The Modern Language Association (MLA) system of documentation governs how writers format academic papers and cite the sources that they use. This system of formatting and citation is used most by academic disciplines in the arts and humanities.
Citations in MLA
Citations according to MLA consist of two elements:
- in-text citations (also called parenthetical citations); and
- a bibliography called a Work Cited (or Works Cited, if multiple sources are cited) list.
Writers use in-text citations to acknowledge that they have used ideas from external sources to help develop their essays. Those in-text citations refer to the full bibliographic references. Whenever you use sources, whether in direct quotation or in paraphrase, you must use in-text citations. Writers very often combine in-text citations with attributive signal phrases to make clear to the reader exactly what material has come from what source. Every in-text citation you make will be keyed to an entry in your Works Cited list, at which you supply your reader with the full bibliographic information for your sources.
Works Cited Pages
Follow these general rules for all works cited pages:
Start on a New Page
Start your Works Cited on a new page, after the end of the text of the essay. Use a page break rather than the return key to format the new page.
Label the Works Cited
At the top of the page, label the list of sources. Center the title on the page. Either “Work Cited” (for one source) or “Works Cited” for multiple sources.
Do not use bolding, italics, quotations marks, or all-caps.
Include Every Source You Cite
Every source that you quote, paraphrase, or summarize in an essay must be included in your Works Cited list. You should not include sources that are not cited in the text of your essay.
Alphabetical Order
All sources need to be listed in alphabetical order by the first letter in each entry.
- If you have a source with no author, then that source will be alphabetized according to the first letter of its title
- The entries will not be numbered or presented as a series of bulleted points.
Use Appropriate Font and Spacing
The Works Cited page should be formatted the same as the rest of your essay. Use the same font as the text of your essay, and use the same font throughout the works cited. Double space the entries, with no additional spaces, like the rest of the document.
Indentations
Unlike the text of the essay, Works Cited entries do not begin with an indentation. Rather, they use hanging (also known as reverse) indentation, in which the first line of an entry is not indented, but all successive lines are indented, by .5”.
Creating Works Cited Entries
Works cited entries follow a common order of information and use specific punctuation. It’s important to make sure that you are following this format with each entry. Use a period after the author and title of the source. Use commas to divide the other publication information. Finish each citation with another period.
Works Cited Entries should use the following order:
-
- Author.
- Title of source.
- Title of container,
- Other contributors,
- Version,
- Number,
- Publisher,
- Publication date,
- Location.
There was a time when writers needed to use a hard copy of the MLA manual to create their citations. While it is still a good idea to have a basic understanding of how MLA citations are built, most databases have citation generators that can help you.
It’s important to note that the citation generators cannot proofread or edit your citations. Writers still need to pay attention to the details of the citations, to make sure that they are correct and that the Works Cited page is consistent overall.
For information about how to create specific works cited entries, visit Purdue’s Online Writing Lab (OWL).
Check your entries for the following problems:
- Make the font consistent throughout the entries. Change all fonts to match the font of the essay’s text.
- Eliminate ALL CAPS from your entries. Citation generators will not usually make this change for you.
- Remove placeholders. Some generators will include [n.a.] when information is not available. MLA citation does not use that notation.
- Format hyperlinks to fit the line of text and eliminate extra, unnecessary spacing.
Adapted from:A Guide to Rhetoric, Genre, and Success in First-Year Writing by John Brentar and Emilie Zickel is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.