MLA Works Cited
The 9th Edition of MLA does not modify the citation style introduced in the 8th Edition. The goal of the 9th Edition was primarily to expand on the explanations used for defining their universal format for citation. The goal in MLA was to make it easier for writers to cite anything variety of source material regardless of existing examples for that kind of source. In this chapter, the universal rules MLA has will be explained and some examples will be given.
Works Cited Page Format
Start a new page.
The title of the page (Works Cited) should be centered and not underlined or in quotes.
The page should be double-spaced.
Make sure to alphabetize entries on your works cited page.
Use a hanging indent format for each entry.
This means that the first line of each reference will be flush against the margin while any following line for the reference will be indented (1/2 inch).
When stating the author’s name, put the last name first, followed by a comma and then the first name. (Last Name, First Name)
Make sure the full title of the journal article is used in the entry. The article title is in quotes. (“This is the Title of the Article”)
Use the same punctuation for the journal title in your citation that the journal uses. The journal title is italicized.
Use italics for the titles of longer works such as books and journals. (This is the Title of the Journal).
Only sources cited in your paper appear on the Works Cited page. Likewise, anything cited in your paper must appear on the Works Cited page.
If you did not actually read an article but read about it (secondary sources), you must cite the article of interest and the source you read within the text of your paper. Only the source you actually read appears in the Works Cited.
Single Author
Most printed sources will require only one container in order for all pertinent information to be placed within the citation. The order of elements in the citation is the same in which the elements are listed in the Container example in the previous chapter.
Franke, Damon. Modernist Heresies: British Literary History, 1883-1924. Ohio State UP, 2008.
Fukuyama, Francis. Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution. Farrar, 2002.
Note: An author is listed: Last name, First name.
Note: Even though a book is generally considered a ‘large work,’ it’s title fits into the Title of Work element not the Container Title element UNLESS you are referencing a single chapter contained in the book. (See Anthologies)
Multiple Authors
When citing a source with multiple authors, only the first name listed is in the Last Name, First Name format. All other names listed are in the First Name Last Name format, each author listed is separated by a comma, and the last author listed is prefaced with the word ‘and’.
Booth, Wayne C., Gregory G. Colomb, and Joseph M. Williams. The Craft of Research. 2nd ed., University of Chicago Press, 2003.
Multiple Sources with Same Author
There will be times when you are researching a topic and you find that the same author has produced multiple works on your topic and are useful sources. List these items alphabetically by the title of the work and only use the author’s name in the first listing. All the following sources with the same author will use ‘—‘ in place of the author’s name.
Gilbert, Sandra M., and Susan Gubar, eds. The Female imagination and the Modernist Aesthetic. Gordon, 1986.
—. “Sexual Linguistics: Gender, Language, Sexuality”. New Literary History, vol. 16, no. 3, 1984, pp. 515-42. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.1002/tox.20155.
Electronic Books
Electronic books (Ebooks) are books that do not have a web address but are available electronically on personal reader devices. These books are generally formatted as EPUB, MOBI, AZW, or PDF. When citing from an Ebook, the format will follow the same structure as a printed book with the addition of labeling the book as the electronic edition and adding the format of the book to the end of the citation.
Guin, Ursula K. Le. Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places. E-book ed., Grove Atlantic , 2017. EPUB.
Anthologies / Collections
Whole Anthology/Collection
If you are using an entire collection or anthology of works as a source, you will use the collection/anthology’s editor or compiler as the author, and then note their role (e.g., Davidson, Joe A., editor.). The rest of the citation will be the same as any other hard-copy publication.
Davis, Anita Price, compiler. North Carolina during the Great Depression. A Documentary Portrait of a Decade. McFarland, 2003.
Shell, Marc, editor. American Babel: Literatures of the United States from Abnaki to Zuni. Harvard University Press, 2002.
Single Work in Anthology/Collection
A single work cited from a collection or anthology is cited just like a journal or magazine article. You will cite the author of the work, the title of the work, and what anthology/collection it came from. After the name of the anthology, however, add in the editor/compiler information, and then go on to do the publisher, date, and pages.
Allende, Isabel. “Toad’s Mouth.” Translated by Margaret Sayers Peden. A Hammock beneath the Mangoes: Stories from Latin America, edited by Thomas Colchie. Plume, 1992. pp. 83-88.
Group or Corporate Author(s)
When citing sources that were published without individual authors listed, use the corporation as the author. This may happen when you are using publications produced through committee, government agencies, or large businesses.
National Research Council. Beyond Six Billion: Forecasting the World’s Population. Natl. Acad., 2000.
Single Author (In Print)
When you have a source that is an article in a printed journal, record the Volume (vol.) and Issue (no.) information in place of the ‘Number’ element in the container. This information is listed after the journal title and separated with commas.
Note: The use of ‘pp.’ instead of ‘p.’ in this example shows that more than one page of the source material is utilized within your paper.]
Piper, Andrew. “Rethinking the Print Object: Goethe and the Book of Everything.” PMLA, vol. 121, no. 1, 2006, pp. 124-38.
Multiple Authors (In Print)
In your works cited, you will follow the same rules as when you are citing the source in the text. If you have two or three authors, you will name each author. If you have four or more authors, use the ‘et al.’ phrase after listing the first author.
Two Authors
Sullivan, Bruce M., and Patricia W. Hall. “The Whale Avatar of the Hindoos in Melville’s Moby Dick.” Literature & Theology, vol. 15, no. 4, 2001, pp. 358-372.
Three Authors
Wang, Peijun, Yuhui Jing, and Shusheng Shen. “A Systematic Literature Review on the Application of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI) in Teaching within Higher Education: Instructional Contexts, Process, and Strategies.” The Internet and Higher Education, vol. 65, 2025, pp. 100996.
Four or More Authors
Viere, Tobias, et al. “Teaching Life Cycle Assessment in Higher Education.” The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, vol. 26, 2021, pp. 511 – 527.
Articles Found Online and/or in a Database
Online journals are cited in the same fashion that print journals are. Make sure to include the same print information about volume, issue, and pages (if available). The additional information that will need to be included is the database where the article was found as well as the DOI/URL used to access the journal article.
Note: DOI (the Digital Object Identifier) is to be used for sources instead of the URL whenever the information is available. Use https://www.doi.org/ to help you find the DOI for a website if the website does not list the information for you. The Database and the DOI/URL is a part of your 2nd nested container.
Note: The use of ‘n. pag.’ is used in a journal citation where no page numbers are given due to the article never having appeared in print.
Heffernan, Troy. “Sexism, Racism, Prejudice, and Bias: A Literature Review and Synthesis of Research Surrounding Student Evaluations of Courses and Teaching.” Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, vol. 47, no. 1, Feb. 2022, pp. 144–54. EBSCOhost, https://doi-org.casper.idm.oclc.org/10.1080/02602938.2021.1888075.
The examples below are useful when you are using a website as a source (i.e., cdc.com, or caspercollege.edu). A website can be treated similar to a collection or anthology as you have a collection of pages that are grouped together under one web domain. This means that you can cite a website as a whole or a page that is a part of a website. Website content will often have anonymous authors or corporate authors. Make sure you look carefully to see who is in charge of the date on the page you are citing.
For a website that undergoes regular editing or change, be sure that you add the “Accessed” information to the end of the citation.
Committee on Scholarly Editions. “Guidelines for Editors of Scholarly Editions”. Modern Language Association, 4 May 2022. https://www.mla.org/Resources/Guidelines-and-Data/Reports-and-Professional-Guidelines/Guidelines-for-Editors-of-Scholarly-Editions. Accessed 10 February 2025.
Green, Joshua. “The Rove Presidency.” The Atlantic.com, Atlantic Monthly Group, 2007. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/09/the-rove-presidency/306132/.
Images found Online
In the cause of an image, the author is the same as the person who created the image. The title of the image will be in quotation marks followed by the year the image was created. This will be your first container of information. The second container will tell your reader what website the image was found on and the URL of that image.
Cézanne, Paul. “The Card Players”. 1895. The Artist Magazine, https://www.theartist.me/art/25-greatest-modern-art-paintings-all-time/.
Online Videos
For a video found on YouTube or other online source, you will start with the title of the video in quotation marks. Then you will indicate the platform or website the video was found on followed by the Name or Username of the person who uploaded the video. Following this information will be when the video was posted online and the URL where it can be found.
“Finding peer reviewed articles in Academic Search Premier”. YouTube, uploaded by Casper College Library, 26 Mar 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68xVA72uSj4.
Film
When citing a film, the movie’s title will go first and will appear in italics. Next the movie’s director will be listed followed by the distributor of the movie. The year the movie premiered will be last with a supplemental element describing the format of the movie.
Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. Directed by John DeBello, NAI Entertainment, 1978. DVD.
Film view Online or through Streaming Service
You will need to add the information about what online platform was used to watch the film along with that platform’s URL.
The Sentinel. Directed by Clark Johnson, 20th Century Fox, 2006. Netflix, www.netflix.com.
Podcast
The host(s) of the podcast will act as the author(s) the the citation. Podcasts can be standalone or a part of a series. They also can be attached to a network or be independently produced. Due to these variations, there may be more information included in some podcast citations than others.
Cartwright, Rashidah. “Navigating School as an Autism Mom and School Employee”. Autism for Badass Moms, episode 35, 7 May 2024, https://www.autismforbadassmoms.com/podcast/episode/90ff3fe7/ep-35-navigating-school-as-an-autism-mom-and-school-employee.
Elise, Annie. “Love, Lies, and Murder: A valentine’s day turned deadly”. Serialously, episode 226, 10 to LIFE and Audioboom Studios, 26 December 2024. Spotify, https://open.spotify.com/episode/7ocx4iesUySUD2Txq0UT0W.
Albums and Songs
Metallica. “Battery”. Master of Puppets, Elektra Records, 1986.
When citing a thesis (final Masters requirement) or a dissertation (final Doctoral requirement), the source must be labeled as a master’s thesis or doctoral dissertation.
Miao, Xiaojing. Beyond the Lyric: Expanding the Landscape of Early and High Tang Literature, University of Colorado at Boulder, PhD dissertation, 2019. ProQuest, https://www.proquest.com/publiccontent/dissertations-theses/beyond-lyric-expanding-landscape-early-high-tang/docview/2234477612/
Reports are generally developed by a group of people who are a part of one or more organizations. The author, therefore, of a report is the group(s) claiming responsibility of the data or information provided in the report. The title of the report will appear in quotation marks, while the website that hosted the report will be the container title. Sometime the name of the website and the publisher are the same (in which case you only need to have the name in the citation once), other times the publisher is a separate entity. Make sure that the URL you use goes directly to the report you are citing.
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). “Specifications for Medical Examinations of Underground Coal Miners: Proposed Rule.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 9 Jan. 2012, www.cdc.gov/niosh/docket/archive/docket225.html.
Is There a Trick to MLA Works Cited?
Yes! MLA uses a singular stencil that all citations follow. They do this by defining elements that are required (when available) in a citation and grouping those elements together into containers. Check out the steps below to see how it works!
Step 1 - Elements and Containers
Step 2 - Nested Containers
Step 3 - Citation
