Citation help

General formatting rules for MLA

• Your end of paper list of references should be titled: Works Cited and centered on the page
• Citations should be in alphabetical order by authors' last name, if no author, then by the title of the article
  • The "A, An, The" Rule, when an unsigned article or title begins with the word "A, An, The", alphabetize according to the word after; example "A Shot to the Heart" would be alphabetized under "S" for "Shot"
• Your paper should be typed and double-spaced, with 1" margins on all sides. MLA recommends using 12 pt. Times New Roman font.
• Use italics for titles of larger works including books, magazines, web sites, music albums, and films and "quotation marks" for titles of shorter works such as poems, articles, and songs.
• Page numbers in the works-cited list (but not in in-text citations) are preceded by p. or pp.
• The months with four or fewer letters, e.g. May, June, and July are not abbreviated, the remaining months Jan., Feb., Mar., Apr., Aug., Sept., Oct., Nov. and Dec. are abbreviated.
• Placeholders for unknown information like n.d. (“no date”) are not used.
• View this video on how to format your paper in MLA style using Microsoft Word.
• To see a sample paper in MLA format, visit the Purdue OWL's MLA page.
• Still need help?  Ask the MLA.

MLA uses Core Elements to cite all types of sources.

• Use the punctuation shown after each element unless it is the final element, which should always end with a period.
• If an element does not apply to your source, leave it out.

    Image source, MLA.org

Authors/Contributors

• If there are more than two authors, list the first author, followed by a comma and et al.  
• Additional roles like editor or translator are no longer abbreviated.

Date of Access 

• Including the date you accessed the resource is not required.
• MLA recommends you add the date of access if the source provides no date specifying when it was published or produced (see page 53 of the MLA handbook).

Location

• Not a geographic marker (i.e. city) but rather a locator within a container.
• Page numbers are locations inside the container and now require p. or pp. followed by number(s) on Works Cited list only.
• Use DOIs, when available.
• While it is optional, MLA recommends adding URLs for web pages, be sure to remove the http:// or https://.
• For sources found in databases, the database name can be used instead of a URL (e.g. Academic Search Premier).

Publishers/Sponsors

• No need to repeat. If organization is author and sponsor or publisher, identifying it once is enough. Opt for publisher element, omitting in author element.
• For websites, a publisher's name may be omitted when the name of the website is essentially the same as the name of its publisher (see MLA handbook p 42).

Recordings

• Reference to recordings with time-based markers available should include the relevant time, specifically hours, minutes, and seconds separated by colons including a hyphen to indicate range of time. Think of time segments as page numbers or paragraph numbers.

When in doubt, check with your instructor with specific questions about formatting your paper and creating citations.

For more examples, please use the MLA Handbook at the G.R. Little Service Desk.