Citation Styles: MLA

General   

• See Waubonsee's Guide: How to Document Your Sources in the MLA Style, 9th edition
• Be mindful that the conventions you use for in-text citations are NOT the same as the conventions used for the Works Cited page!
• Double check your work - citation generators are not perfect. 
• Only include information that exists! Do not make up page numbers or any other information just to create a citation/reference entry.

In-text Citations

• Consider completing your Works Cited citations first. What comes first in your Works Cited citation will determine what goes first in your in-text citation.
• Don't use commas to separate the information in in-text citations.
  • Example: (Roberts 24)
• Write out authors' last names for up to 2 authors. For 3+ authors, use "et al." See examples below.
• When your source doesn't have an author, use what comes first in the References citation. This could be the name of an organization or an article title.
  • Example: ("Chattering Spirits")
• You must include a page number/page numbers regardless of if you're directly quoting a source or just summarizing/paraphrasing it. However, if your source doesn't have page numbers, then your in-text citation would just include the author's last name.
• When you quote a video, use a timestamp of when the quote was said, but only include the time when the quote started.
  • Example: (Evans 1:15)
• An in-text citation can change just a bit when you refer to the author/authors in the body of the sentence.
  • When you refer to the author in the body of the sentence, don't include it in the in-text citation. Only include the page number.
    • Example: Johnson observes, "[insert quote here]" (34).
  • If your source doesn't have page numbers, then you won't have an in-text citation at the end at all.
    • Example: In his article, Baxter notes that [insert analysis here].

Works Cited

• If you're citing just one source, the title of your citation list should be "Work Cited" whereas if you're citing more than one source, your title should be "Works Cited"
• Entries should be double-spaced, listed alphabetically by what comes first in the citation entry, and each entry should have a hanging indent.
  • See our tab "Hanging Indent" for instruction on how to create a hanging indent.
• Write out authors' last names for up to 2 authors. For 3+ authors, use "et al." See examples below.