland, Edward. “Money.” The Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen, edited by Copeland and Juliet McMaster, Cambridge UP, 1997, pp. 131-48 

In this example, Copeland, Edward is the Author, “Money” is the Title of the source, The Cambridge  Companion to Jane Austen is the Title of the container, and Copeland and Juliet McMaster are  contributors. Cambridge UP is the Publisher, 1997 is the Publication date, and pp. 131-48 is the  “Location”. Physical location of the publisher is no longer needed.  

For more information, see the MLA Style Center.

 

Quick Hints for a List of MLA Citations

  • List your citations on a new page at the end of your paper.
  • Works Cited - Use Works Cited as the title for your list of citations (not Citations, Bibliography, or References)
  • Citations are organized alphabetically by the last name of the author of your article, book or other source.
  • No Author?  Begin your citation with the Title of the article, webpage or post.
  • Citations are formatted with a hanging indent. 

MLA Style Center

Advice directly from MLA