12.3 MLA Citation: Works Cited Entries

The Modern Language Association (MLA) system of documentation governs how writers format academic papers and cite the sources that they use. This system of formatting and citation is used most by academic disciplines in the arts and humanities.

Citations

Citations, according to MLA, consist of two elements:

1. in-text citations (also called parenthetical citations). These are the citations that you include within your essay, after you have referenced something from a source.
2. a Work Cited (or Works Cited, if multiple sources are cited) list. This is a list of all sources you cited within the essay.

Works Cited Entries

• Every source that you quote, paraphrase, or summarize in an essay must be included in your Works Cited list
• Your Works Cited list should always be on its own new page, after the end of the text of the essay

General order of content in an MLA-formatted Works Cited Entry

Online News/Magazine Article

1. Author(s).  Use the format Last Name, First Name Middle Name or Initial. If there are multiple authors, use and before the last author’s name.
2. “Title of the Article.”  Include the title of a shorter work in quotation marks and use headline-style capitalization.
3. Title of the Newspaper or Publisher, Use italics for the title of a longer work like a newspaper or online publication and use headline-style capitalization
4. Publication date, Use the format: Date Abbreviated Month Year.
5. URL.

Example

Robinson, Angela. “History Shows Why It’s Time for a Black Woman to Sit on the Supreme Court .” The Washington Post, 1 Feb. 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/02/01/history-shows-why-its-time-black-woman-sit-supreme-court/.

Print Book

1. Author(s).  Use the format Last Name, First Name Middle Name or Initial. If there are multiple authors, use and before the last author’s name.
2. Title of the Book. Use italics for the title of a longer work like a book and use headline-style capitalization.
3. Edition. If there are multiple editions, use the format 1st/2nd/3rd ed.,
4. Publisher,
5. Publication date.

Example

Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. 1st ed., J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1960.

eBook

1. Author(s). Use the format Last Name, First Name Middle Name or Initial. If there are multiple authors, use and before the last author’s name.
2. Title of the Book,  Use italics for the title of a longer work like a book and use headline-style capitalization.
3. Editors  If there is one editor, use the format edited by Last Name, First Name. If there are multiple editors, use and before the last author’s name.
4. Publisher,
5. Publication date.
6. Database, Note: Use italics for names of databases.
7. URL or permalink.

Example

Hughes, Langston. Letters from Langston: From the Harlem Renaissance to the Red Scare and Beyond, edited by Evelyn Louise Crawford and Mary Louise Patterson. University of California Press, 2016. EBSCOhost Academic eBook Collection, http://libproxy.csudh.edu/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=e000xna&AN=1105577&site=ehost-live&scope=site&ebv=EB&.

Here is a link to show you how to format your research paper in MLA Style.

Practice with ordering the elements of an MLA-formatted Works Cited page