Library FAQs

MLA Citations and Style

MLA Citations and Style include 3 elements:

1. Full Citations and Works Cited Page
2. In-Text Citations

3. MLA Formatting

1. Full Citations for Works Cited Page

At the end of your paper, add an additional page for your Works Cited list (find additional information about how to format this page below).

List every source you used in your research on this page. Every citation must be formatted in the same manner, which is laid out by MLA. You can take a look at the MLA Citation Guides created by the TC3 Writing Center for most sources. Or look at the Purdue OWL MLA Citation page, which covers citing any type of source. 

Every MLA citation follows this format, regardless of whether it is a book, article, video, podcast, interview, or anything else:

Author. Title of source. Title of container, other contributors, version, number, publisher, publication date, location.

Author: Author if it is a written work, creator of content for other types. Last name, first name. Note that in some cases, an organization can be the author. Put a period after this element.

Title of Source: For articles, videos, or shorter works, this is the title of the individual article or episode. For books, simply the tile of the book. Put a period after this element. Put articles in quotations marks.

Title of Containers: The title of whatever contains the smaller work you are citing, for example: journal titles, title of anthology, name of TV program. This element should be italicized. 

Other Contributors: translators, editors, or anyone else who contributed but is not the author. 

Version: volume of the journal, edition of a publication. 

Number: issue number for serialized works, episode numbers for TV shows or podcasts

Publisher: name of organization that made source available to the public

Date: date of publication

Location: page numbers, URL for web sources. End with a period.

(If your source does not contain one of these elements, skip it and move to the next element)

2. In-Text Citations

After you use information from one of your sources, fend the sentence with an in-text citation. Give the author's last name and the page number:

(Author last name page #) 

example: (Smith 78).

This will allow your reader to find the 'Smith' source in your works cited page, then go to page 78 to find the information you cited. You are showing where the information came from.

3. MLA Style

MLA requires papers to be in a certain format and style. The TC3 Writing Center has created documents to help you get your paper in the right format, whether you are using Word or Google Docs. You can download them below.

The largest element of this is the Works Cited page:

• Alphabetize your sources (by first letter of each source)
• Put all sources in hanging indentation (First line flush left, each other line indented)