Citation Style Guides and Management Tools

The Modern Language Association Style was first developed as a style sheet in 1951 by a group of linguists and scholars of literature to make their works more consistent and easier to read. Since the 1970s, it has expanded into one of the most popular writing styles and is usually implemented by academics in the fields of language, literature, and literary criticism in English and other languages.

The most recent version of the handbook is the 9th edition, first published in 2021. See the Resources section below for physical copies and more resources.

Citations allow readers (including your professor) to understand and verify your information and where it came from. It gives credit to those whose information you are building upon and allows readers to easily learn more about a topic by finding your source.

• Whenever you are using an existing idea, statement, figure, or set of data, whether as a direct quotation or paraphrased, you should cite your source.
• In MLA, everything should be cited in the body of your work using a brief in-text parenthetical citation which corresponds to a complete citation in a reference list at the end of your work. Below are examples of how to create both in-text and reference list citations for common sources in MLA.
• If you're feeling stuck, you can refer to the Further Resources section below for more comprehensive guides or look at your contact options in the Ask Us! We're Here to Help section; don't worry, citations can be tricky and we're here to help!

Unlike reference list citations, MLA in-text citations are not strictly formatted based on the type of source; instead, every in-text citation follows the author-page approach and can be implemented in multiple ways (we'll give some examples below).

• When making an in-text citation, you can refer to the last name of the author either in the middle of the sentence (narrative) or in parentheses (parenthetical) at the end of the sentence.
• If a work has two authors, list them both; for example, a parenthetical citation would look like: (Gaiman and Pratchett 25).
• If a work has three or more authors, list only the first author followed by "et al."; for example, a narrative citation would look like: "Greig et al. argue for a holistic approach..."
• You must then include the page number always inside a parenthetical at the end of the sentence.

If you're citing multiple works from the same author, or works from two different authors with the same last name, or something that doesn't have page numbers, don't worry - MLA has you covered! See below for how to handle situations like these.

Sources with No Known Author or Multiple Sources From the Same Author

In these situations, you'll want to add a shortened version of the title of the source, usually just the first noun phrase. You'll want to make sure the shortened title makes sense and corresponds to the way it's alphabetized in your Works Cited list to make it easy to find (for example, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold can be shortened to Spy).

• If you're citing an article or short work, present the title in quotation marks.
• If you're citing a book or longer work (such as a whole website instead of a specific page), present the title in italics.
• If you're citing an author's last name and a source title in the same parenthetical, list the author's name first followed by a comma.

Here are some examples:

 The society noted that, although he does not suggest it himself, Brandsma's article raises interesting possibilities about Malory's tolerance of the Saracen knight Palomides ("Round Table" 78).

Butler has described gender performativity as a "certain kind of enactment" ("Performativity" i) that is "a practice of improvisation within a scene of constraint" (Undoing Gender 1).

Different Authors with the Same Last Name

If you're citing different works whose authors have the same last name, add their first initials to clarify; if needed, you can even include their full first names. Here's an example:

Some call for a more thorough and deliberate review of ethical considerations (L. Miller 15) while others argue that society has already come to terms with many of these concerns (H. Miller 172).

Sources with No Known Page Numbers

When citing various kinds of works which don't have page numbers, including some online resources and films, try to include (whether in narrative or parenthetical form) the last name of the author, creator, director, etc. and a shortened title of the work (see above for more details on those).

• If the work doesn't have a known author, the title should suffice; make sure to include whatever term will be at the start of the corresponding entry on your Works Cited list.
• Typically you will not want to include links or URLs in the text; those can be saved for the Works Cited page.

Here's an example:

In the film, the doctor referred to "the hopeless dream of being - not seeming, but being" (Bergman, Persona).

While MLA does not have official styles for traditional knowledge or oral traditions, others have developed guidance for citing Indigenous Elders and Knowledge Keepers. Guidelines from Norquest College suggest using an elder's name in an in-text citation; see the section below for help on formatting a reference in your Works Cited list.

The MLA Style Guide does not have official procedures for citing generative AI; however, their blog states that they don't recommend treating the AI as an author and instead suggest using a shortened version of the prompt as a title. Advice on creating an entry in your Works Cited list can be found below.

Here are some of the most common source types and their basic citation styles in MLA Works Cited lists; we provide the generic format followed by an example.

• You may not be able to find every piece of information listed in the generic format, or a particular source might not have them (for example, some books have authors and editors, while some only have one or the other); simply provide as much information as you can.
• Works Cited lists should be sorted in alphabetical order by the first author's last name; items with no known author can be sorted alphabetically by title.
• When listing multiple items by the same author, they should subsequently be sorted alphabetically by title; after the first listing, replace the author's name in subsequent listing with three hyphens like this: "---".
• Like in-text citations, if a work has three or more authors, list only the first author followed by "et al."
• More examples can be found at the links in the Further Resources section below.

Books

If a book has an editor but no separate author, put their name at the beginning where the author's name would be followed by "editor".

Examples:

Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. The Brothers Karamazov. Translated by Constance Garnett, Melbourne: W. Heinemann, 1912.

---. Crime and Punishment. Translated by Michael R. Katz, First edition, Liveright, 2018.

Ferguson, Margaret W., et al., editors. The Norton Anthology of Poetry. Sixth edition., W. W. Norton & Company, 2018.

Journal and News Articles

If you don't have a DOI number, but the article has a stable URL, use that instead. When citing news articles, include the date and month before the year in lieu of volume, issue, or page numbers. While the accessed date is not strictly required, it is highly recommended because online resources can change over time.

Examples:

Cunningham, Richard, and Harvey Quamen. “Digital Approaches to John Milton.” Renaissance and Reformation, vol. 44, no. 3, 2021, pp. 9–23, https://doi.org/10.33137/rr.v44i3.37988. Accessed 3 June 2024.

Charles, Ron. "Does a Musician Have Any Right to Win the Nobel Prize in Literature?" The Washington Post, 13 October 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/2016/10/13/34710658-915f-11e6-a6a3-d50061aa9fae_story.html. Accessed 3 June 2024.

Oral Traditions and Indigenous Elders

While the MLA Style Guide does not require reference list citations for orally transmitted information, Lorisia MacLeod (2021) advocates for including the knowledge of indigenous elders and knowledge keepers in your reference list using the following MLA template:

Example:

Cardinal, Delores. Goodfish Lake Cree Nation. Treaty 6. Lives in Edmonton. Oral teaching. 4 April 2004.

Generative AI

Creating citations for works generated by AI is not officially laid out in the MLA Style Guide, but their blog offers the following format:

Example:

“Describe the symbolism of the green light in the book The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald” prompt. ChatGPT, 13 Feb. version, OpenAI, 8 Mar. 2023, chat.openai.com/chat.