MLA Citations: Home

MLA Style Center Homepage

Learn the MLA citation style directly from the creators.  The MLA Style Center provides guidance, formatting, and examples of how to cite within the MLA style. 

Purdue Online Writing Lab: MLA Style Guide

Purdue University's Online Writing Lab (OWL) provides writing resources and instructional materials for writing projects.  The MLA Style Guide includes an introduction to the style, citation formatting for various sources, formatting for in-text citations and reference lists, and more. 

MLA Handbook

This module should take roughly 45 minutes to view and then a post-test can be completed. It discusses in-text citations as well as a variety of types of sources and their works cited entries. Post-test results can be emailed to you or your professor.

MLA is one of the most commonly used citation styles.  This style is used within the language arts, cultural studies, and other humanities disciplines.  Majors that use MLA citation style include Communication, Digital Media, English, Music, Religion & Philosophy, and Theatre. 

Always check with your professor to determine which citation style you should use before beginning your paper or project. 

You will need to identify:

• Author(s)
• Title of the Work
• Publisher Information
• Date of Publication or Creation

Elements of your citation should be listed in the following order:

1. Author.
2. Title of source.
3. Title of container,
4. Other contributors,
5. Version,
6. Number,
7. Publisher,
8. Publication date,
9. Location.

• The words Works Cited should be centered at the top of the page.
• Arrange items in alphabetical order by first word of the entry.
• Use hanging indent and double space the entire page - no extra lines between items.
• List all authors as such:
  • One Author: Last Name, First Name
  • Two Authors: Last Name, First Name, and First Name Last Name
  • Three or More Authors: Last Name, First Name, et al. 
• Italicize book titles.
• Place individual webpage titles in quotation marks.
• Place titles of magazine articles, newspaper articles, and scholarly journal articles in quotation marks. 
• Write DOIs as: doi: xx-xxx/xxxx
• Publisher location is only needed if the book was published before 1900.