The MLA recommends including these nine core elements when creating a source citation. If an element is not applicable to the specific source, skip it.
Please note that examples on this page are partial, not full, citations. Where necessary, visual styles of MLA have been explained in detail, such as italics, capital letters, and punctuation.
List the author's last name first, followed by a comma, then the first name and middle initial (if provided).
Example: Last, First M.
If the author formats their name another way, such as a first initial followed by a middle name, keep that same formatting, but the last name should still be listed first.
Example: Fitzgerald, F. Scott.
For other kinds of creators and for editors, follow with a comma and description – e.g., editor. Do not capitalize the description.
Example: Garnett, Constance, translator.
Include both names in the order given in the source, with the word and between them. List the second author or editor's name in traditional order.
Example: Mahon, Connie R., and Donald C. Lehman.
List the first author, followed by a comma and et al. The phrase "et al" should be in lowercase letters, followed by a period, and not italicized.
Example: White, Deborah G., et al.
If the author is an organization, company, etc., and no person's name is listed as author, use the name of the organization, leaving out "a, " "an, " or "the" if they appear at the start of the name
Example: Modern Language Association.
Exception: If the publisher (element #7, below) is the same organization, list the organization's name in the publication position rather than as the author. Begin your citation with the title.
If no person is named as the author, begin with the name of the government (such as a country or state), then list other organizational units from largest to smallest, spelling out all names.
Example: United States, Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Remember that organizations, companies, government agencies, etc., are proper nouns, so first letters of words should be capitalized.
If there is no author or corporate author, begin your citation with the title.
If citing other media, like film or television, begin with the contributor most important to your discussion of the work, followed by a descriptive label, such as producer, host, screenwriter, creator, etc. Do not capitalize the descriptive label.
If your discussion is not focused on a particular contributor, begin with the title and list key contributors later.
Always end the author element with a period, regardless of whether it is a person, group, or organization.
Use title case, in which the first letters of words are capitalized, except articles, prepositions, coordinating conjunctions (and, but, or), and "to" in an infinitive (e.g., Learn to Code; the L and C in Learn and Code are capitalized, the t in to is not). However, always capitalize the first letter of the first and last words of titles and subtitles.
Example: And Justice for All: An Oral History of the Japanese American Detention Camps.
All words in this title are capitalized except "for", "of", and "the." "And" is capitalized because it's the first word of the title and "An" is capitalized because it's the first word of the subtitle.
Place the title in quotation marks if it is a short story, poem, essay, article, song, television show episode, webpage, etc.
Italicize the title of books, plays, albums, films, TV shows, periodicals, websites, etc.
Provide a description using standard capitalization with no quotation marks or italics.
Example 1: Text message to the author.
Example 2: Photograph of Sears Tower under construction.
For an email, include the subject line in quotation marks.
Example 3, with last three words in quotation marks: Email to the author with the subject line "Foundation Impact Report."
In preceding three examples, the first letter of the first word is capitalized, as well as the words Foundation Impact Report.
The title of the source should end with a period. If the title is in quotation marks, the period appears before the closing quotation mark.
Example: "The Lottery."
Exception: If the title ends with a question mark or exclamation point, do not add a period.
Example: If Not Now, When?
If the source is part of a larger whole (container), list the title of any larger work in title case and italics. For example, if your source is a newspaper article, the container is the newspaper in which it appears.
Example: "Four Years On, the Mysteries of Covid Are Unraveling." New York Times …
In the preceding example, the first title, from Four to Unraveling, is in quotation marks. There is a period after Unraveling and before the closing quotation mark. New York Times is in italics.
If your source is a story from your course text, the story title should appear first, then the title of the textbook, which is the container.
Example: "And of Clay Are We Created." The Norton Anthology of World Literature …
In the preceding example, quotation marks appear around the words And of Clay Are We Created, with a period before the closing quotation mark. The title of the Norton work is in italics. All words have the first letter capitalized except of in both titles..
If one container is nested in another container, provide core elements 3 though 9 for each, from smallest container to largest. For example, an article might have two containers: the journal in which it appears, then the library database from which the journal is retrieved. An television episode's first container is the TV series, while a second might be a streaming service.
You may include descriptions and names of other contributors if relevant. Because the title element/s end with a period, start this element with a capital letter.
Example: Schmidt, R. Marilyn. Gardening on the Eastern Seashore. Illustrated by Dorothy M. Hunt …
Here, Schmidt is the author and Gardening… (in italics) is the title of a book. Hunt is an added contributor; note that the first letter of "Illustrated" is capitalized.
Some other examples of contributors are editors, translators, narrators, adapters, photographers, directors, performers, etc.
Example: Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. Directed by Simon Godwin, performance by Paapa Essiedu …
In this example, the first letter of the first contributor description ("Directed") is capitalized, but the second contributor follows a comma, so that role is not capitalized.
For guest editors, general editors, or series editors, list the description first, followed by a comma and the name or names.
If applicable, include the edition or version, separated from by a comma, such as: revised ed., abridged version, or director's cut.
Write ordinal numbers with Arabic numerals. That is, write "eighth edition" as 8th ed. (numeral 8, letters t h, space, ed, period) or "thirty-third edition" as 33rd ed. (numeral 33, letters r d, space, ed, period).
If there is no edition or version information, simply skip this element.
If a source provides its volume or issue numbers using Roman numerals, change them to Arabic numbering. For instance, if a journal identifies a volume as Roman numeral "IX," write vol. 9 in your citation.
Include the volume and issue number for periodicals like journals and magazines. Use the abbreviation "vol." for the volume and "no." for the issue number.
Example: … Educational Technology & Society, vol. 27, no. 1 …
Note that the journal title (container) is followed by a comma, then the volume number, then another comma and issue number. Both abbreviations are in lowercase letters and followed by a period. Only the journal title is in italics.
If your source is from a specific volume of a multi-volume set of books, include the volume number.
Example: … Norton Anthology of World Literature, general editor, Martin Puchner, 3rd ed., vol. E …
In this example, volumes are assigned letters instead of numbers – use the system provided by the source. Note that the title, contributor label ("general editor"), contributor's name, version ("3rd ed."), and volume are all separated by commas.
If a source is part of any numbered sequence, include a description and the number. For example, you would include the season and number of a specific television or podcast episode: for example, season 2, episode 5 …
When the publisher is a university press, replace those words in the name with the letters "UP" – capitalized and with no periods. For example, "Yale University Press" would be written as Yale UP while "University of Chicago Press" would be U of Chicago P. In both examples, the letters U and P are capitalized, as well as the first letters of the words Yale and Chicago.
Do not include business words or abbreviations like "Incorporated" (Inc.), "Company" (Co.), or "Limited" (Ltd.). If those words or abbreviations are listed as part of the name, just leave them out.
If the publisher's name includes an ampersand ("&"), replace it with the word and.
Sources like book title pages, websites, and films may list parent companies – companies that own the smaller divisions or imprints that published the source. Do not include these parent companies in your citation, just the smaller unit directly responsible. So, for example, if a title page says, "Routledge, an imprint of Taylor & Francis Books Ltd." the citation would include only Routledge.
If more than one publisher, studio, distributor, network, or company is listed, present them in the order they appear in the source, separated by a forward slash.
Use this general format for dates: day month year. Do not include any commas.
Example: 15 July 2022
Abbreviate months with names longer than 4 letters. Follow the abbreviation with a period.
Example: 28 Sept. 2019. In this example, Sept. is followed by a period then a space before the year 2019.
If the publication date does not include a specific day, just list the year and month. For instance, magazines and journals may be published monthly, so the date may be something like January 2025.
If the publication date is a year, as is typical of books or movies, just give the year.
Some periodicals are published seasonally and will list the season and year in place of a date. In a citation, give the date the same way, such as spring 2015. Do not capitalize the season and don't include a comma.
If a source date is listed using Roman numerals, change them to Arabic numbering. For instance, if a film's credits list the date as Roman numeral "MCMLV," write 1955 in your citation.
When a source lists more than one date, include the most relevant one.
For instance, an e-book may give a text copyright date of 1988, first edition from this publisher 1991, and e-book publication date of 2010. Because you're referencing the e-book, list 2010 as the date for your citation.
If you're citing a webpage or blog post that has an original publication date and a date it was revised, list the revised date, because that's the version you're citing.
For print sources like books, e-books, and articles, list a page number or range of pages unless you're citing an entire book. For instance, if you're using a play that appears in its own standalone volume, the relevant pages are all the pages in the book, so you shouldn't list the page numbers in your Works Cited. However, if you're citing the same play but it appears in a textbook alongside several other works, do include the page numbers to indicate where the play appears.
Introduce page numbers with the abbreviation "p." for a single page or "pp." for multiple pages – both abbreviations are lowercase, not italicized, and followed by a period and space. List numbers exactly as they appear in the source, whether Arabic numerals (1, 2, 3…), Roman numerals in upper- or lowercase, or some other system.
Three examples:If giving a range of pages in standard (Arabic) numerals, there is a slight change for numbers over 100. If the first and last page have the same first digit, you should list only the last two digits for the last page. So a source that starts on page 144 and ends on page 165 would be formatted as pp. 144-65.
If a source is not printed on consecutive pages, list "pp." to show that the source spans multiple pages, then the first page number followed by the plus sign "+" – for example, pp. A2+ indicates that a story starts on page A2 then continues on another page, but not consecutively (if the story ended on page A3, you'd list that range). This type of numbering is often seen for newspapers.
If an online item has a DOI, always include it, starting with https://doi.org/. To learn more about DOIs, see this FAQ: Where can I find a DOI number for an article?
If a source accessed online has no DOI, list as location its stable web address (URL), omitting the protocol (e.g., "http://"). Do not underline the URL and make sure it is in the same color as the rest of the citation.
Do not use a URL from a shortening service like bit.ly. If a URL takes up more than three lines, you should truncate (shorten) it, making sure to retain the full host and domain, such as www.aacc.edu.
For a physical object experienced firsthand, like a piece of art viewed in a museum, list the repository and city name (unless the repository includes the city). If necessary for clarity, include state or province and/or country name.
Example 1: Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Example 2: Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, Maryland. In this example, commas are used to separate Museum, Baltimore, and Maryland.
For a live event, like a conference presentation or music concert, list the venue, plus the city, state/province, and country, as appropriate – use the same guidelines as above.
For a printable version of this information, download the handout (or pick one up at the reference desk):