work cited definition essay

MLA Citation Guide (9th edition) : Works Cited and Sample Papers

• Getting Started
• How do I Cite?
• In-Text Citations
• Works Cited and Sample Papers
• Additional Resources

Header Image

Quick Rules for an MLA Works Cited List

Your research paper ends with a list of all the sources cited in your paper. Here are some quick rules for this Works Cited list:

• Begin the works cited list on a new page after the text.
• Name it "Works Cited," and center the section label in bold at the top of the page.
• Order the reference list alphabetically by author's last name.
• Double-space the entire list (both within and between entries).
• Apply a hanging indent of 0.5 in. to each entry. This means that the first line of the reference is flush left and subsequent lines are indented 0.5 in. from the left margin.

Sample Paper with Works Cited List

The Modern Language Association (MLA) has compiled  several sample papers  that include explanations of the elements and formatting in MLA 9th edition. 

MLA Title Pages

MLA Title Page: Format and Template   This resource discusses the correct format for title pages in MLA style and includes examples.

• << Previous: In-Text Citations
• Next: Additional Resources >>
• Last Updated: Jun 24, 2022 12:43 PM
• URL: https://paperpile.libguides.com/mla

• Utility Menu

fa3d988da6f218669ec27d6b6019a0cd

A publication of the harvard college writing program.

Harvard Guide to Using Sources 

• The Honor Code
• Works Cited Format

What is a Works Cited list?

MLA style requires you to include a list of all the works cited in your paper on a new page at the end of your paper.  The entries in the list should be in alphabetical order by the author's last name or by the element that comes first in the citation. (If there is no author's name listed, you would begin with the title.) The entire list should be double-spaced.

For each of the entries in the list, every line after the first line should be indented one-half inch from the left margin. "Works Cited" should be centered at the top of the page. If you are only citing one source, the page heading should be “Work Cited” instead of “Works Cited.” You can see a sample Works Cited here . 

Building your Works Cited list

MLA citations in the Works Cited list are based on what the Modern Language Association calls "core elements." The core elements appear in the order listed below, in a citation punctuated with the punctuation mark that follows the element. For some elements, the correct punctuation will be a period, and for other elements, the correct punctuation will be a comma. Since you can choose the core elements that are relevant to the source you are citing, this format should allow you to build your own citations when you are citing sources that are new or unusual.

The author you should list is the primary creator of the work—the writer, the artist, or organization that is credited with creating the source.  You should list the author in this format: last name, first name. If there are two authors, you should use this format: last name, first name, and first name last name. For three or more authors, you should list the first author followed by et al. That format looks like this: last name, first name, et al.

If a source was created by an organization and no individual author is listed, you should list that organization as the author.

Title of source .

This is the book, article, or website, podcast, work of art, or any other source you are citing. If the source does not have a title, you can describe it. For example, if you are citing an email you received, you would use this format in the place of a title:

Email to the author.

Title of container ,

A container is what MLA calls the place where you found the source. It could be a book that an article appears in, a website that an image appears on, a television series from which you are citing an episode, etc. If you are citing a source that is not “contained” in another source—like a book or a film—you do not need to list a container. Some sources will be in more than one container. For example, if you are citing a television episode that aired on a streaming service, the show would be the first container and the streaming service would be the second container.

Contributor ,

Contributors include editors, translators, directors, illustrators, or anyone else that you want to credit. You generally credit other contributors when their contributions are important to the way you are using the source. You should always credit editors of editions and anthologies of a single author’s work or of a collection of works by more than one author.  

If you are using a particular version of a source, such as an updated edition, you should indicate that in the citation.

If your source is one of several in a numbered series, you should indicate this. So, for example, you might be using “volume 2” of a source. You would indicate this by “vol. 2” in the citation.

Publisher ,

For books, you can identify the publisher on the title or copyright page. For web sites, you may find the publisher at the bottom of the home page or on an “About” page. You do not need to include the publisher if you are citing a periodical or a Web site with the same name as the publisher.

Publication date ,

Books and articles tend to have an easily identifiable publication date. But articles published on the web may have more than one date—one for the original publication and one for the date posted online. You should use the date that is most relevant to your work. If you consulted the online version, this is the relevant date for your Works Cited list. If you can’t find a publication date—some websites will not include this information, for example—then you should include a date of access. The date of access should appear at the end of your citation in the following format:

Accessed 14 Oct. 2022.

The location in a print source will be the page number or range of pages you consulted. This is where the text you are citing is located in the larger container. For online sources, the location is generally a DOI, permalink, or URL. This is where your readers can locate the same online source that you consulted. MLA specifies that, if possible, you should include the DOI. Television episodes would be located at a URL. A work of art could be located in the museum where you saw it or online.

Your citations can also include certain optional elements. You should include optional elements if you think those elements would provide useful information to your readers. Optional elements follow the source title if they provide information that is not about the source as a whole. Put them at the end of the entry if they provide information about the source as a whole. These elements include the following:

Date of original publication .

If you think it would be useful to a reader to know that the text you are citing was originally published in a different era, you can put this information right after the title of the source. For example, if you are citing The Federalist Papers , you would provide the publication date of the edition you consulted, but you could also provide the original publication date:

Hamilton, Alexander, et al., editors. The Federalist Papers . October 1787-May 1788. Oxford University Press, 2008.

City of publication .

You should only use this information if you are citing a book published before 1900 (when books were associated with cities of publication rather than with publishers) or a book that has been published in a different version by the publisher in another city (a British version of a novel, for example). In the first case, you would put this information in place of the publisher's name. In the second case, the city would go before the publisher.

Descriptive terms .

If you are citing a version of a work when there are multiple versions available at the same location, you should explain this by adding a term that will describe your version. For example, if you watched a video of a presidential debate that was posted to YouTube along with a transcript, and you are quoting from the transcript, you should add the word “Transcript” at the end of your citation. 

Dissertations

• Citation Management Tools
• In-Text Citations
• In-Text Citation Examples
• Examples of Commonly Cited Sources
• Frequently Asked Questions about Citing Sources in MLA Format
• Sample Works Cited List

PDFs for This Section

• Citing Sources
• Online Library and Citation Tools

Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts

MLA Works Cited Page: Basic Format

Welcome to the Purdue OWL

This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice.

Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.

According to MLA style, you must have a Works Cited page at the end of your research paper. All entries in the Works Cited page must correspond to the works cited in your main text.

Basic rules

• Begin your Works Cited page on a separate page at the end of your research paper. It should have the same one-inch margins and last name, page number header as the rest of your paper.
• Only the title should be centered. The citation entries themselves should be aligned with the left margin.
• Double space all citations, but do not skip spaces between entries.
• Indent the second and subsequent lines of citations by 0.5 inches to create a hanging indent.
• List page numbers of sources efficiently, when needed. If you refer to a journal article that appeared on pages 225 through 250, list the page numbers on your Works Cited page as pp. 225-50 (Note: MLA style dictates that you should omit the first sets of repeated digits. In our example, the digit in the hundreds place is repeated between 2 25 and 2 50, so you omit the 2 from 250 in the citation: pp. 225-50). If the excerpt spans multiple pages, use “pp.”   Note that MLA style uses a hyphen in a span of pages.
• If only one page of a print source is used, mark it with the abbreviation “p.” before the page number (e.g., p. 157). If a span of pages is used, mark it with the abbreviation “pp.” before the page number (e.g., pp. 157-68).
• If you're citing an article or a publication that was originally issued in print form but that you retrieved from an online database, you should type the online database name in italics. You do not need to provide subscription information in addition to the database name.
• For online sources, you should include a location to show readers where you found the source. Many scholarly databases use a DOI (digital object identifier). Use a DOI in your citation if you can; otherwise use a URL. Delete “http://” from URLs. The DOI or URL is usually the last element in a citation and should be followed by a period.
• All works cited entries end with a period.

Additional basic rules new to MLA 2021

New to MLA 2021:

• Apps and databases should be cited only when they are containers of the particular works you are citing, such as when they are the platforms of publication of the works in their entirety, and not an intermediary that redirects your access to a source published somewhere else, such as another platform. For example, the Philosophy Books app should be cited as a container when you use one of its many works, since the app contains them in their entirety. However, a PDF article saved to the Dropbox app is published somewhere else, and so the app should not be cited as a container.
• If it is important that your readers know an author’s/person’s pseudonym, stage-name, or various other names,  then you should generally cite the better-known form of author’s/person’s name. For example, since the author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is better-known by his pseudonym, cite Lewis Carroll opposed to Charles Dodgson (real name).
• For annotated bibliographies , annotations should be appended at the end of a source/entry with one-inch indentations from where the entry begins. Annotations may be written as concise phrases or complete sentences, generally not exceeding one paragraph in length.

Capitalization and punctuation

• Capitalize each word in the titles of articles, books, etc, but do not capitalize articles (the, an), prepositions, or conjunctions unless one is the first word of the title or subtitle: Gone with the Wind, The Art of War, There Is Nothing Left to Lose .
• Use italics (instead of underlining) for titles of larger works (books, magazines) and quotation marks for titles of shorter works (poems, articles)

Listing author names

Entries are listed alphabetically by the author's last name (or, for entire edited collections, editor names). Author names are written with the last name first, then the first name, and then the middle name or middle initial when needed:

Do not  list titles (Dr., Sir, Saint, etc.) or degrees (PhD, MA, DDS, etc.) with names. A book listing an author named "John Bigbrain, PhD" appears simply as "Bigbrain, John." Do, however, include suffixes like "Jr." or "II." Putting it all together, a work by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would be cited as "King, Martin Luther, Jr." Here the suffix following the first or middle name and a comma.

More than one work by an author

If you have cited more than one work by a particular author, order the entries alphabetically by title, and use three hyphens in place of the author's name for every entry after the first:

Burke, Kenneth. A Grammar of Motives . [...]

---. A Rhetoric of Motives . [...]

When an author or collection editor appears both as the sole author of a text and as the first author of a group, list solo-author entries first:

Heller, Steven, ed. The Education of an E-Designer .

Heller, Steven, and Karen Pomeroy. Design Literacy: Understanding Graphic Design.

Work with no known author

Alphabetize works with no known author by their title; use a shortened version of the title in the parenthetical citations in your paper. In this case, Boring Postcards USA has no known author:

Baudrillard, Jean. Simulacra and Simulations.  [...]

Boring Postcards USA  [...]

Burke, Kenneth. A Rhetoric of Motives . [...] 

Work by an author using a pseudonym or stage-name

New to MLA 9th edition, there are now steps to take for citing works by an author or authors using a pseudonym, stage-name, or different name. 

If the person you wish to cite is well-known, cite the better-known form of the name of the author. For example, since Lewis Carroll is  not only a pseudonym of Charles Dodgson , but also the better-known form of the author’s name, cite the former name opposed to the latter. 

If the real name of the author is less well-known than their pseudonym, cite the author’s pseudonym in square brackets following the citation of their real name: “Christie, Agatha [Mary Westmacott].”

Authors who published various works under many names may be cited under a single form of the author’s name. When the form of the name you wish to cite differs from that which appears on the author’s work, include the latter in square brackets following an italicized published as : “Irving, Washington [ published as Knickerbocker, Diedrich].”.

Another acceptable option, in cases where there are only two forms of the author’s name, is to cite both forms of the author’s names as separate entries along with cross-references in square brackets: “Eliot, George [ see also Evans, Mary Anne].”.

Table of Contents

Collaboration, information literacy, writing process, mla works cited.

• © 2023 by Barbara McLain - The Out-of-Door Academy , Joseph M. Moxley - University of South Florida

MLA Works Cited refers to the rules for compiling a list of references at the end of a text that cites sources according to the MLA Handbook, 9th Edition. Learn how teachers and editors evaluate an MLA works cited page.

What is MLA Works Cited?

MLA Works Cited refers to t he MLA’s (Modern Language Association’s) guidelines for formatting a list of references at the end of a text that cites sources.

The MLA Handbook, 9th Edition requires authors to provide a list of references — aka a works cited page — at the end of their texts

• to acknowledge the people and ideas that have informed their thinking and writing
• to provide citations for summarized , quoted, and paraphrased sources.

MLA Works Cited vs. MLA In Text Citation

The bibliographical information (e.g., who is the author? publisher? and so on) that MLA requires for a Works Cited Page differs from the bibliographic information it requires for an MLA citation in the body of a text.

Works Cited Page See the article below to learn about MLA’s guidelines for formatting a works cited page

In Text Citation See MLA Citation to explore creative ways to introduce and vet sources inside the body of your paper

Scholars use a variety of terms to refer to a works cited page , including references, sources, endnotes, citations.

Related Concepts:  Annotated Bibliography ; Copyright & Writing ; Intellectual Property ;  Page Design ; Plagiarism ; Rhetorical Analysis ; Textual Research Methods

Writers provide a works cited page so that their readers can

• learn more about the topic
• evaluate the currency, relevance, authority, accuracy, purpose of sources they’ve used in a text
• distinguish the author’s ideas and language from the ideas of others
• better understand the flow of a scholarly conversation for a particular topic over time (aka historiography)

In academic writing , teachers are likely to scrutinize the works cited page to see

• whether students have cited all of the sources they referenced in the body of the text
• whether or not the sources reflect the best available information on the topic, including the gated web
• whether the sources you have selected are appropriate given the rhetorical situation
• whether or not students have introduced new information, new sources, in ways that help readers with flow

In both academic and workplace writing, people

• cite sources to acknowledge the author’s copyright, intellectual property, ideas
• cite sources to add additional evidence , backing or qualifications for claims .

MLA Works Cited Page

Required bibliographical information.

Entries on your works cited list will include the following elements.

• Please note that every element listed below won’t necessarily apply to your source. For example, some sources won’t have an author identified, and periodicals don’t require publisher information. If the element listed doesn’t apply to your source, skip it and move on to the next element.
• list author’s name, last name first, followed by a period.
• Capitalize the first word and any major words in the title; enclose titles of articles in quotation marks and titles of larger works such as books, journals, or newspapers in italics.
• If the source you are citing is contained or included in a larger work, such as a journal or edited collection, provide the name of the container here, followed by a comma.
• List the names of other contributors, such as translators or editors, if appropriate, followed by a comma.
• For example, the 9th edition of the  MLA Handbook  is the version we are following here. For journals or magazines, you may instead have a volume number. Follow this with a comma.
• Issue numbers are preceded by the abbreviation “no.” and followed by a comma.
• You can usually find the publisher of a book on the title or copyright page. You do not need to include a publisher’s name for periodicals. Follow the publisher’s name with a comma.
• Provide the year of publication for books; for periodical publications, give the month and year, or day-month-year, if applicable. Follow the publication date with a comma if you have location information.
• For most publications, the location indicates the page number or numbers of the article and is preceded by the abbreviation “p.” for a single page or “pp.” for two or more pages. For online publications, the location is commonly designated by the URL or Web address, or the DOI (Digital Object Identifier), if available. Conclude the entry with a period.
• For an article in a journal accessed through an online database, list the title of the database as the container and whatever other information is available

Skip any information that is not available or applicable. For example, a book in print will not have a container, and a journal will usually not require information about a publisher.

Do include other pertinent information, such as the name of a translator, for instance, if available, in the order in which it is listed above. 

MLA Format Citation

How to Cite Work in MLA Format

Below are the common templates for citing sources.

Works Cited Rubric

The criteria for evaluating a works cited page may vary across academic and professional disciplines.

The rubric below distinguishes failing works cited pages from passing works cited pages . In this framework, a professional works cited list shows a sensitivity to the ongoing scholarly conversations on a topic . The author’s use of quotations, paraphrases, and summaries suggests the author is aware of the thought leaders and scholarly conversations on particular topics .

Brevity - Say More with Less

Clarity (in Speech and Writing)

Coherence - How to Achieve Coherence in Writing

Flow - How to Create Flow in Writing

Inclusivity - Inclusive Language

The Elements of Style - The DNA of Powerful Writing

Recommended

Academic Writing – How to Write for the Academic Community

Structured Revision – How to Revise Your Work

Professional Writing – How to Write for the Professional World

Credibility & Authority – How to Be Credible & Authoritative in Research, Speech & Writing

Citation Guide – Learn How to Cite Sources in Academic and Professional Writing

Page Design – How to Design Messages for Maximum Impact

Suggested edits.

• Please select the purpose of your message. * - Corrections, Typos, or Edits Technical Support/Problems using the site Advertising with Writing Commons Copyright Issues I am contacting you about something else
• Your full name
• Your email address *
• Page URL needing edits *
• Comments This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Other Topics:

Citation - Definition - Introduction to Citation in Academic & Professional Writing

• Joseph M. Moxley

Explore the different ways to cite sources in academic and professional writing, including in-text (Parenthetical), numerical, and note citations.

Collaboration - What is the Role of Collaboration in Academic & Professional Writing?

Collaboration refers to the act of working with others or AI to solve problems, coauthor texts, and develop products and services. Collaboration is a highly prized workplace competency in academic...

Genre may reference a type of writing, art, or musical composition; socially-agreed upon expectations about how writers and speakers should respond to particular rhetorical situations; the cultural values; the epistemological assumptions...

Grammar refers to the rules that inform how people and discourse communities use language (e.g., written or spoken English, body language, or visual language) to communicate. Learn about the rhetorical...

Information Literacy - Discerning Quality Information from Noise

Information Literacy refers to the competencies associated with locating, evaluating, using, and archiving information. In order to thrive, much less survive in a global information economy — an economy where information functions as a...

Mindset refers to a person or community’s way of feeling, thinking, and acting about a topic. The mindsets you hold, consciously or subconsciously, shape how you feel, think, and act–and...

Rhetoric: Exploring Its Definition and Impact on Modern Communication

Learn about rhetoric and rhetorical practices (e.g., rhetorical analysis, rhetorical reasoning,  rhetorical situation, and rhetorical stance) so that you can strategically manage how you compose and subsequently produce a text...

Style, most simply, refers to how you say something as opposed to what you say. The style of your writing matters because audiences are unlikely to read your work or...

The Writing Process - Research on Composing

The writing process refers to everything you do in order to complete a writing project. Over the last six decades, researchers have studied and theorized about how writers go about...

Writing Studies

Writing studies refers to an interdisciplinary community of scholars and researchers who study writing. Writing studies also refers to an academic, interdisciplinary discipline – a subject of study. Students in...

Featured Articles

Lemieux Library and McGoldrick Learning Commons

Catalog search, site search.

• Seattle University
• Lemieux Library

Citing Your Sources Guide

• MLA Works Cited - Examples
• Introduction to Citations
• APA In-text Citations - The Basics
• APA Reference List - The Basics
• APA Reference List - Examples
• APA Handouts
• Citing AI in APA Style
• House and Senate Reports and Documents
• Congressional Record
• Congressional Bills and Resolutions
• Federal Laws/Statutes
• Executive Documents - Presidential papers, Proclamations, and Executive Orders
• Rules/Regulations - Code of Federal Regulations (C.F.R.) and the Federal Register
• Foreign Relations of the United States
• State Legislative Documents
• State Statutes (Laws)
• Court Cases (decisions/opinions)
• Government Agencies
• MLA In-Text Citations - The Basics
• MLA Works Cited List - The Basics
• Chicago/Turabian - The Basics
• Chicago/Turabian in-text citations
• Chicago/Turabian Bibliography - Examples
• APA Art Citations
• MLA Art Citations
• Chicago Art Citations
• ArtSTOR Citations
• AMA reference list
• Citing Business Resources This link opens in a new window
• Citation Managers

Get Research Help

MLA Works Cited List - By Type

• MLA Manual of Style
• More than one author
• Corporate Author
• Edited Works in Print
• Edition of a Book
• Translated Book
• Multivolume work
• Two or more books by same author
• Articles & Websites

For more detailed information and examples, refer to the following resources:

• Check out the Purdue OWL MLA Style Guide . 
• Check out a print copy of the full MLA Style Guide from Lemieux Library.

* Note:  the City of Publication should only be used if the book was published before 1900, if the publisher has offices in more than one country (which is most major publishers), or if the publisher is unknown in North America.

• Format: Last Name, First Name.  Title of Book . City of Publication, Publisher, Publication Date.
• Example: Bennett, Brit. The Vanishing Half . New York, River Head Books, 2020.

Two Authors

When a book has two authors, order the authors in the same way they are presented in the book. Start by listing the first name that appears on the book in last name, first name format; subsequent author names appear in normal order (first name last name format).

• Format: Last name, First name and First name Last name. Title of work . Publisher name, year.
• Example: Kuang, Cliff and Robert Fabricant. User Friendly: How the Hidden Rules of Design are Changing the Way We Live, Work, and Play . Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019.

Three or more Authors

If there are three or more authors, list only the first author followed by the phrase et al. (Latin for "and others") in place of the subsequent authors' names. (Note that there is a period after “al” in “et al.” Also note that there is never a period after the “et” in “et al.”).

• Format: Last name, First name, et al. Title of work . Publisher name, year.
• Example: Wysocki, Anne Frances, et al.  Writing New Media: Theory and Applications for Expanding the Teaching of Composition . Utah State UP, 2004.

A corporate author may include a commission, a committee, a government agency, or a group that does not identify individual members on the title page. List the names of corporate authors in the place where an author’s name typically appears at the beginning of the entry.

• Format: Corporation name. Title of work . Publisher, year.
• Example: American Allergy Association.  Allergies in Children . Random House, 1998.

When the author and publisher are the same, skip the author, and list the title first. Then, list the corporate author only as the publisher.

• Format: Title of work . Publisher, year.
• Example: Fair Housing—Fair Lending.  Aspen Law & Business, 1985.

List by title of the book. Incorporate these entries alphabetically just as you would with works that include an author name. For example, the following entry might appear between entries of works written by Dean, Shaun and Forsythe, Jonathan.

• Example: Encyclopedia of Indiana . Somerset, 1993.

To cite the entire edited anthology or collection, list by editor(s) followed by a comma and "editor" or, for multiple editors, "editors." This sort of entry is somewhat rare. If you are citing a particular piece within an anthology or collection (more common), see A Work in an Anthology, Reference, or Collection below.

• Format: Editor last name, First name and editor Last name, First name, editors. Title of work . Publisher, year.
• Example: Goodyear-Ka'opua, Noelani, Howes, Craig, Kamakawiwo'ole Osorio, Jonathan Kay, and Aiko Yamashiro, editors. The Value of Hawai'i 3: Hulihia, the Turning . University of Hawai'i Press, 2020.
• Example: Perkins, Maureen, Ed. Locating Life Stories: Beyond East-West Binaries in (Auto) Biographical Studies . University of Hawai'i Press, 2012.

A Chapter from an Anthology, Reference, or Collection

Works may include an essay in an edited collection or anthology, or a chapter of a book. The basic form is for this sort of citation is as follows:

• Format: Last name, First name. "Title of Essay."  Title of Collection , edited by Editor's Name(s), Publisher, Year, Page range of entry.
• Example: Harris, Muriel. "Talk to Me: Engaging Reluctant Writers."  A Tutor's Guide: Helping Writers One to One , edited by Ben Rafoth, Heinemann, 2000, pp. 24-34.
• Example : Bishop, Elizabeth. "One Art". Norton Anthology of Poetry , 5th ed., edited by Margaret ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, and Jon Stallworthy. W.W. Norton and company, 2005, pp. 1527-1528.

There are two types of editions in book publishing: a book that has been published more than once in different editions and a book that is prepared by someone other than the author (typically an editor).

A Subsequent Edition

Cite the book as you normally would, but add the number of the edition after the title.

• Format: Last name of author, first name, and first name of author last name. Title of work . Edition., Publisher, year.
• Example: Crowley, Sharon, and Debra Hawhee.  Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students . 3rd ed., Pearson, 2004.

A Work Prepared by an Editor

Cite the book as you normally would, but add the editor after the title with the label "edited by."

• Format: Last name of author, First name. Title of work , edited by editor First name Last name, publisher, year.
• Example: Bronte, Charlotte.  Jane Eyre,  edited by Margaret Smith, Oxford UP, 1998.

Note that the format for citing sources with important contributors with editor-like roles follows the same basic template:

...adapted by John Doe...

If you want to emphasize the work rather than the translator, cite as you would any other book. Add “translated by” and follow with the name(s) of the translator(s).

• Format: Author last name, first name. Title of work . Translated by name (first name last name), publisher, year.
• Example: Delisle, Guy.  Factory Summers . Translated by Helge Dasher and Rob Aspinall, Drawn & Quarterly, 2021.

If you want to focus on the translation, list the translator as the author. In place of the author’s name, the translator’s name appears. Their name is followed by the label, “translator.” If the author of the book does not appear in the title of the book, include the name, with a “By” after the title of the book and before the publisher. Note that this type of citation is less common and should only be used for papers or writing in which translation plays a central role.

• Format: Translator last name, first name. Title of work . By Author name (first name last name), publisher, year.
• Example: Huie, Bonnie translator. Notes of a Crocodile. By Qiu Miaojin, New York Review of Books, 2017. 

When citing only one volume of a multivolume work, include the volume number after the work's title, or after the work's editor or translator. This example includes a historical work with a single name as author.

• Format: Last name, first name. Title of work . Translated by First name Last name, vol #., publisher, date.
• Example: Quintilian.  Institutio Oratoria . Translated by H. E. Butler, vol. 2, Loeb-Harvard UP, 1980.

When citing more than one volume of a multivolume work, cite the total number of volumes in the work. Also, be sure in your in-text citation to provide both the volume number and page number(s)

• Format: Last name, First name. Title of work . Translated by First name Last name, Publisher, year. Number of vols.
• Example: Quintilian.  Institutio Oratoria . Translated by H. E. Butler, Loeb-Harvard UP, 1980. 4 vols.

If the volume you are using has its own title , cite the book without referring to the other volumes as if it were an independent publication.

• Format: Author last name, first name. Title of work . Publisher, year.
• Example: Churchill, Winston S.  The Age of Revolution . Dodd, 1957.

List works alphabetically by title. (Remember to ignore articles like A, An, and The.) Provide the author’s name in last name, first name format for the first entry only. For each subsequent entry by the same author, use three hyphens and a period.

• Nguyen, Viet Thanh. The Refugees . Grove Press, 2018.
• ---. The Sympathizer . Grove Press, 2016.

Italicize “The Bible” and follow it with the version you are using. Remember that your in-text (parenthetical citation) should include the name of the specific edition of the Bible, followed by an abbreviation of the book, the chapter and verse(s). See the section on MLA in-text citations for more information.

• Example: The Bible.  Authorized King James Version ,  Oxford UP, 1998.
• Example: The Bible.  The New Oxford Annotated Version ,  3rd ed., Oxford UP, 2001.
• Example: The New Jerusalem Bible.  Edited by Susan Jones, Doubleday, 1985.

Article in an online scholarly journal

MLA requires a page range for articles that appear in Scholarly Journals. If the journal you are citing appears exclusively in an online format (i.e. there is no corresponding print publication) that does not make use of page numbers, indicate the URL or other location information. If page numbers are included, add those in before the URL.

• Format: Last name, first name. "Title of article". Title of journal , vol #, no. #, URL. Accessed day month year.
• Example: Dolby, Nadine. “Research in Youth Culture and Policy: Current Conditions and Future Directions.”  Social Work and Society: The International Online-Only Journal,  vol. 6, no. 2, 2008, www.socwork.net/sws/article/view/60/362. Accessed 20 May 2009.

Article from an Online Database

Cite online databases (e.g. LexisNexis, ProQuest, JSTOR, ScienceDirect) and other subscription services as containers. Thus, provide the title of the database italicized before the DOI or URL. If a DOI is not provided, use the URL instead. Provide the date of access if you wish.

• Format: Last name, first name. "Title of article." Title of journal , vol. #, no. #, date of publication, pp. page range. Title of online database , DOI or URL. Accessed date.
• Example: Alonso, Alvaro, and Julio A. Camargo. “Toxicity of Nitrite to Three Species of Freshwater Invertebrates.”  Environmental Toxicology,  vol. 21, no. 1, 3 Feb. 2006, pp. 90-94.  Wiley Online Library , https://doi.org/10.1002/tox.20155. Accessed 26 May 2009.
• Example: Chowkwanyun, Merlin and Adolph L Reed. "Racial health Disparities and Covid-19: Caution and Context."The New England Journal of Medicine, vol. 383,  no.3, 2020.  p .201-203.  ProQuest , http://dx.doi.org/10.1056/NEJMp2012910. Accessed 25 May 2022.

Article in a Web Magazine

Provide the author name, article name in quotation marks, title of the web magazine in italics, publisher name, publication date, URL, and the date of access.

• Format: Last name, First name. "Title of Article". Title of Web Magazine , date of publication, URL, accessed day month year.
• Example: Bernstein, Mark. “10 Tips on Writing the Living Web.”  A List Apart: For People Who Make Websites , 16 Aug. 2002, alistapart.com/article/writeliving. Accessed 4 May 2009.

A Page on a Website

For an individual page on a Web site, list the author or alias if known, followed by an indication of the specific page or article being referenced. Usually, the title of the page or article appears in a header at the top of the page. Follow this with the information covered above for entire Web sites. If the publisher is the same as the website name, only list it once.

Example: Lundman, Susan. “How to Make Vegetarian Chili.”  eHow , www.ehow.com/how_10727_make-vegetarian-chili.html. Accessed 6 July 2015.

Example: “Athlete's Foot - Topic Overview.”  WebMD , 25 Sept. 2014, www.webmd.com/skin-problems-and-treatments/tc/athletes-foot-topic-overview.

Citations for e-books closely resemble those for physical books. Simply indicate that the book in question is an e-book by putting the term "e-book" in the "version" slot of the MLA template (i.e., after the author, the title of the source, the title of the container, and the names of any other contributors).

• Format: Author last name, first name. Title of work . E-book, publisher, year.
• Example: Aldama, Frederick Luis. Latinx Ciné in the Twenty-First Century . E-book, University of Arizona Press, 2019

MLA Reference List for Digital & Social Media

@Username. "Full text of tweet."  Twitter , Day month year posted, time posted, URL.

Example: @SketchesbyBoze. "“Why are you reading books when the world is burning?” Because you weren’t made to binge the world’s destruction and there’s good in pursuing joy where you can find it. Fiction arms us with precisely the tools we need to overcome the crisis into which our world has fallen."  Twitter , 19 March 2022, 12:54 PM, https://twitter.com/SketchesbyBoze/status/1505271621820596227

Username. "First several words of Tumblr post (if any, otherwise omit)..."  Title of Tumblr blog , Day month year posted, time posted (if available), URL.

Example: Cheshirelibrary. "I hang out at the library with all the other cool cats."  Cheshirelibrary , 19 March 2022, 1:28 PM, https://cheshirelibrary.tumblr.com/post/189230463800

Lastname, Firstname [or username or page name]. "first several words of a facebook post..."  Facebook , Day month year posted, time posted [if available], URL.

Example: Alfie Scholars. "ScholarWorks at Seattle University Features Alfie Scholars’ Conference Papers."  Facebook , 7 March 2022, https://www.facebook.com/alfiescholars/posts/4748284058554312.

Lastname, Firstname [or single username]. "Title of YouTube Video."  Publishing Website , Day month year posted, URL.

Example: Seattle University. "Seattle University - Lemieux Library and McGoldrick Learning Commons Time-lapse."  YouTube , 13 Sep 2010, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aY2aemMVuJI.

Author [@Username]. “Caption of video.” TikTok, Date Posted, URL.

*Notes:  Include author’s real name if known then their username in brackets unless their username is very similar to their real name. If there is no caption for the video, create a description to use in place of a title. Write it in plain text (no quotes/no italics), and capitalize only the first word and any proper nouns.

Example: Remillard, Lisa [@todaysnews]. “#tax #unemployment #stimulus I asked the IRS, YOUR most most popular questions.”  TikTok , 5 Feb. 2021, vm.tiktok.com/ZMedmreM3/.

Example 2 :   @cbsnews. “How NASA's Mars Perseverance rover will make the most difficult landing ever attempted on the red planet. #news #mars #nasa #edutok #stepbystep.”  TikTok , 5 Feb. 2021, vm.tiktok.com/ZMedm1xu8/.

Lastname, Firstname [or single username]. (handle). "First several words of Instagram post (if any)..."  Instagram , Day month year posted, URL.

Example: Cincylibrary. "Libraries (and coffee) rule the world."  Instagram , 5 Mar 2022, https://www.instagram.com/p/CauitTKMLph/

• << Previous: MLA Works Cited List - The Basics
• Next: Chicago/Turabian - 17th ed. >>
• Last Updated: Jan 5, 2024 3:46 PM
• URL: https://library.seattleu.edu/guides/citation

MLA works cited

Published October 21, 2020. Updated June 5, 2022.

MLA Works-Cited Definition

The works-cited section appears at the end of any work, usually on a separate page. A works-cited list includes references for all sources that were directly mentioned or referenced in the work.

Overview of MLA Works Cited Page Format

The works-cited list includes details of all the works that were cited in your article or essay. Author name, the title of the chapter, title of the container, version, number, publisher, location, etc. are the core elements that go into formulating references included in the works-cited list. The page follows standard MLA formatting guidelines:

• 1-inch margins all around the page
• Double-spaced lines
• Running head with your last name and page number in the top right corner; ½ inch from the top
• “Works Cited” is centered at the top of the page. Bold, italics, or underline font is not used.

For help writing your essay, research paper , or other project, check out these writing tips .

Works -cited vs. bibliography

The works-cited section appears at the end of any work, usually on a separate page. It lists all the sources that have been cited in the document. You may have come across similar lists but with different headings such as “bibliography.” One might assume they are different titles for the same thing, but there is a subtle difference.

A works-cited list includes references for all sources that were directly mentioned or referenced in the work. A bibliography includes the same sources plus sources that were consulted but were not necessarily cited or referred to in the text.

The MLA handbook recommends using a works-cited list. However, if you want to create an MLA bibliography, you follow the same formatting rules.

Types of citation: In-text vs. reference-list citation

An in-text citation cites the source material within the body of your article, paper, essay, chapter, etc. It is mostly very concise, consisting only of the author’s last name (if available) and the page number from where the original information was taken.

A full reference within the works cited list is more detailed and contains all the relevant information about the original material that was referenced in your work. This can include the name(s) of the author(s), title of the work, date of publication, name of the publisher, page numbers, volume and issue number, and URL (in case of online sources).

The works-cited list appears at the end of the paper. Generally, a separate page is used for this section and it goes on for as many pages as are required to entirely list all the sources cited in the work.

Paper formatting

The page follows standard MLA formatting guidelines:

• double-spaced lines
• running head with your last name and page number in the top right corner; ½ inch from the top
• “Works Cited” centered at the top of the page. No bolded, italicized, or underlined font is used.

Works-cited list full reference format

In addition to the above, there are couple formatting rules for MLA works cited references.

• The first line of the citation is flush with the left margin. Any other lines after that are indented 0.5 inches.
• Entries are listed in alphabetical order using the first word in the citation. This is usually the author’s last name, but it could also be source title (if there is no author).
• Lines should be double-spaced.

Sometimes, your entries may be longer than one line. For the readers to be able to distinguish where one entry ends and the other begins, there is the rule of hanging indentation. The MLA handbook suggests users create an indent of 0.5 inches before each line following the first line. So, for instance, if the entry has two lines, the second line will be indented 0.5 inches toward the right.

Example works cited

The citation structure itself will change slightly depending on the source you’re citing, but below is a basic MLA reference template.

Last Name, First Name. “Title of the article, chapter, section, etc.” Source or Container Title , Other contributors, Version, Number, Publisher,

Publication date, Location.

These core elements are generally prevalent in most works but if there is any particular element that is not relevant or available, it can simply be left out. The order of the remaining elements will be the same as indicated above. Note that the location refers to the exact place from where the information was sourced. In case of printed material with pagination, the location would be page number(s). In case of online resource, the location would be the website URL, and so on.

Based on the type of source, the method for citing the source will differ. The following sections demonstrate the full reference formats for different types of sources.

A note about URLs and accessed dates

In MLA style, URLs are placed in the “Location” section of a citation and do not include “http://” or “https://” (except in the case of DOIs). For example:

www.chegg.com

Previous editions of MLA style required the inclusion of the date the webpage was accessed . However, per the 9th edition of the MLA Handbook and the MLA style website , the accessed date is no longer required and is an optional element. The Handbook recommends the inclusion of the accessed date for webpages where there is no clear date published, or for pages that are likely to change or become unavailable over time (like a weather forecast or a social media account).

If you do include the date accessed, here are some general guidelines to follow:

• Add it at the end of the webpage citation, after the URL.
• Use this structure: Accessed Day Month Year.
• If the month is more than 4 letters, it should be abbreviated.

Orange, Richard W. “Pippi and the Moomins.” Aeon , 6 Oct. 2020, aeon.co/essays/pippi-and-the-moomins-served-as-a-social-antidote-to-fascism.

Accessed 18 Oct. 2020.

Since accessed dates are not required, the rest of the citation examples in this guide will not include them.

A book is one of the most common source types used in scholarly works. The core elements that are generally used in the citation of a book in the works-cited list are the name of the author, title, publisher, and year of publication.

Frye, Northrop. Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays . Princeton UP, 1957.

Book chapter

If you are citing a chapter that is written by an author different from the container’s author, then the name of the chapter’s author will be written first, followed by the chapter’s title. This will be followed by the title of the container and author or editor of the container. The other core elements are the name of the publisher, year of publication, and location (in this case, the range of pages that mark the limits of the source chapter.

Kazi, Seema. “Law, Gender and Governance in Kashmir.” Kashmir: History, Politics, Representation , edited by Chitralekha Zutshi, Cambridge

UP, 2017, pp. 150-171.

Journal article

When citing a journal article, the volume and issue number must be included in the reference. However, the name of the publisher is not required for this source type. Under this category, the article is the first source, and the journal in which the article appears is the container. If the article was accessed through a database, then that will assume the place of the second container and must be included in the citation. It is advisable to always include a digital object identifier (DOI) for a journal article that provides a stable link where it can be easily accessed by your readers.

Every article that appears or is stored digitally is assigned a DOI number. This is a unique alphanumeric string akin to a URL but is more consistent and enduring. Note that when including a DOI, “https://” should be included, unlike other URLs.

Attema, E.P.W., and Fawwaz T. Ulaby. “Vegetation Modeled as a Water Cloud.” Radio Science , vol. 13, no. 2, Mar-Apr. 1978, pp. 357-364. Wiley

Online Library , https://doi.org/10.1029/RS013i002p00357.

Note that in the above example, there are two authors for the article cited. In this case, for any source type, write the first author’s name in the format given in the core elements (last name, followed by a comma and first name) then follow it with an ‘”and” and then write the name(s) of the subsequent author(s) in normal order (first name then last name).

Additionally, in the above example, since it was sourced from an online database, you can see that the last element before the DOI is mentioned as the second container. If a DOI is not available, then you must add a stable URL or permalink instead.

The core elements used to cite material sourced from a website in the works-cited list are the name of the author, the title of the article, name of the web page, and date of publication. In cases where there is no date of publication mentioned, include the date of when the website was accessed if needed. Online newspapers and magazines also fall under this category.

Multiple works by the same author

If there are multiple sources by the same author, then the correct way of including all the sources in the works-cited list is to include them alphabetically by title. The author’s name is to be used only in the first entry and the same format of referencing is to be used as stated above, depending on the source type. For all subsequent entries by the same author, use three hyphens before writing the core elements in their correct order except for the author’s name.

Sainath, Palagummi. “The Cashless Economy of Chikalthana.” Economic & Political Weekly , vol. 51, no. 46, 12 Nov. 2016.

www.epw.in/journal/2016/46/web-exclusives/cashless-economy-chikalthana.html.

— Everybody Loves a Good Drought . Penguin India, 2000.

— “The World Through a Village.” Frontline , Dec. 2017. frontline.thehindu.com/arts-and-culture/literature/the-world-through-a-

village/article9968195.ece.

Note that articles such as a, an, the are not taken into account when arranging the titles alphabetically. If a title begins with a number, then the spelling of the number is to be considered while alphabetizing.

If there is no author for a source, then the title of the source is taken into account and it is placed in the reference list alphabetically based on its title.

Key takeaways

• The works-cited list includes details of all the works that were cited in your article or essay. Unlike a bibliography, it does not include works consulted but not cited.
• The works-cited list appears at the end of the document, on a separate page.
• Author name, title of the chapter, title of the container, version, number, publisher, location, etc. are the core elements that go into formulating references included in the works cited list.

MLA Style Guides

MLA Format: Annotated bibliography | Abstract | Block Quote | Headings | MLA 8 vs. 9 | Outline | Page Numbers | Sample paper | Title page

Citing Sources: In-text citations | Works cited | Footnotes | Citing Multiple Authors | Citing Sources with No Authors | Using et al

MLA Citation Generator: Article | Book | Image | Interview | Journal | Movie | PDF | Textbook | Website | YouTube

Published July 14, 2021.

Not all works require page numbers. A journal article includes page numbers in the works-cited-list entry and so do articles of print newspapers and magazines. Similarly, if you cite a chapter in an edited book, you should include page numbers. Online publications do not require (and do not have) page numbers. The table below shows a few types of works that do require page numbers in the work-cited-list entry.

Reference Entry Examples

Gilbert, J. R. “Performing Marginality: Comedy, Identity, and Cultural Critique.” Text and Performance Quarterly , vol. 17, no. 4, 1997, pp. 317–30.

Chapter in an edited book

Andrews, Malcolm. “The Metropolitan Picturesque.” The Politics of the Picturesque: Literature, Landscape and Aesthetics Since 1770 , edited by Stephen Copley and Peter Garside, Cambridge UP, 1994, pp. 282–98.

An MLA works-cited list contains the details of the sources consulted by the author(s) during the preparation of their paper. The sources cited (referred to as entries here) are arranged alphabetically in the list to enable easy identification. The entries in the works-cited list give as much information as possible, so the reader can easily access the source for further clarification. The works-cited list appears as the final element in a paper. An example of how an MLA works-cited list will look appears below.

Works Cited (centered at the top of the page)

Dudeck, Stephan. “Reindeer Returning from Combat: War Stories among the Nenets of European Russia.” Arctic Anthropology , vol. 55, no. 1, 2018, pp. 73–90.

Fuentes, Marcela A. “Performance Constellations: Memory and Event in Digitally Enabled Protests in the Americas.” Text and Performance Quarterly , vol. 35, no. 1, 2015, pp. 24–42.

Hymes, Dell H. Language, Memory, and Selective Performance: Cultee’s “Salmon’s Myth” as Twice Told to Boas . U of Pennsylvania P, 1985.

Note: Double-space between the heading and the first entry. Use a hanging indent for the entries, indenting any life after the first line half an inch from the left margin. Also double-space the entire list of sources.

What’s included with a Chegg Writing subscription

• Unlimited number of paper scans
• Plagiarism detection: Check against billions of sources
• Expert proofreading for papers on any subject
• Grammar scans for 200+ types of common errors
• Automatically create & save citations in 7,000+ styles
• Cancel subscription anytime, no obligation

What Is a Works Cited Page?

• It’s a list of all of the sources that you use in your paper.
• When you put a source on your Works Cited page, it is called an “entry.”

When Do I Need A Works Cited Page?

• Whenever you use a source in your paper
• You should have one entry for each source that you use in your paper.

Characteristics of a Works Cited Page

• Start the Works Cited on its own page.
• Double-space everything.
• Use 12 point Times New Roman font.
• Leave only one space after punctuation.
• Continue your running header with your last name and page number on the top right side
• Center the title Works Cited – do not  bold , underline or  italicize  it.
• Alphabetize the Works Cited page by using the first word of the entry. Skip articles “a,” “an,” and “the.”
• Use hanging indents for each entry. The second, third, fourth (or more) lines should be indented ½ inch from the left margin.
• Put a period at the end of each entry.

General Guidelines for All Entries

• All entries begin with the following: author’s last name, first name, middle initial (if given).
• If you have two authors, reverse the order for the first author only.
• If you have more than two authors, use only first author in reverse order followed by a comma and et al.
• If there is no author, begin with the title of the source capitalized according to MLA rules and in “quotation marks.”

What Is a Works Cited Page? Copyright © by Sami Lange; Vicki Brandenburg; and Leila Palis is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Share This Book

MLA Citation Guide

• MLA Citations

MLA Core Elements

Abbreviations, citing indirect quotations, works cited list formatting, example works cited list, practice template.

• Library Databases
• Online Sources
• Print Books
• Other Sources
• In-Text Citations
• Formatting Your Paper

Fig. 1. Core elements of an MLA citation: (1) Author. (2) Title of source. (3) Title of container, (4) Contributor, (5) Version, (6) Number, (7) Publisher, (8) Publication date, (9) Location. From "Works Cited: A Quick Guide,"  The MLA Style Center .

Citations for all sources follow the core elements in the order listed by MLA (fig. 1):

Author. Title of source. Supplemental element 1 ( only when needed ). Title of container, Contributor, Version, Number, Publisher, Publication date, Location. Supplemental element 2 ( only when needed ). 

A container  has all of the information about where you found your source - for example, a website or database.  Some works are self-contained , meaning that the only container elements used would be the publisher, publication date, and sometimes location. An example of this is a physical printed book.   Sometimes you will need two or more containers.  A good example is a journal article (your source), which is published in a scholarly journal (first container), and which you are likely to find in a database (second container). 

For some sources, not all of the information listed in the MLA core template will be available. Only include information that is relevant to the source you’re citing, and do not include placeholders such as “n.d.” (no date). When creating your citation, your goal is to give your reader enough information to find the source online or in a library.  ​

Definitions of MLA Core Elements

The writer, editor, director, or other creator(s) of a work. This can be one or more people, a government organization, or a company.

Title of Source

The title of the book, article, chapter, movie, podcast, etc., that you used. Shorter works or episodes are in “quotes.” Longer standalone works are in italics . Some sources, such as maps, artifacts, and social media posts, do not have titles. When this is the case, create a short description to use in the Title element (do not put the description in quotes or italics).

Supplemental Element 1

Use this for information relevant to the work that is  not  relevant to the container. Usually this would be additional  contributors  or an original publication date .

• Examples of additional contributors include translator, editor, narrator, and guest director.
• Original publication dates are used when a date only applies to the title of the source, not to the container. For example, if you view a Supreme Court decision online, you would use the original publication date (when the decision was issued), not the date it was uploaded online.

Title of Container

Only added to the citation if the work you used is part of a larger work (for example, a short story from an anthology, an article from a newspaper, or an episode of a TV show).

Other contributors

Editor(s), translator(s), performer(s), or other people who contributed to the work.

Edition or version of a work, such as the 9th edition of the MLA Handbook , the King James Version of the Bible, or the director’s cut of Blade Runner .

Applies to works in serial format, such as magazine articles or episodes of a TV show. Also applies to multi-volume works, such as encyclopedias.

The company, organization, or government entity responsible for publishing or producing the work.

Publication date

The date the work was published, posted, or released.

Where to find the work – for example, the URL or an article’s page numbers in a magazine.

Supplemental element 2

Used for information that applies to the entire work, including its containers. The second supplemental element slot can contain the following information (this is not a complete list –  for more, consult a librarian or see the  MLA Handbook , 9th edition, pp. 208-217):

• Date of access  – Include when the source is a website without a publication date, or when you think an online source might have been changed or removed.
• Medium of publication  – Include when the format  of a source is important or might be confusing, or when you use a source's supplemental material . Examples: transcript, EPUB, DVD, liner notes, PDF download, lecture. 
• Government documents  – Specifically for documents created by the United States Congress. Include: the number of Congress, the session of Congress, whether the document came from the Senate or House of Representatives, the type of document (bill, resolution, report), and the number of the document. If it was legislation that passed, also include the date. For example:   115th Congress, 2nd session, House Resolution 6147, passed 1 Aug. 2018 .

Database as container

If you found your source in a database , you will need to repeat the following two elements at the end of your citation:

• Title of container – The name of the database. It is italicized.
• A DOI is a digital object identifier – a unique ID for a digital item, like a VIN for a car. It is usually a string of numbers and sometimes letters.

Publishers' Names

Remove  the following words and abbreviations from a publisher's name:

• Company / Co.
• Corporation / Corp.
• Incorporated / Inc. 
• Limited / Ltd.
• For example,  The Overlook Press becomes Overlook Press  in your citation.

Academic Publishers

University is abbreviated as U , and press is abbreviated as P . Examples:

• The University of Chicago Press becomes U of Chicago P .
• Oxford University Press becomes Oxford UP .

May , June , and July are not abbreviated. The other nine months are abbreviated as follows – January: Jan. / February: Feb. / March: Mar. / April: Apr. / August: Aug. / September: Sept. / October: Oct. / November: Nov. / December: Dec.

When you use information from an article that is summarizing outside sources, MLA recommends that you cite the article you got the information from and not the ones whose information you are summarizing. 

For example, look at this quote from an article in the Britannica Encyclopedia about a coffee experiment.

Meghan Grim, Niny Rao, and Megan Fuller at Thomas Jefferson University roasted Colombian beans at five different temperatures....To extend the research, Grim, Rao, and Fuller are currently standardizing their process and asking additional questions like, how does roasting temperature affect coffee's many flavor compounds? The researchers are presenting their results at the American Chemical Society's Spring 2020 National Meeting & Exposition in Philadelphia.

To incorporate this information in your essay, you can either paraphrase, use a direct quote, or summarize the information. Here are two examples. If you need more help paraphrasing, quoting, and summarizing you can find more examples in our How to Avoid Plagiarism Guide . 

• Coffee roasting is a science as found by researchers Rao, Grim, and Fuller who have studied the effects of roasting coffee beans at different temperatures and presented at the American Chemical Society's National Meeting & Exposition on their findings (Myhryold).
• Scientific experiments done by roasting coffee have brought up many new questions for researchers Rao, Grim, and Fuller, as stated in the Britannica entry on "coffee roasting", such as "how does roasting temperature affect coffee's many flavor compounds" and how does this information affect how we make coffee (Myhryold).

For both examples above, your citation stays the same and you should cite the Britannica Encyclopedia authors in both instances.

Works Cited: 

Myhrvold, Nathan. "coffee roasting".  Encyclopedia Britannica , 20 Jan. 2023, https://www.britannica.com/topic/coffee-roasting. 

When you create your Works Cited page, use the following format:

• It should be double-spaced  and in an  easily readable font . (We suggest  12-pt. Times New Roman .)
• If you only cited one item, you have a  Work Cited  page.
• Your citations should be left-justified with a hanging indent of 0.5 inches .
• Capitalize the first word in each title. Also capitalize the main words: nouns , pronouns , adjectives , adverbs , and subordinating conjunctions . Unless one of these words is the first word in the title, do not capitalize: articles , prepositions , coordinating conjunctions , or the “to” in infinitives . For examples of these parts of speech, see the MLA Handbook , 9th ed., pp. 54-55.
• Alphabetize your Works Cited page by the first word in the citation, usually author. If there is no author, use the first word in the title, but ignore articles (a, an, and the). If the title begins with a year or a number (for example, 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus ), alphabetize it as if the number/year is spelled out (“fourteen ninety-one”).
• Example Works Cited A brief list of sources in a correctly formatted works cited page.
• Interactive Practice Template - MLA Style Center Use this template to practice putting MLA core elements in order in a Works Cited citation.
• << Previous: MLA Citations
• Next: Library Databases >>
• Last Updated: Feb 26, 2024 11:14 AM
• URL: https://butlercc.libguides.com/mla

Home / Guides / Citation Guides / MLA Format / MLA Works Cited Page

MLA Works Cited Page

What is a works cited page.

The works cited page is a list of all the sources cited within the body and notes of your paper. A works cited page should begin on its own page after the end of the paper content and should list all the entries in alphabetical order by the first item in each entry (usually the author’s name). It should be included in order to give full credit to the sources used and avoid plagiarism, as well as to allow the reader to easily locate each source if needed. Papers in MLA format should always have a works cited page.

It is not necessary to include sources that you consulted but did not directly reference in the works cited list – it should only include the sources you directly quoted or paraphrased. Each in-text citation should therefore have a corresponding entry in the works cited list.

Creating an MLA Works Cited Page:

Citing sources in mla.

• Bibliography vs. Works Cited — What’s the Difference?
• Formatting the Works Cited Page
• Heading & Title Format
• Organizing the References in the List
• Formatting Author Names
• Formatting Author Names in Other Languages
• Title Rules: Capitalization, Italics, and Quotation Marks

Let’s get started with an explanation of what exactly a works cited page is and why creating one is necessary!

Note: This guide is not affiliated with the Modern Language Association. It was developed by EasyBib.com’s in-house librarians to serve as a quick guide and snapshot of some of the guidelines found in the MLA Handbook, 9th ed.

When students and scholars create a research paper, they seek out information in books, websites, journal articles, and many other types of sources. The information from these sources, combined with the scholar’s own thinking and knowledge, aid in the formation of a final project.

However, simply placing information from books, websites, journal articles, newspaper articles, and other source types into a project without a reference is not acceptable. Without a reference or citation, it’ll look like the paper’s author came up with everything themselves!

That means it’s necessary to call out when information is included from outside sources and originated elsewhere.

An MLA works cited page shows all the sources that were consulted and included in a project. Each source has a corresponding in-text citation within the paper.

In-text & parenthetical citations

In the body of a research project, add a short reference next to a quote or paraphrased information that came from a source. This is called a citation in prose or a parenthetical citation.

In-text Citation Example:

Langdon’s expertise is revealed in Chapter 1, when he is introduced to a group of university students. “Our guest tonight needs no introduction. He is the author of numerous books: The Symbology of Secret Sects , The Art of the Illuminati , The Lost Language of Ideograms , and when I say he wrote the book on Religious Iconology, I mean that quite literally. Many of you use his textbooks in class” (Brown 8).

In the example above, the writer displays that the quote was taken from Brown’s book, on page 8.

Even though this information is helpful, the brief reference to Brown and page 8 isn’t enough information to truly understand the origin of the quote. Other relevant information, such as the full name of the author, the title of the book, the publisher, and the year the book was published is missing.

Where can the reader find that information? In the MLA works cited list!

Full references in the works cited list

The MLA works cited list is the final page of a research project. Here, the reader can take the time to truly understand the sources included in the body of the project. The reader can turn to the MLA works cited list, look for “Brown” and see the full reference, which looks like this:

Brown, Dan. The DaVinci Code . Knopf Doubleday, 2003.

Included in the above reference is the full name of the author (Dan Brown), the title of the source ( The DaVinci Code ), the publisher of the book (Knopf Doubleday), and the year the book was published (2003).

The information provided in the reference supplies the reader with enough information to seek out the original source themselves, if he or she would like.

Works Cited Example:

Bibliography vs. Works cited – What’s the difference?

Quite often, the two terms are used interchangeably. While similar, they have some unique differences.

The remainder of this guide focuses on the placement, organization, and styling guidelines for the MLA works cited list.

Another commonly used reference style is APA. If your teacher or professor requests your references be made in APA citation style, check out this page on APA format .

Here’s more information on how to develop an MLA in-text citation and APA in-text citation .

Formatting the MLA works cited page

The reference page is the final page of a research paper and starts on its very own page.

If your project isn’t an actual research paper, but a slideshow, video, or another type of project, follow the same guidelines as above. Place the works cited list on the final slide, page, or screen of the project.

Here are the recommended guidelines for margins, spacing, and page numbers taken from the MLA Style Center’s web page “Formatting a Research Paper.”

Margins in MLA:

• Place one inch margins around the entire document.
• The only exception is the “running head.” See the “Running Head” section below to learn more about the margins of this component.
• Most word processing programs automatically default to one inch margins. In the page setup settings, you can view and modify the size of the margins.

Spacing in MLA:

• Double space the entire page. The title, references, and other components should all have double spaces.

It is not necessary to create double spaces manually by pressing the “enter” or “return” key in between each and every line. Your word processing program can automatically adjust the line spacing for you. Look for a section in the settings area called “Line spacing” or “Paragraph spacing.” You should be able to click or check off “double spacing.”

Page numbers in MLA:

• The reference list is the final page(s) of a research paper.
• If the conclusion of a research project is on page 7, page 8 would be the first page of the reference list. If the list runs onto the next page after that, it would be page 9.

For more information regarding how to display the page numbers, see the section below titled, “Running Head.”

While an APA reference page  is very different from a Modern Language Association style works cited, note that  APA bibliography pages also use double spacing throughout and 1 inch margins.

Heading & title format in MLA

This next section focuses on how to properly label and format the page numbers and title.

Running head

The running head is found at the top of every page of the research project. It’s also included on the reference list.

The running head displays the name of the writer or author of the research project + page number .

There is one space between the author’s name and the page number. Here is an MLA works cited page example of a running head:

The above is an example of a running head that would be seen on page 8 of a research project. The writer’s last name is Kleinman.

General running head guidelines:

• It is placed in the top right corner of every page.
• It sits half of an inch from the top of the page and along the right side’s one inch margin.

Reminder : If the concluding sentence of the research project is on page 10, the reference list starts on page 11. Even though the reference page starts on its own page, the numbering throughout the entire project includes the reference page.

Title of the page

Below the running head is the title of the page, which should either be “Work Cited” or “Works Cited.”

• Only 1 reference = “Work Cited”
• Multiple references =”Works Cited”

Whether you’re making an MLA work cited page or an MLA works cited page, here are some general rules to follow:

• Align the title to the center of the document
• Add a one-inch margin below the top edge of the paper
• Do not bold, italicize, or underline the title
• The title should be the same size and style as the rest of the document (12-point font)
• Place a double space between the title and the first citation on the page

Here’s a sample MLA works cited running head and title:

If you’re reading through this page, but have yet to determine your research paper topic, look no further! We have thorough guides on historical individuals to rev up your brainstorming engine! Check out our guides on Abraham Lincoln , Muhammad Ali , and Marilyn Monroe .

Organizing the references in the MLA works cited list

Hanging indent formatting.

• The full citation entries run along the left side of the paper, along the one inch margin.
• Double space each line.
• Each MLA work cited entry has a hanging indent, meaning the first line of the full reference starts along the one inch margin and any additional lines after the first are indented in one and a half inches from the left margin.

Hanging indent example:

Organizing the Works Cited Entries

There are two options: alphabetical order and non alphabetical order.

Alphabetical order

The majority of references are organized in alphabetical order by the first item in the reference, which is usually an author’s last name. When a source doesn’t have an author, the title is placed first in the reference. Many films and movies, for instance, begin with the title, since no author is present.

Either way, whether the reference starts with the last name of the author, or a title, the entries are placed in alphabetical order.

Works cited MLA example, organized in alphabetical order.

Benjamin, Chloe. The Immortalists . Penguin, 2018.

Black Panther. Directed by Ryan Coogler, performance by Chadwick Boseman, Marvel Studios, 2018.

Egan, Jennifer. Manhattan Beach . Scribner, 2017.

Non-alphabetical order

The majority of reference lists are organized in alphabetical order. However, it is acceptable to only organize “annotated bibliographies” in alphabetical order, chronological order, or subject order.

Here’s more information about the organization and creation of an MLA annotated bibliography .

Formatting Author Names in MLA

If you need help structuring or formatting the author’s name (or multiple authors’ names) in your references, this section will help.

Let’s start with the proper structure for one author’s name (taken from Section 5.6 of the official Handbook ). If the source you’re attempting to cite was created by one individual author, structure the name as follows:

Last name, First name.

The last name of the author is placed at the start of the reference, followed by a comma, and the first name of the author. Conclude this information with a period.

One author with a middle name or middle initial

Work Cited Examples:

• Burroughs, William S.
• Yeats, W. B.
• Alcott, Louisa May.

Wondering how to organize two or more works by Louisa May Alcott in your paper? It may be tricky to determine how to alphabetically arrange the references, since each MLA work cited entry begins with Louisa May Alcott.

Citing multiple sources with the same author To create a proper MLA works cited list when there are multiple sources by the same author, place the references in alphabetical order by the title. Only include the author’s name in the first reference. In place of the author’s name in subsequent entries, place three dashes, followed by a period. (Follows rules from Section 5.126 of the Handbook .)

Below is a visual representation of a properly organized and structured MLA style works cited list. All three sources in this MLA works cited page example are by the author, Louisa May Alcott.

Alcott, Louisa May. “Eight Cousins.” Project Gutenberg , 2018, www.gutenberg.org/files/2726/2726-h/2726-h.htm.

– – -. Little Women. Bantam Classics, 1983.

– – -. Rose in Bloom . CreateSpace, 2018.

Citing a Source with Two Authors in MLA

According to section 5.7 of the official Handbook , the first listed author’s name on the source is the first author seen in the reference. The second listed author’s name on the source is the second author placed in the reference.

The first author’s name is placed in reverse order, followed by a comma and the word “and.” The second author’s name is listed in standard order, followed by a period.

Last name, First name of Author 1, and First name Last name of Author 2.

Work Cited Examples

Brust, Steven, and Emma Bull.

Jory, John, and Mac Barnett.

Citing multiple sources with the same co-authors When there are multiple sources on a reference list by the same co-authors, organize those specific references alphabetically by the titles. Only include the names of the coauthors in the first entry.

Jory, John, and Mac Barnett. The Terrible Two. Amulet, 2017.

– – -. The Terrible Two Get Worse. Amulet, 2017.

Here’s a complex scenario…

There may be times when you’re attempting to add additional sources by one of the co-authors, or the lead co-author along with a different individual.

Here is an example of how a works cited page in MLA would be organized. Included is a source solely written by one of the coauthors (John Jory) and a source by John Jory with a different coauthor, Avery Monsen.

Works Cited Example

Jory, John. The Bad Seed. HarperCollins, 2017.

– – -. Giraffe Problems. Random House, 2018.

Monsen, Avery, and Jory John. All My Friends Are Dead , Chronicle, 2010.

Summary of the above examples:

• Jory John’s work, The Bad Seed , is listed first in the reference list since the single author’s name is organized first in alphabetical order.
• The second entry includes the three hyphens and a period in place of John Jory’s name since it is redundant to write out and display the author’s name again in the list.
• Entries three and four are by the coauthors Jory John and Mac Barnett. The hyphens in the fourth source replace the authors’ names in the third for the same reason as above: it’s unnecessary to write out both co-authors’ names twice. The Terrible Two book is placed before The Terrible Two Get Worse as the titles are placed in alphabetical order.
• The fifth entry is by John Jory and Avery Monsen. Monsen’s name is displayed first on the source, which is why her name is listed first in the entry. Remember: authors are placed in the order they appear on the source.

Citing a Source with Three or More Authors in MLA

When there are three or more authors listed on a source, it is unnecessary to include all individuals’ names in the reference list.

Only include the first listed author’s last name, followed by a comma and their first name, followed by another comma and the abbreviation “et al.”

Work Cited Example

Robertson, Judy, et al.

Et al. is an abbreviation used in academic works. It translates to “and others” in Latin. Replace the second, third, and any additional authors’ names with “et al.” on your work cited page in MLA.

The above example represents a journal article written by Judy Robertson, Beth Cross, Hamish Mcleod, and Peter Wiemer-Hastings. Instead of including all four authors’ names in the entry, only the first listed author’s name is included.

Robertson, Judy, et al. “Children’s Interactions with Animated Agents in an Intelligent Tutoring System.” International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education , vol. 14, no. 3-4, 2004, pp. 335-357. IOS Press , content.iospress.com/articles/international-journal-of-artificial-intelligence-in-education/jai14-3-4-05.

If including an additional reference by Judy Robertson, but with different co-authors, include her name again in the reference list.

For example, take a look at this journal article by Judy Robertson, Judith Good, and Helen Pain. The MLA work cited entry would begin with Judy Robertson, et al. and not three hyphens since there are different co-authors than the first.

Robertson, Judy, et al. “BetterBlether: The Design and Evaluation of a Discussion Tool for Education.” International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education , 1998, pp. 9, 219-236, ijaied.org/pub/1026/file/1026_paper.pdf.

The entries are listed in alphabetical order by the title of the source since the first positions are the same.

Citing Authors with proper titles in MLA

There are times when an author is graced with a prestigious title such as a Duke, Sir, Saint, and others (see Section 2.83 of the Handbook for more examples).

When an author has a specific title, it should be omitted from the body of a project and also omitted from the reference list.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle should be in the project as Arthur Conan Doyle.

On a work cited page in MLA, it would be displayed as:

Doyle, Arthur Conan.

Citing Authors with Suffixes in MLA

If an author has a suffix in his or her name, such as Junior (Jr.) or a roman numeral such as II, III, IV, or V, this information is included in the reference list.

The individual’s name is placed in reverse order, with the last name displayed in the first position. Immediately following the last name is a comma, followed by the first name and middle name. After the first and middle names, a comma is placed, and the suffix of the individual is placed at the end with a period. You should not include the comma preceding the suffix, however, if it is a numeral.

For example, Cal Ripken, Jr. would be structured as

• Ripken, Cal, Jr.

Frederick William III would be structured as:

William, Frederick III.

Citing Pen Names in MLA

If the author’s pen name is one that is well known, it is acceptable to use the pen name in place of the author’s real first and last name.

For example, Mark Twain , Dr. Seuss , George Orwell, and O. Henry are all acceptable to use in a works cited MLA section, as their pen names are well known.

If the author’s pen name is less familiar, you can include the author’s real name in brackets in the reference.

Coffey, Brian [Dean Koontz]. Blood Risk. Bobbs-Merrill, 1973.

Van Dyne, Edith [L. Frank Baum]. Aunt Jane’s Nieces At Work. 1st World Library, 2006.

Formatting Author’s Names in Other Languages

Many names in languages other than English include conventions and features that are different from names in English. This next section provides information to help you properly structure and organize the names of authors in other languages. It follows rules from section 2.73 in the official Handbook .

Citing French Names in MLA

French names often include the particles de, d’, or du. Some examples include Valery Giscard d’Estaing, Bertrand du Guesclin, and Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Perigord.

When “de” is used in an individual’s name, it is separated from the last name. Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Perigord would be structured in a work cited MLA list as:

Talleyrand-Perigord, Charles Maurice de.

If, however, the last name is only one syllable, “de” is considered part of the last name. The reference entry would begin with de and then the last name of the individual, followed by a comma and the first name. In this instance, “de” remains lowercased.

When “du” or “des” is used in an individual’s name, it is included as part of the last name. Capitalize the “d” in “du.” Bertrand du Guesclin would be structured in a work cited MLA list as:

Du Guesclin, Bertrand.

When d’ is placed before a last name, d’ is included as part of the last name, but only when the last name begins with a vowel. Valery Giscard d’Estaing would be structured as:

d’Estaing, Valery Giscard.

Citing Asian Names in MLA

Prior to determining how to structure an Asian author’s name, consider the source. Many Asian publishers display the author’s last name first on sources. If the source was published in Asia, do not reverse the author’s name in the reference list. Write it in the order shown on the source, without any commas. End the author’s name with a period.

If the source was published in English, it is quite possible that the author’s last name is displayed first as well. This is when the researcher must do a bit of detective work to determine the author’s first name and last name. Run the name through a search engine and identify the author’s first name and last name. If the last name is placed first on the source, keep it as is in the reference entry. Do not reverse the names and write it in standard form.

If, on the source, the author’s name is placed in standard order (first name followed by last name) reverse it in the reference list. Begin the reference with the last name of the individual, add a comma, and add the first name of the author. End the field with a period.

Citing Latin Names in MLA

Famous historical figures in Roman history have names that are widely known. Some examples include Julius Caesar, Augustus, Claudius, Constantine, and others. While these individuals are known by their Roman names, their full names are in Latin.

Begin the reference entry with the Roman name. Immediately following the Roman name, add the individual’s full name in brackets. End the information with a period.

Augustus [Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus]. “The Deeds of the Divine Augustus.” The Internet Classics Archive , translated by Thomas Bushnell, 1998, classics.mit.edu/Augustus/deeds.html.

APA citation website references look much different! Make sure you check out our handy guides on EasyBib.com!

Citing German Names in MLA

Two commonly used particles in German names are “von” and “zu.” Examples include Alexander von Humboldt, Ferdinand von Zeppelin, Prince Chlodwig zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst, and Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied.

When a German individual’s name includes the particles “von” or “zu,” the particles are not included as part of the person’s last name. Ferdinand von Zeppelin would be organized in the work cited MLA list as:

Zeppelin, Ferdinand von.

If, on the source, von is displayed as a last name, it is acceptable to include it at the beginning of the individual’s last name. Examples include books by Dita Von Teese and Diane Von Furstenberg.

Von Furstenberg, Diane. Diane: A Signature Life . Simon & Schuster, 2009.

Citing Italian Names in MLA

If the particles d’, del, de, della, di, da, are used in an individual’s last name, and the individual is relatively current and from modern times, the particles are included as part of the last name and the reference entry begins with the capitalized particle.

Di Lampedusa, Giuseppe Tomasi.

When the individual’s name begins with one of the same particles above, but he or she is from historical or ancient times, the particle is not included as part of the individual’s last name.

Citing Spanish Names in MLA

There are two commonly used particles in Spanish names: “de” and “del.” If an individual’s name includes the particle, “de,” do not include it as part of his or her last name. When “del” is visible in an individual’s last name, the “d” in “del” is capitalized and placed at the beginning of the citation.

• Del Toro, Benicio.
• Leon, Juan Ponce de.
• Soto, Hernando de.
• Del Rio, Andres Manuel.

Title rules

Capitalization rules in mla.

According to section 2.90 of the Handbook , titles should be written in title case format. This means that the first letter in the first word, the first letter in the last word, and the first letters of all other important words are capitalized. Any coordinating conjunctions (and, for, but, or, so, nor, and yet), articles (a, an, the), and prepositions in the title are not capitalized.

Here are a few MLA works cited examples of how titles should appear in references:

• A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
• The Wizard of Oz
• Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry
• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

If the source you’re attempting to cite is in a language other than English, it is recommended to use “sentence case” form. Sentence case only has the first letter in the first word capitalized and the first letter in any proper nouns capitalized. All other words are written in lowercase letters.

Don’t forget to use EasyBib.com’s MLA work cited generator to develop your works cited page in MLA.

Italics vs. Quotation marks in MLA

Whether the source is placed in italics or quotation marks depends on where the source was found. If the title stands alone (like a book or movie), place the title in italics. If the title was found in a container, such as a website, anthology, edited book, or another type of container, place the source in quotation marks and the container in italics.

Mather, Victor. “Japan Advances in World Cup 2018 Despite Losing to Poland.” New York Times , 28 June 2018, nyti.ms/2IzyUdm.

Salinger, J. D. The Catcher in the Rye . Little Brown, 1991.

Formatting titles beginning with numbers in MLA

Titles beginning with numbers are placed in the reference list in alphabetical order, as if the title was written out alphabetically.

Here’s an MLA works cited example: The movie 2 Fast 2 Furious , would be organized in alphabetical order as if it said “ Too Fast Too Furious .” The citation would still be begin with the number even though it is organized alphabetically.

Don’t forget to try EasyBib.com’s MLA works cited generator to help you develop your references and your MLA works cited page. Our MLA works cited generator is free and simple to use!

Developing MLA references on EasyBib.com

EasyBib.com has an MLA works cited generator, which helps you produce references . This means you don’t have to spend time determining how to structure and organize the components of a citation.

To create your complete page of works cited in MLA with our tools, head to the EasyBib homepage.

Did your teacher or professor request that your references be made in MLA format? Luckily for you, MLA is the default format on EasyBib.com. If you’re not sure which style to use, ask your teacher.

• Select your source. Examples: book, website, video, etc. There are several types to choose from!
• Input information. Sources like websites, books, etc., will let you do an automatic search for citation information on your source. Input details like your source’s title, author, ISBN, DOI, or keywords.
• Select your source. Look through the results list and choose the one that matches your source.
• Review details. See what was found during the search.
• Review and edit the citation form. Feel free to add any missing details, or update any fields.
• Complete citation. Congratulations on your new citation! Copy and paste it into your document, or keep adding citations to your list.

All references are automatically organized in proper order and can be exported to Microsoft Word Documents, Google Docs, Dropbox, or One Drive. There’s even an option to email the reference!

Even better? EasyBib Plus gives you access to tools that do more than simply creating full references. References in the text are created for you, too! Whether it’s a Modern Language Association reference, or an APA parenthetical citation , APA book citation , or APA journal reference, we’ll create both types for you.

Need a bit more help? Our plagiarism checker is a one-stop shop to help you with your writing, grammar, and reference needs. Copy and paste your paper into our proofreader and receive comprehensive feedback! Stress less and submit your paper with confidence!

Follow our EasyBib Twitter feed to discover more citing tips, fun grammar facts, and the latest product updates.

MLA Works Cited

“Formatting a Research Paper.” MLA Style Center , Modern Language Association of America, style.mla.org/formatting-papers/.

MLA Handbook . 9th ed., Modern Language Association of America, 2021

Published October 16, 2013. Updated June 20, 2021.

Written and edited by Michele Kirschenbaum and Elise Barbeau. Michele Kirschenbaum is a school library media specialist and the in-house librarian at EasyBib.com. Elise Barbeau is the Citation Specialist at Chegg. She has worked in digital marketing, libraries, and publishing.

MLA Formatting Guide

MLA Formatting

• Annotated Bibliography
• Bibliography
• Block Quotes
• et al Usage
• In-text Citations
• Paraphrasing
• Page Numbers
• Sample Paper
• Works Cited
• MLA 8 Updates
• MLA 9 Updates
• View MLA Guide

Citation Examples

• Book Chapter
• Journal Article
• Magazine Article
• Newspaper Article
• Website (no author)
• View all MLA Examples

How useful was this post?

Click on a star to rate it!

We are sorry that this post was not useful for you!

Let us improve this post!

Tell us how we can improve this post?

• The title should be the same size and style as the rest of the document (12-point font)/li>

If the title stands alone, place the title in italics. If the title was found in a container, such as a website, anthology, edited book, or another type of container, place the source in quotation marks and the container in italics.

According to Section 1.2 of the Handbook, titles should be written in title case format. Any coordinating conjunctions (and, for, but, or, so, nor, and yet), articles (a, an, the), and prepositions in the title are not capitalized.

If an author has a suffix in his or her name, the last name is displayed in the first position followed by a comma, the first name, and the middle name. After the first and middle names, a comma is placed, and the suffix of the individual is placed at the end.

Cal Ripken Jr. would be structured as

Author with roman numeral suffix would be structured as

• William, Frederick, III.

An MLA works cited list contains complete details of all the sources that are cited in the text. It helps the reader locate the source in case they want to read it for further understanding. It is included at the end of the paper after the main text. Each entry provides all of the information about each source so that it can be easily located. For example, the works cited list entry for a journal article would include the following elements:

Title of the article

Journal title

Volume number

Issue number

Publication date

With the help of the mentioned elements, a reader can locate the source for future reference. In addition, the works cited list arranges entries in alphabetical order according to the surname of the first author or title (if there is no author) to help the reader locate the entry in the list quickly. A few works cited list entries are listed below as examples:

Brenner, Barbara. “Pink Ribbons and Lou Gehrig: Time to Bury Useless Symbols.” So Much to be Done: The Writings of Breast cancer Activist Barbara Brenner , edited by Barbara Sjoholm, UP of Minnesota, 2016, pp. 199–202.

Feldman, Alice E. “Dances with Diversity: American Indian Self‐Presentation Within the Re‐presentative Contexts of a Non‐Indian Museum.” Text and Performance Quarterly , vol. 14, no. 3, 1994, pp. 210–21.

Hymes, Dell H. Discovering Oral Performance and Measured Verse in American Indian Narrative . Johns Hopkins UP, 1977.

The main purpose of the works cited list is to provide the readers with the complete details of the sources cited in the text. It helps the reader locate the source in case they want to do further research or verify information. It also helps to ensure that full credit is given to the sources utilized in the paper. The works cited list is placed at the end of the paper after the main text. For example, the works cited list entry for a journal article would include the author’s name, the title of the article, the journal title, the volume and issue number of the journal, the date the article was published, the page numbers of the article, and the URL if the article was found online. With the help of the mentioned elements, a reader can locate the source for future reference.

The works cited list arranges entries in alphabetical order according to the surname of the first author or title (if there is no author) to help the reader locate the entry in the list quickly.

MLA Citation Examples

Writing Tools

Citation Generators

Other Citation Styles

Plagiarism Checker

Upload a paper to check for plagiarism against billions of sources and get advanced writing suggestions for clarity and style.

Get Started

Want to create or adapt books like this? Learn more about how Pressbooks supports open publishing practices.

12 What Is a Works Cited List?

A Works Cited list is an alphabetized list located on a separate page at the end of your paper that lists all the citations for the sources used in your paper to support your research.

Each citation is based on core elements specific to the source you are using. There are up to nine core elements , and they are arranged in a certain order and with the punctuation as shown below. Note that you will not need all elements for most of your citations.

The Core elements

1. Author. 2. Title of Source. 3. Title of Container, 4. Contributor, 5. Version, 6. Number, 7. Publisher, 8. Publication Date, 9. Location.

Core elements 1 and 2 :

1. Author. 2. Title of Source.

• are individual units
• each is followed by a period
• are only used once in a citation

Core elements 3-9:

3. Title of Container, 4. Contributor, 5. Version, 6. Number, 7. Publisher, 8. Publication Date, 9. Location.

• together form a unit, or container
• each element is followed by a comma except the last element used, which is followed by a period
• may need to be repeated

More about containers

A container may be located within another container. For example, an article is contained in a journal, and that journal may be contained in a database. In a case like that, you would need to add a second container to your citation, i.e. repeat elements 3-9. It is unlikely that you will ever need more than 2 containers to cite a source.

The sequence would then be:

Author . Title of Source .  Container One. Container Two.

For more explanation about core elements and containers, check out the MLA Online Guide .

What about information that doesn’t fit neatly into one of the core elements?

MLA allows for supplemental information to be added to a source if it helps for clarification. Depending on what this additional information is about, it may be added after the title or at the end of the citation.

Author . Title of Source . Supplemental Information. Container One. Container Two. Supplemental Information.

Using this template and the MLA Online Guide to help create a reference citation is like using a recipe. The ingredients are the key pieces of information about a source. If you’re missing an ingredient, leave it out or substitute it.

Following a recipe’s directions is like following a citation example. If you follow the directions and add the ingredients at the right point, then your recipe (i.e. your citation) will turn out!

You are not expected to memorize MLA guidelines. Instead, use available resources ( MLA Online Guide and this tutorial) to help guide you. Over time you will become more comfortable with creating citations yourself.

Image Attributions:

“ Pancake recipe with ingredients Free Vector ” by pikisuperstar is licensed under CC BY 4.0 International .

MLA Style Citations Copyright © 2021 by Ulrike Kestler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Share This Book

Works Cited

A Works Cited is a list of sources that you have referenced or cited in your essay or research paper. It includes the author's name, title of the source, publication information, and other relevant details.

" Works Cited " appears in:

Study guides ( 1 ).

• AP English Literature - 8.5 Learning proper attribution and citation in literary analysis

Practice Questions ( 1 )

• What is the purpose of including a Works Cited or References page at the end of your analysis?

Related terms

In-text citation : A brief reference within the body of your essay that directs readers to the full citation in the Works Cited.

MLA format : The specific set of guidelines established by the Modern Language Association for formatting academic papers and citing sources.

Bibliography : Similar to a Works Cited, but it includes all sources consulted during research, not just those directly cited in the paper.

Stay Connected

© 2024 Fiveable Inc. All rights reserved.

AP® and SAT® are trademarks registered by the College Board, which is not affiliated with, and does not endorse this website.

In order to continue enjoying our site, we ask that you confirm your identity as a human. Thank you very much for your cooperation.

                  Grants

Research Guide

• Choosing and Developing a Topic
• Evaluating Information Resources
• Evaluating Web Resources
• Citing With Purpose
• Search Strategy - Boolean Method
• Topic Thinking Tool
• Scholarly Articles
• Anatomy of a Scholarly Article

Works Cited v. References v. Bibliography

• Annotated Bibliography
• Video Tutorials
• Synthesizing Sources into Research
• Controlled Vocabularies
• How To Find the Library's Books

Works Cited vs. References vs. Bibliography

Knowing the proper term for your paper’s list of citations can be confusing. Do I call it a works cited page? Should it actually be called a bibliography? How is it different from a reference list? In this article, we explain what these three terms mean and how they are different or related to one another.

To begin, each citation style has its own way of naming the list of sources you used in your paper. Here we break down the differences in these list types, so that you can better understand which option works best for your work.

Works Cited

A “Works Cited” list is an alphabetical list of works cited, or sources you specifically called out while composing your paper. All works that you have quoted or paraphrased should be included. Works Cited is generally used when citing sources using MLA format (Modern Language Association) style, and sources should be listed in alphabetical order by author’s last name.

Example Works Cited entry :

Middlekauff, Robert. The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution. Oxford UP, 2007.

References or “Reference List”

A “Reference List” is very similar to a Works Cited list, and is a term used when citing sources using APA format (American Psychological Association) style. The page should be titled “References,” and is arranged alphabetically by author last name.

Example References entry :

Middlekauff, R. (2007). The glorious cause: The American Revolution . Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Bibliography

Bibliographies, on the other hand, differ greatly from Works Cited and References lists. In Works Cited and References, you only list items you have actually referred to and cited in your paper. A Bibliography, meanwhile, lists all the material you have consulted in preparing your essay, whether you have actually referred to and cited the work or not. This includes all sources that you have used in order to do any research. Bibliographies are often used in Chicago and Turabian citation styles. They usually contain a long reference that has a corresponding footnote within the body of the paper.

Example Bibliography entry :

Middlekauff, Robert. The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2007.

• << Previous: Anatomy of a Scholarly Article
• Next: Annotated Bibliography >>
• Last Updated: Aug 27, 2018 12:01 PM
• URL: https://grants-nmsu.libguides.com/c.php?g=836275

Find Study Materials for

• Explanations
• Business Studies
• Combined Science
• Computer Science
• Engineering
• English literature
• Environmental Science
• Human Geography
• Macroeconomics
• Microeconomics
• Social Studies
• Browse all subjects
• Textbook Solutions
• Read our Magazine

Create Study Materials

• Flashcards Create and find the best flashcards.
• Notes Create notes faster than ever before.
• Study Sets Everything you need for your studies in one place.
• Study Plans Stop procrastinating with our smart planner features.
• Works Cited

Writers often consult other work when crafting a piece of writing, like websites, scholarly journal articles, and documentaries. No matter where a writer draws their ideas from or what type of paper they are writing, they must cite any source they use while crafting their paper. Citing a source means giving a source credit. When a writer cites, they record information about a source, such as the author's name, the title , and the publication date.   Doing this ensures writers avoid stealing other people’s ideas. One way writers can give credit to the sources they use is by writing a Works Cited  page at the end of their paper. 

Create learning materials about Works Cited with our free learning app!

• Instand access to millions of learning materials
• Flashcards, notes, mock-exams and more
• Everything you need to ace your exams
• 5 Paragraph Essay
• A Hook for an Essay
• Body Paragraph
• Essay Outline
• Language Used in Academic Writing
• MHRA Referencing
• Opinion vs Fact
• Argumentative Essay
• Cues and Conventions
• English Grammar
• English Language Study
• Essay Prompts
• Essay Writing Skills
• Global English
• History of English Language
• International English
• Key Concepts in Language and Linguistics
• Language Acquisition
• Language Analysis
• Language and Social Groups
• Lexis and Semantics
• Linguistic Terms
• Listening and Speaking
• Multiple Choice Questions
• Research and Composition
• Rhetorical Analysis Essay
• Single Paragraph Essay
• Sociolinguistics
• Summary Text
• Synthesis Essay
• Textual Analysis

Works Cited Definition

A Works Cited page is a list of sources a writer uses while writing a text. The Works Cited page goes at the end of the paper. In it, the writer lists information about all the sources that they directly referenced within the body of the text and arranges the sources alphabetically by authors’ last names.

• A Works Cited page is a list of sources at the end of a paper that notes all the sources a writer used while writing a text.

Purpose of Works Cited

The purpose of a Works Cited page is for a writer to give credit to the sources they used when writing a text. Providing credit helps writers avoid plagiarism , which is when a person passes off another person's works as their own. Plagiarism disrespects the creators of other sources and can cause a writer to lose their academic credibility. To come across as a trustworthy source of information, writers have to be honest about which ideas were their own and which ones they drew from other sources.

When writers list the resources they use, they also allow readers to go and check for themselves if the evidence is credible. Credible sources come from reliable people and are often vetted by scholars. Allowing readers to confirm that the sources are reliable helps to enhance writers' academic integrity and can help strengthen their claims.

Works Cited pages can also be useful for readers who want to read more about a subject. When writers provide readers with other credible sources related to a topic, they help readers with further research. Works Cited pages ensure the information about the other sources is clear and straightforward.

The phrase "Works Cited" is often confused with "bibliography." These two concepts are similar but have distinct differences. In a bibliography, a writer lists all the sources they have used in writing a paper, not just the ones they directly referenced in the text. For instance, if a book informed the writer's perspective on a topic, but they did not directly reference material from it in their essay, they would list it in a bibliography but not a Works Cited page.

Works Cited MLA

MLA is the Modern Language Association’s guidelines for formatting citations. This style is typically the required formatting guide for writers in the humanities and arts. However, this is not always the case, so writers should always confirm the required formatting guide for the text they are writing.

The MLA guidelines require writers to cite all references to other sources in the body of the text with in-text citations and also list detailed information about those sources on a Works Cited page at the end of the paper. This makes it easy for readers to see a citation at the end of a piece of evidence and then flip to the end of the paper to find out more information about the source.

MLA and other referencing styles like APA , Chicago, and Harvard update their guidelines periodically, so writers should always double-check that they are following the most updated version. The Association published the first MLA style sheet in 1951, and today the organization is on its ninth edition!

Formatting a Works Cited Page in MLA

To format a Works Cited page according to MLA guidelines, writers should follow the following steps:

Use one-inch margins

Use an easy-to-read font such as Times New Roman or Arial, size 12

Click paragraph, spacing, double

Center the title “Works Cited” as the first line

Put the writer’s full name and page number in the upper right-hand corner

Put a hanging indent on all citations so that the first line is not indented, but all the other lines are. To do this, select the citations, click paragraph, indent, and hanging.

Organize all citations alphabetically

Writing Citations in MLA

The format for citations varies based on the type of source. The chart below demonstrates how to cite different sources according to MLA guidelines.

Journals often have more than one author. If a journal article has two authors, note them both in the order they appear. If a journal article has 3 or more authors, include the first author’s surname, first name, and then “,et al.”

Works Cited Example

The following example demonstrates what an MLA Works Cited list might look like for an essay about Toni Morrison's book Song of Solomon (1977).

MLA Work Cited Example

Note how the author included the access date for journal articles. Including this information for journal articles is not required, but many writers choose to do so.

Works Cited MLA vs Works Cited APA

APA is the American Psychological Association's guidelines for formatting citations. Writers in the social sciences and behavioral sciences often use APA . Like MLA, APA also requires a page at the end to cite the sources. However, in APA this page is called "References," and it looks slightly different from MLA. The following chart demonstrates how to format a Reference page for APA .

Formatting a Reference Page According to APA :

To format a Works Cited page according to APA guidelines, writers should follow the following steps:

For the font, use 12-point Times New Roman

Center the title “References” as the first line

Put the page number in the upper right-hand corner

Put a hanging indent on all citations so that the first line is not indented, but all the other lines are. To do this, select the citations, click paragraph, indent, and hanging

Organize all citations alphabetically.

Writing Citations in APA

The following chart demonstrates to cite different types of sources according to MLA guidelines. Note: I would add an example column as you did for MLA.

Note how the above citations differ from the citations in MLA. For instance, the year of publication for sources goes earlier in all citations.

APA Work Cited Example

The following example demonstrates what a Works Cited page in APA format would look like.

There are several websites that assist writers in formatting Works Cited pages. Using a search engine to search for citation tools can streamline the process of organizing references. To use these tools, writers insert information about the source they are citing, and the tool produces citations according to the selected style. While this process is quick and useful, it is important to check the final citations they produce against the style guide's rules.

Works Cited - Key Takeaways

• The purpose of a Works Cited page is to avoid plagiarism and provide readers with other relevant sources.
• MLA is the Modern Language Association's guide for formatting citations, and it requires a Works Cited page.
• A Works Cited page should be double-spaced, 12-point font, with hanging indents for all sources, arranged in alphabetical order by authors' last names.
• An MLA Works Cited page is similar to APA's guidelines for citations, but the latter calls the page "References" and formats information in the citations in a different order.

Flashcards in Works Cited 91

What is APA format?

APA is the American Psychological Association's guide to formatting papers and citing sources.

Which of the following citations is in APA format?

Rodrigues R. I. (2021). Testing the psychometric properties of a short skills inventory for students looking for their first job.  BMC psychology ,  9 (1), 159. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-021-00662-y

Recent research shows that homework creates stress for students (Richard et al., 2016, Gilbert 2014). 

Which of the following is not a requirement for APA formatting?

Single-spaced text

How long should an abstract in APA format be?

Approximately 150-250 words. 

What does APA stand for?

American Psychological Association

Learn with 91 Works Cited flashcards in the free Vaia app

We have 14,000 flashcards about Dynamic Landscapes.

Already have an account? Log in

Frequently Asked Questions about Works Cited

What is the purpose of works cited in a research paper?

The purpose of a works cited page is for a writer to give credit to the sources they used when writing a text.

What is the meaning of Works Cited?

A Works Cited page is a list of sources at the end of a paper that notes all the sources a writer used while writing a text.  

How to do a Works Cited page?

Writers should format citations for sources according to MLA guidelines and arrange them alphabetically on the last page of their paper in double-spaced, 12-point font. 

What is an example of Works Cited?

A Work Cited list is a list of sources a writer used in a paper. An example of a citation on a Work Cited page is:  Johnson, James  How to Cite.  London. Smith Publication, 2021. 

What is the difference between Works Cited APA and Works Cited MLA?

In APA the list of citations at the end of a paper is called References. APA also formats citations differently, with information like the date of publication in a different place than in MLA citations.  

Test your knowledge with multiple choice flashcards

Join the Vaia App and learn efficiently with millions of flashcards and more!

Keep learning, you are doing great.

Discover learning materials with the free Vaia app

Vaia is a globally recognized educational technology company, offering a holistic learning platform designed for students of all ages and educational levels. Our platform provides learning support for a wide range of subjects, including STEM, Social Sciences, and Languages and also helps students to successfully master various tests and exams worldwide, such as GCSE, A Level, SAT, ACT, Abitur, and more. We offer an extensive library of learning materials, including interactive flashcards, comprehensive textbook solutions, and detailed explanations. The cutting-edge technology and tools we provide help students create their own learning materials. StudySmarter’s content is not only expert-verified but also regularly updated to ensure accuracy and relevance.

Vaia Editorial Team

Team English Teachers

• 9 minutes reading time
• Checked by Vaia Editorial Team

Study anywhere. Anytime.Across all devices.

Create a free account to save this explanation..

Save explanations to your personalised space and access them anytime, anywhere!

By signing up, you agree to the Terms and Conditions and the Privacy Policy of Vaia.

Sign up to highlight and take notes. It’s 100% free.

Join over 22 million students in learning with our Vaia App

The first learning app that truly has everything you need to ace your exams in one place

• Flashcards & Quizzes
• AI Study Assistant
• Study Planner
• Smart Note-Taking

Privacy Overview

Get unlimited access with a free vaia account..

• Instant access to millions of learning materials.
• Flashcards, notes, mock-exams, AI tools and more.
• Everything you need to ace your exams.

• Free Tools for Students
• Works Cited Generator

Free Works Cited Generator

Generate a Works Cited page in MLA format automatically, with MyBib!

😕 What is a Works Cited Generator?

A works cited generator is a tool that automatically creates a works cited page in the Modern Language Association (MLA) citation format. The generator will take in information about the sources you have cited in your paper, such as document titles, authors, and URLs, and will output a fully formatted works cited page that can be added to the end of your paper (just as your teacher asked!).

The citations included in a Works Cited page show the sources that you used to construct your argument in the body of your school paper, either directly as references and quotes, or indirectly as ideas.

👩‍🎓 Who uses a Works Cited Generator?

Students in middle school and high school will usually be expected to produce a works cited page to accompany their academic papers. Therefore, they will generally be the users of a works cited generator.

Alongside generating a works cited page, at middle school and high school level it is also important to learn why it's critical to cite sources, not just how to cite them.

🙌 Why should I use a Works Cited Generator?

Formatting works cited pages manually is time consuming, and ensuring accuracy is mind-numbing.

Automating this process with a works cited generator is a quick and easy way to be sure you are doing it correctly (and according to the MLA format!). Our generator also provides a backed-up location to save your citations to as you write each part of your paper -- just keep the MyBib website open in a browser tab while you work and add to your works cited page as you go along!

⚙️ How do I use MyBib's Works Cited Generator?

Using our Works Cited Generator is so easy. Every time you cite a source in your paper, just come back to the generator at the top of this page and enter the source you are citing. Our generator can cite books, journal articles, and webpages automatically, and can cite over 30 other sources if you enter the source details manually.

Save each source to your bibliography, then when you have finished writing your paper just click the 'download' button and the generator will produce a formatted Works Cited page that can be copied and pasted directly to the end of your document.

Daniel is a qualified librarian, former teacher, and citation expert. He has been contributing to MyBib since 2018.

Scribbr Citation Generator

Accurate APA, MLA, Chicago, and Harvard citations, verified by experts, trusted by millions

Scribbr for Chrome: Your shortcut to citations

Cite any page or article with a single click right from your browser. The extension does the hard work for you by automatically grabbing the title, author(s), publication date, and everything else needed to whip up the perfect citation.

Perfectly formatted references every time

Inaccurate citations can cost you points on your assignments, so our seasoned citation experts have invested countless hours in perfecting Scribbr’s citation generator algorithms. We’re proud to be recommended by teachers and universities worldwide.

Enjoy a citation generator without flashy ads

Staying focused is already difficult enough, so unlike other citation generators, Scribbr won’t slow you down with flashing banner ads and video pop-ups. That’s a promise!

Citation Generator features you'll love

Look up your source by its title, URL, ISBN, or DOI, and let Scribbr find and fill in all the relevant information automatically.

APA, MLA, Chicago, and Harvard

Generate flawless citations according to the official APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard style, or many other rules.

Export to Word

When your reference list is complete, export it to Word. We’ll apply the official formatting guidelines automatically.

Lists and folders

Create separate reference lists for each of your assignments to stay organized. You can also group related lists into folders.

Export to Bib(La)TeX

Are you using a LaTex editor like Overleaf? If so, you can easily export your references in Bib(La)TeX format with a single click.

Custom fonts

Change the typeface used for your reference list to match the rest of your document. Options include Times New Roman, Arial, and Calibri.

Industry-standard technology

Scribbr’s Citation Generator is built using the same citation software (CSL) as Mendeley and Zotero, but with an added layer for improved accuracy.

Annotations

Describe or evaluate your sources in annotations, and Scribbr will generate a perfectly formatted annotated bibliography .

Citation guides

Scribbr’s popular guides and videos will help you understand everything related to finding, evaluating, and citing sources.

Secure backup

Your work is saved automatically after every change and stored securely in your Scribbr account.

• Introduction
• Finding sources

Evaluating sources

• Integrating sources

Citing sources

Tools and resources, a quick guide to working with sources.

Working with sources is an important skill that you’ll need throughout your academic career.

It includes knowing how to find relevant sources, assessing their authority and credibility, and understanding how to integrate sources into your work with proper referencing.

This quick guide will help you get started!

Finding relevant sources

Sources commonly used in academic writing include academic journals, scholarly books, websites, newspapers, and encyclopedias. There are three main places to look for such sources:

• Research databases: Databases can be general or subject-specific. To get started, check out this list of databases by academic discipline . Another good starting point is Google Scholar .
• Your institution’s library: Use your library’s database to narrow down your search using keywords to find relevant articles, books, and newspapers matching your topic.
• Other online resources: Consult popular online sources like websites, blogs, or Wikipedia to find background information. Be sure to carefully evaluate the credibility of those online sources.

When using academic databases or search engines, you can use Boolean operators to refine your results.

Generate APA, MLA, Chicago, and Harvard citations in seconds

Get started

In academic writing, your sources should be credible, up to date, and relevant to your research topic. Useful approaches to evaluating sources include the CRAAP test and lateral reading.

CRAAP is an abbreviation that reminds you of a set of questions to ask yourself when evaluating information.

• Currency: Does the source reflect recent research?
• Relevance: Is the source related to your research topic?
• Authority: Is it a respected publication? Is the author an expert in their field?
• Accuracy: Does the source support its arguments and conclusions with evidence?
• Purpose: What is the author’s intention?

Lateral reading

Lateral reading means comparing your source to other sources. This allows you to:

• Verify evidence
• Contextualize information
• Find potential weaknesses

If a source is using methods or drawing conclusions that are incompatible with other research in its field, it may not be reliable.

Integrating sources into your work

Once you have found information that you want to include in your paper, signal phrases can help you to introduce it. Here are a few examples:

Following the signal phrase, you can choose to quote, paraphrase or summarize the source.

• Quoting : This means including the exact words of another source in your paper. The quoted text must be enclosed in quotation marks or (for longer quotes) presented as a block quote . Quote a source when the meaning is difficult to convey in different words or when you want to analyze the language itself.
• Paraphrasing : This means putting another person’s ideas into your own words. It allows you to integrate sources more smoothly into your text, maintaining a consistent voice. It also shows that you have understood the meaning of the source.
• Summarizing : This means giving an overview of the essential points of a source. Summaries should be much shorter than the original text. You should describe the key points in your own words and not quote from the original text.

Whenever you quote, paraphrase, or summarize a source, you must include a citation crediting the original author.

Citing your sources is important because it:

• Allows you to avoid plagiarism
• Establishes the credentials of your sources
• Backs up your arguments with evidence
• Allows your reader to verify the legitimacy of your conclusions

The most common citation styles are APA, MLA, and Chicago style. Each citation style has specific rules for formatting citations.

Generate APA, MLA, Chicago,  and Harvard citations in seconds

Scribbr offers tons of tools and resources to make working with sources easier and faster. Take a look at our top picks:

• Citation Generator: Automatically generate accurate references and in-text citations using Scribbr’s APA Citation Generator, MLA Citation Generator , Harvard Referencing Generator , and Chicago Citation Generator .
• Plagiarism Checker : Detect plagiarism in your paper using the most accurate Turnitin-powered plagiarism software available to students.
• AI Proofreader: Upload and improve unlimited documents and earn higher grades on your assignments. Try it for free!
• Paraphrasing tool: Avoid accidental plagiarism and make your text sound better.
• Grammar checker : Eliminate pesky spelling and grammar mistakes.
• Summarizer: Read more in less time. Distill lengthy and complex texts down to their key points.
• AI detector: Find out if your text was written with ChatGPT or any other AI writing tool. ChatGPT 2 & ChatGPT 3 supported.
• Proofreading services : Have a human editor improve your writing.
• Citation checker: Check your work for citation errors and missing citations.
• Knowledge Base : Explore hundreds of articles, bite-sized videos, time-saving templates, and handy checklists that guide you through the process of research, writing, and citation.