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Paste a DOI, URL, or ISBN. Get a fully formatted Works Cited entry in MLA 9th edition — the container model, full first names, title-case titles, page ranges with the right punctuation. The matching (Author Page) in-text comes back with it. Free, no signup.
Tip: Paste a URL, DOI, or ISBN for automatic metadata lookup.
MLA 9 was published in 2021 by the Modern Language Association. It kept MLA 8's container model — the idea that a source lives inside containers (articles in journals, episodes in series, chapters in books) — and tightened the guidance on inclusive language, annotated bibliographies, and DOI formatting. MLA is the default for English literature, comparative literature, languages, cultural studies, and most humanities work. Most institutions migrated to MLA 9 within two years of release; MLA 8 is still accepted on older syllabi.
Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid's Tale. McClelland and Stewart, 1985.
MLA 9 uses author-page in-text: (Author Page). No comma between author and page. Multiple authors: two get (Smith and Jones 14); three or more collapse to (Smith et al. 14). No page number for sources without one — fall back to author only. Long quotes (four+ lines of prose, three+ lines of verse) get block-quoted with the parenthetical citation after the closing punctuation.
(Atwood 142)
Works Cited entries hang-indent half an inch. The container model drives everything: list the author, the title of the source, then the container (journal, book, website, series) in italics, then the container's own contributors, version, number, publisher, date, location, and any second-level container. Article titles in quotation marks; book titles and container titles italicized. Page ranges use an en-dash: 1124–31, abbreviated after the first three digits.
(Atwood 142).doi: in front of a DOI — MLA 9 prefers the full https://doi.org/ URL.Each input goes through the right source. DOIs hit Crossref directly, since that's where they're registered. ISBNs resolve through library and publisher records. URLs get scraped for embedded metadata (DOI in the source, OG tags, schema.org). If nothing's there, we fall back to Semantic Scholar and OpenAlex. Once the canonical record lands, the CSL engine renders the citation in MLA 9. That's the same engine Zotero and Mendeley run, the same one behind most journal submission portals.
The idea that every source lives inside one or more containers. A journal article's container is the journal. A book chapter's container is the book. A TV episode's container is the series, and the streaming platform may be a second container. The Works Cited entry lists the source first, then walks through each container's metadata in order.
MLA 9 keeps the container model from MLA 8 but adds a chapter on inclusive language, expanded guidance on annotated bibliographies, and updated formatting for DOIs and online sources. Both editions are widely accepted; MLA 9 is the default on most current syllabi.
DOI if the source has one. URL only if there's no DOI. Format DOIs as https://doi.org/10.xxxx — the full URL form, not the bare doi:10.xxxx shorthand.
Skip to the title (in quotation marks for a page, italics for a site). The in-text citation uses a shortened version of the title in quotation marks. The generator handles this automatically — just paste the URL.
Bare numbers: (Atwood 142). Page range: (Atwood 142–45). No "p." or "pp.". For sources without page numbers (websites, videos), use the author's name alone or add a paragraph number with par..
Yes. MLA 9 prefers the author's full first name in the Works Cited entry ("Margaret Atwood," not "M. Atwood"), as listed on the source itself. Use initials only when the source uses them.
The full Citation Generator covers APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, AMA, ACS, IEEE, Vancouver, and the 10,000+ other styles in the CSL registry.
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Save every MLA 9 citation you generate to your Works Cited library, then export the finished list to Word, BibTeX, or RIS.
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