MLA citation style: a complete guide

What is MLA citation style?

MLA style is defined by the MLA Handbook, now in its 9th edition (2021). It is the dominant citation format in literature, languages, rhetoric, film studies, philosophy, and many other humanities disciplines. Most U.S. high schools and undergraduate writing courses also default to MLA for English-language essays.

MLA uses a brief author-page citation in the text and a single alphabetical list at the end called Works Cited. Where APA emphasizes recency (year-first), MLA emphasizes the writer behind the source and the page where the idea appears, which suits humanities work where readers may want to revisit a passage.

The defining innovation of MLA 8 — kept and clarified in MLA 9 — is the idea of core elements. Instead of giving a different recipe for every source type (book, journal, film, tweet), MLA tells you to assemble the same nine elements in the same order, leaving out the ones that don't apply.

In-text citations

MLA in-text citations are parenthetical: the author's last name and the page number appear in parentheses with no comma between them. The citation goes before the closing punctuation of the sentence.

Multiple authors

For two authors, list both surnames joined by "and." For three or more authors, give the first author's surname followed by "et al."

Works without page numbers

Many web sources and audiovisual works have no page numbers. Cite the author's last name only — do not invent page numbers. For audio or video with timestamps, give the time range in hours:minutes:seconds.

The MLA core elements

Every Works Cited entry is built from up to nine core elements, listed in the same order, separated by the punctuation MLA assigns to each. If an element doesn't exist for your source, you skip it and move on.

Element 1 (Author) is given as Last, First. The Title of source is in italics if the source stands alone (a book, film, album, website) and in quotation marks if it is part of a larger whole (an article in a journal, a chapter in a book, an episode in a series). The Location is whatever tells the reader where to find the source: a page range, a DOI, a URL, or a permalink.

Containers and nested works

A container is the larger work that holds your source. A journal article is held by the journal. A short story may be held by an anthology, which may itself be held by a database such as JSTOR. MLA 9 lets you stack two containers when needed — first the immediate container, then the broader platform that delivers it.

The first container (Shakespeare Quarterly) gets its own publication details and ends with a period. The second container (JSTOR) starts a new run of core elements with its own location.

Journal articles

For journal articles, the article title sits in quotation marks; the journal title is italicized. Volume and issue are labeled with "vol." and "no.", and the page range uses "pp." Always include a DOI when one is available — present it as a hyperlink.

Books and book chapters

Entire book

For a whole book, list the author, italicized title (title case), edition (if not the first), publisher, and year. Drop business words such as "Inc." and "Co." but keep "Press" and "Books."

Chapter or work in an anthology

When citing a chapter, the chapter title is in quotation marks; the anthology is the container. Use "edited by" before the editor's name in normal first-name-first order.

Websites and online sources

For a page on a website, the author (if named) comes first, then the page title in quotation marks, then the website name in italics as the container, then the publisher (if different from the site name), the date, and the URL. Omit "https://" prefixes only if your instructor permits — otherwise keep the full link.

Films, TV, and YouTube

For audiovisual works, MLA lets you decide who the "author" is based on what you are discussing. If your essay is about a director's cinematography, the director is the author; if it's about an actor's performance, the actor goes first. When in doubt, lead with the title.

The streaming service is the second container — it follows the production company and starts a new run of core elements ending with the URL.

8th edition vs. 9th edition

The 9th edition of the MLA Handbook (2021) keeps the core elements introduced in the 8th edition (2016) but adds substantially more guidance, examples, and reference chapters. The differences are mostly clarifications rather than rule changes.

Common mistakes to avoid

Adding a comma between author and page

MLA in-text citations use (Woolf 277) — no comma. Writers coming from APA often insert a comma out of habit; that's an APA convention, not MLA.

Italicizing the wrong thing

Stand-alone works (books, films, journals, websites, albums) are italicized. Component works (articles, chapters, episodes, songs, web pages) take quotation marks. A common slip is italicizing an article title or putting a journal in quotation marks.

Listing the wrong "author"

For audiovisual works, the author is whoever your discussion centers on. If you can't justify a single author, lead with the title — that's always a valid choice in MLA 9.

Confusing volume and issue labels

MLA uses vol. and no. with periods and lowercase letters, not Vol. or No. The page range uses pp. for journal articles and book chapters.

Forgetting the second container

When you find an article through a database, the database is the second container — list it after the journal information. Leaving out JSTOR, Project MUSE, or ProQuest hides where the reader would actually retrieve the source.

Hanging indent

Every Works Cited entry uses a hanging indent: the first line is flush left and subsequent lines are indented 0.5 inches. Many word processors will apply this automatically once you select the entries and apply the "Hanging" paragraph option.

Quick summary

Once you understand the core elements and the container concept, MLA becomes one of the simplest citation styles to apply consistently. The same nine slots, in the same order, work for a Shakespeare quarto and a TikTok video alike — you just leave out what isn't there.