MLA, from Citation Styles and Their Uses, lists sources on a Works Cited page. MLA 9 builds every entry from the same core elements, in the same order, so one pattern works for books, articles and websites. Titles follow Titles: Italics or Quotation Marks.
| # | Core element | Ends with |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Author. | period |
| 2 | Title of source. | period |
| 3 | Title of container, | comma |
| 4 | Other contributors, | comma |
| 5 | Version, | comma |
| 6 | Number, | comma |
| 7 | Publisher, | comma |
| 8 | Publication date, | comma |
| 9 | Location. | period |
Key idea
An MLA entry: author, title of the source, then the container that holds it (a journal, a website, a book of essays) with its details. A whole book is italicized; a piece inside a container goes in quotation marks, and the container is italicized.
Why it works
The container idea lets one pattern cover anything: an article sits in a journal, a page sits in a website, a song sits in an album. The reader can always find the piece by first finding its container.
Worked example: A book
Build the entry: author Ellen Marsh; book The Quiet Garden: Growing Food in Small Spaces; publisher Larkspur Press; 2019.
- Author, last name first: Marsh, Ellen.
- A book stands alone, so its title is italicized.
- No container. Publisher, then date.
Answer: Marsh, Ellen. The Quiet Garden: Growing Food in Small Spaces. Larkspur Press, 2019.
Worked example: A web page
Build the entry: Grace Liu, “How to Start a Neighborhood Library,” on the website Open Shelf Guide, 4 May 2023, at www.openshelfguide.example/neighborhood-library.
- The page is inside a website: title in quotation marks.
- The website is the container: italicized.
- Date in day-month-year order, with the month abbreviated; then the location (URL without https://).
Answer: Liu, Grace. “How to Start a Neighborhood Library.” Open Shelf Guide, 4 May 2023, www.openshelfguide.example/neighborhood-library.
Common mistake
Leaving out the container (the website, journal or book that holds the piece), or italicizing the article’s title instead of the container’s. Check: is the thing you cite part of something bigger? Then it gets quotation marks, and the bigger thing gets italics. The sources in these examples are invented for practice: the authors, titles and publishers are made up.
The Works Cited page is alphabetized by the first word of each entry, double-spaced, with a hanging indent (lines after the first indented half an inch). For a DOI, MLA 9 uses the full link, https://doi.org/….