The Modern Language Association (MLA) documentation style is a set of rules for citing sources in formal research essays. It is the most common style for English classes, but be aware that other disciplines follow other models. By documenting sources properly, you make it easier for readers to find the exact texts that informed your opinions and supported your claims. For a teacher grading your paper, your use of systematic citation shows that you have been conscientious in investigating the topic and have avoided plagiarism. For readers who are interested in your paper, your list of works cited can help them learn more about the topic. Rhetorically speaking, a properly documented research paper boosts your ethos and appeals to logos.
Guidelines for In-Text Citations
MLA documentation requires in-text citations that refer to a list of works cited—an alphabetized list of all the sources you’ve drawn from. Sometimes all the necessary information for an in-text citation fits in the body of your sentence:
On page 162 of Aerotropolis: The Way We’ll Live Next, authors John D. Kasarda and Greg Lindsay suggest that downtown Detroit was doomed as soon as automobiles made the railroads less popular.
But more often you’ll include some key information in parentheses just before the period. In this second example, the writer included the book title and authors’ names in her sentence and, thus, only needed to provide the page number in parentheses.
In Aerotropolis: The Way We’ll Live Next, John D. Kasarda and Greg Lindsay suggest that downtown Detroit was doomed as soon as automobiles made the railroads less popular (162).
In this third example, there is no source information embedded in the sentence itself, so the in-text citation includes both the authors’ names and the page number. Note that the title isn’t included. With the authors’ names, the reader has enough information to find the relevant entry on the list of works cited.
Although the growth of car manufacturing brought jobs to Detroit, America’s drivable network of industrial cities and residential suburbs “bled entire cities dry: starting with Detroit” (Kasarda and Lindsay 180).
Guidelines for a List of Works Cited
Print Resources
1. Book with One Author
A book with one author serves as a general model for most MLA citations. Include author, title, publisher, and date of publication.
Beavan, Colin. No Impact Man. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009.
2. Book with Multiple Authors
Kasarda, John D., and Greg Lindsay. Aerotropolis: The Way We’ll Live Next. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011.
3. Two or More Works by the Same Author
Multiple entries should be arranged alphabetically by title. The author’s name appears at the beginning of the first entry but is replaced by three hyphens and a period in all subsequent entries.
Gladwell, Malcolm. Outliers: The Story of Success. Little, Brown, 2008.
---. What the Dog Saw, and Other Adventures. Little, Brown, 2009.
4. Author and Editor Both Named
Vidal, Gore. The Selected Essays of Gore Vidal. Ed. Jay Parini. Vintage, 2009.
Alternatively, to cite the editor’s contribution, start with the editor’s name.
Parini, Jay, ed. The Selected Essays of Gore Vidal. By Gore Vidal. Vintage, 2009.
5. Anthology
Oates, Joyce Carol, editor. Telling Stories: An Anthology for Writers. W. W. Norton, 1997.
Selection from an anthology:
Irving, Washington. “Rip Van Winkle.” Conversations in American Literature: Language, Rhetoric, Culture, edited by Robin Aufses et al., Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2015. 435–48.
6. Translation
Weisel, Elie. Night. Translated by Marion Weisel, Hill and Wang, 2006.
7. Entry in a Reference Work
Because most reference works are alphabetized, you should omit page numbers.
Lounsberry, Barbara. “Joan Didion.” Encyclopedia of the Essay, edited by Tracy Chandler. Fitzroy Dearborn, 1997.
For a well-known encyclopedia, use only the edition and year of publication. When an article is not attributed to an author, begin the entry with the article title.
“Gilgamesh.” The Columbia Encyclopedia. 5th ed., 1993.
8. Sacred Text
Unless a specific published edition is being cited, sacred texts should be omitted from the Works Cited list.
The New Testament. Translated by Richmond Lattimore, North Point, 1997.
9. Article in a Journal
The title of the journal should be followed by the volume, issue, and year of the journal’s publication.
de Botton, Alain. “Treasure Hunt.” Lapham’s Quarterly, vol. 4, no. 2, 2011, pp. 205-10.
10. Article in a Magazine
In a weekly:
Menand, Louis. “The Unpolitical Animal: How Political Science Understands Voters.” The New Yorker, 30 Aug. 2004, pp. 92–96.
In a monthly:
Baker, Kevin. “Barack Hoover Obama: The Best and the Brightest Blow It Again.” Harper’s, Jul. 2009, pp. 29–37.
11. Article in a Newspaper
If you are citing a local paper that does not contain the city name in its title, add the city name in brackets after the title. When citing an article that does not appear on consecutive pages, list the first page followed by a plus sign. The edition only needs to be included if it is listed on the paper’s masthead.
Edge, John T. “Fast Food Even before Fast Food.” The New York Times, 30 Sept. 2009, late ed., p. D1+.
12. Review
In a weekly:
Davis, Jordan. “Happy Thoughts!” Review of The Golden Age of Paraphernalia, by Kevin Davies, The Nation 23 Feb. 2009, pp. 31–34.
In a monthly:
Simpson, Mona. “Imperfect Union.” Review of Mrs. Woolf and the Servants, by Alison Light, The Atlantic Jan.–Feb. 2009, pp. 93–101.
Electronic Resources
13. Article from a Database Accessed through a Subscription Service
Apply the normal rules for citing a journal article, but follow this with the name of the subscription service in italics, and the Digital Object Identifier, if available.
Morano, Michele. “Boy Eats World.” Fourth Genre: Explorations in Nonfiction, vol. 13, no. 2, 2011, pp. 31–35. Project MUSE, doi: 10.1353/fge.2011.0029.
14. Article in an Online Magazine
Follow the author name and article title with the name of the magazine in italics, the date published, and the url of the article.
Yoffe, Emily. “Full Metal Racket: Metal Detecting Is the World’s Worst Hobby.” Slate, 18 Aug. 2003, www.slate.com/articles/life/human_guinea_pig/2003/08/full_metal_racket.html.
15. Article in an Online Newspaper
Sisario, Ben. “Record Stores: Out of Sight, Not Obsolete.” The New York Times, 29 Sept. 2009, www.nytimes.com/2009/09/30/arts/music/30private.html.
16. Online Review
Stevens, Dana. “Catcher in the MRI.” Review of 50/50, directed by Adam Levine. Slate, 30 Sept. 2011, www.slate.com/articles/arts/movies/2011/09/_50_50_reviewed_joseph
_gordon_levitt_and_seth_rogen_as_pals_vs_s.html.
17. Entry in an Online Reference Work
“Eschatology.” Merriam-Webster, 7 Apr. 2016, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/
eschatology.
18. Work from a Web Site
“Wallace Stevens.” Poetry Foundation, 2015, www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/wallace-stevens.
19. Entire Web Site
Web site with editor:
Goldstein, Evan, editor. Arts and Letters Daily. Chronicle of Higher Education, www.aldaily.com. Accessed 1 Dec. 2007.
Web site without an editor:
Academy of American Poets. 2016, poets.org. Accessed 13 Mar. 2015.
Personal Web site:
Mendelson, Edward. Home page. Columbia U, 2013, english.columbia.edu/people/
profile/394.
20. Entire Web Log (Blog)
Holbo, John, editor. The Valve, http://www.thevalve.org/go. Accessed 18 Mar. 2012.
21. Entry in a Wiki
“Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.” Wikipedia, 25 Nov. 2013, wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Raphaelite_Brotherhood.
Other Sources
22. Film and Video
Follow the title with the director, notable performers, the distribution company, and the date of release. For films viewed on the Web, follow this with the url of the Web site used to view the film. If citing a particular individual’s work on the film, you may begin the entry with his or her name before the title.
The Hurt Locker. Directed by Kathryn Bigelow, performances by Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, Guy Pearce, and Ralph Fiennes, Summit, 2009.
Video or film from the Web:
Nayar, Vineet. “Employees First, Customers Second.” YouTube, 9 Jun. 2015, www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCdu67s_C5E.
23. Interview
Include the name of the interviewer if it is someone of note.
Personal interview:
Tripp, Lawrence. Personal interview, 14 Apr. 2014.
In print:
Dylan, Bob. “Who Is This Bob Dylan?” Interview by Tom Junod, Esquire, 23 January 2014, pp. 124+.
On the radio:
Gioia, Dana. Interview with Leonard Lopate. The Leonard Lopate Show. WNYC, 19 July 2004.
On the Web:
Gioia, Dana. Interview with Leonard Lopate. The Leonard Lopate Show. WNYC, 19 July 2004, www.wnyc.org/story/49925-dana-gioia.
24. Lecture or Speech
Viewed in person:
Kass, Leon. “Looking for an Honest Man: Reflections of an Unlicensed Humanist.” Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities, Warner Theatre, Washington, D.C., 22 May 2009.
Viewed on the Web:
Batuman, Elif. Lowell Humanities Series. Boston College, 13 Oct. 2010, frontrow.bc.edu/
program/batuman.
25. Podcast
Carlin, Dan. “King of Kings.” Hardcore History Podcast, 28 Oct. 2015, http://www.dancarlin.com/hardcore-history-56-kings-of-kings.
26. Work of Art or Photograph
In a museum:
Hopper, Edward. Nighthawks. 1942, oil on canvas, Art Institute, Chicago.
On the Web:
Thiebaud, Wayne. Three Machines. 1963, De Young Museum, San Francisco, http://shop.famsf.org/Product.do?code=T636P. Accessed 2 Oct. 2013.
In print:
Clark, Edward. Navy CPO Graham Jackson Plays “Goin’ Home.” 1945. The Great LIFE Photographers, Bulfinch, 2004, pp. 78–79.
27. Map or Chart
In print:
“U.S. Personal Savings Rate, 1929–1999.” Credit Card Nation: The Consequences of America’s Addiction to Credit. By Robert D. Manning, Basic Books, 2000, p. 100.
On the Web:
“1914 New Balkan States and Central Europe Map.” National Geographic, maps.nationalgeographic.com/maps/print-collection/balkan-states-map.html. Accessed 25 Oct. 2013.
28. Cartoon or Comic Strip
In print:
Vey, P. C. Cartoon. The New Yorker, 10 Nov. 2008, p. 54.
On the Web:
Zyglis, Adam. “City of Light.” Buffalo News, 8 Nov. 2015, adamzyglis.buffalonews.com/2015/
11/08/city-of-light/. Cartoon.
29. Advertisement
In print:
Rosetta Stone. Harper’s, Aug. 2008, p. 21. Advertisement.
On the Web:
Seamless. The Washington Post, www.washingtonpost.com. Accessed 4 Apr. 2016. Advertisement.