Citing other MLA sources?
The full MLA 9 Citation Generator handles books, websites, films, videos, podcasts, and more.
Paste a DOI, article title, or PDF link. Get a clean MLA 9 Works Cited entry with volume, issue, page range, and DOI — plus a matching in-text citation. Handles two-, three-, and many-author articles, special issues, and early-access papers. Free, no signup.
Tip: A DOI is the cleanest input — we'll pull authors, journal, volume, issue, pages, and year automatically.
MLA 9 builds every entry from the same core elements template: Author. "Title of source." Title of container, Other contributors, Version, Number, Publisher, Publication date, Location. For a journal article, most slots fill in cleanly — author, article title, journal name, volume and issue numbers, year, page range, and a DOI or URL. The trickier parts are usually volume vs. issue (don't skip either), page formatting (always a range, never a single page), and the DOI rule (preferred over a database URL whenever one exists).
Harlow, Megan, and Bryan Edwards. "Reading on Screens: A Quantitative Review." Reading Research Quarterly, vol. 58, no. 2, 2023, pp. 215–34, https://doi.org/10.1002/rrq.485.
vol. 58, no. 2, with lowercase abbreviations. Always include both if the journal has both.pp. 215–34, with an en-dash and the shortened second number (215–34, not 215–234).https://doi.org/…) when one exists. No DOI? Use a stable URL to the article landing page. End with a period.MLA's in-text format is author + page number, no comma: (Harlow and Edwards 221). For three or more authors, use et al.: (Harlow et al. 221). If the author's surname appears in your sentence, only the page number goes in parentheses: Harlow and Edwards argue the effect is small (221). For a quoted range or summary spanning multiple pages, give the range: (Harlow et al. 221–23).
(Harlow and Edwards 221)
Always the DOI when one exists. MLA 9 explicitly prefers DOIs over URLs because they're stable — a DOI resolves to the article forever, even if the journal moves platforms. Format it as a full URL: https://doi.org/10.xxxx/yyyy. If the article has no DOI (common for older or open-access pieces), use the most stable URL you can find — usually the publisher's article page, not a Google Scholar link or PDF mirror.
Always include the issue number when the journal has one (most do). MLA 9's format is vol. 58, no. 2, lowercase, comma-separated. For continuously paginated journals (each issue starts where the last left off), the issue number is still required. Page ranges use en-dashes and shorten the second number: pages 215 to 234 becomes pp. 215–34; pages 308 to 312 becomes pp. 308–12; pages 1099 to 1104 becomes pp. 1099–104. Single-page articles just give the page: p. 42.
If the article is published online ahead of an issue, include the year and DOI but leave volume, issue, and pages off (or use whatever the journal has assigned so far). Add a parenthetical phrase if you want to be explicit: (advance online publication). For preprints from arXiv, bioRxiv, or SSRN, treat them as web sources — author, "title," arXiv, date, URL — and mark them clearly as preprints in your prose so readers know they haven't been peer-reviewed.
doi:10.1234/abc. MLA 9 wants the full URL form: https://doi.org/10.1234/abc.no. X.215–34, not 215-34.Paste a DOI and we hit Crossref to pull authors, article title, journal, volume, issue, year, pages, and the canonical DOI URL. Paste a title and we search Crossref, Semantic Scholar, and OpenAlex to find the right paper, then resolve the same metadata. The CSL engine renders MLA 9 formatting: quoted article title, italic journal name, vol. X, no. Y, year, en-dashed page range, and DOI URL. The matching in-text (Author Page) citation comes alongside.
Use the most stable URL you can find — usually the article's landing page on the publisher's website — and drop the https:// protocol. If you accessed the article through a library database (JSTOR, ProQuest, EBSCO), MLA 9 lets you add the database as a second container: … pp. 215–34. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/12345. Don't paste a PDF-download link or a Google Scholar URL — neither is considered stable.
For three or more authors, MLA 9 uses the first author followed by et al.: Harlow, Megan, et al. In-text follows the same rule: (Harlow et al. 221). Don't list all the authors — even if a paper has 12 collaborators, only the first appears with et al.
MLA 9 supports a two-container model: the journal is container 1, the database is container 2. Format: Author. "Title." Journal, vol. X, no. Y, year, pp. X–Y. Database, URL. The database name is italicized like a container. If the article has a DOI, prefer the DOI over the database URL.
Not usually. MLA 9 only requires an access date when the article has no publication date or when the source is likely to change. Peer-reviewed articles with a DOI are stable — skip the access date. Add it (Accessed 12 May 2026.) only for unstable web sources.
If the special issue has a title and editor, include them as additional container details: … "Article Title." Journal, edited by Editor Name, special issue of Journal, vol. X, no. Y, year, pp. X–Y. For most assignments, omitting the special-issue framing and citing the article normally is fine.
Almost nothing visible. MLA 9 (2021) kept the container model and slot template introduced in MLA 8. The main practical change for journal articles: MLA 9 explicitly prefers DOIs over URLs and clarifies the access-date rule (only when needed).
The full MLA 9 Citation Generator handles books, websites, films, videos, podcasts, and more.
Need APA, Chicago, or Harvard for the same paper? The APA Journal Article Generator, Chicago Journal Article Generator, and Harvard Journal Article Generator all read the same DOI.
If you only have a PDF download, use the MLA PDF Citation Generator — it pulls metadata from the file itself.
Our How to cite a journal article walkthrough covers every variant — special issues, preprints, retractions — with examples.
Save every MLA citation you generate to your Works Cited library, then export the finished list to Word, BibTeX, or RIS.
Got a Works Cited entry and want to confirm it? Run it through the AI Citation Checker.