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Cite Your Sources: Works Cited List Citations in MLA

WORKS CITED LISTS

You must include an citation for any information source you cite in your paper on your Works Cited list. 

The purpose of the Works Cited list is to give as much information as possible about the sources you used. This allows your reader to see where you're getting your information and to find the source again so they can read it for themselves.  

Every citation on your Works Cited list must correspond to at least one in-text citation somewhere in your paper.  

If you don't include Works Cited citations for information you use from your sources, you are at risk of plagiarism (passing off others' work as your own). Plagiarism has serious academic consequences. 

WORKS CITED LIST CITATIONS

Citing a Printed Book

Format

Author. Title of Book. Publisher, Year. 

 

Example:

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Citing an Electronic Book from the Open Web 

Format

Author. Title of Book. E-book, Publisher, Year. Website, URL.  

 

Example:

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Citing an Electronic Book from a Library Database 

Format

Author. Title of Book. E-book, Publisher, Year. Database Name, permalink.  

 

Example:

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Important things to notice about book reading citations:

  • If your book has two authors, write them both out. Only reverse the order of the first author's names and include a comma after:

Kendi, Ibram X., and Jason Reynolds. 

  • If your book has three or more authors, only write the first author's name and then type a comma and the "et al." abbreviation:

Doe, Jane, et al. 

  • If your book has an edition number, put that after the book title and before the publisher. If your textbook doesn't have an edition number, just skip that part of the citation. Example:

Danielewski, Mark. House of Leaves. 2nd ed., Pantheon, 2000. 

  • If your book has more than one publisher listed, use the first publisher's name on the title page as the publisher. 

  • If your book has more than one copyright year on the back of the title page, use the most recent year as the date.

Need to cite a reading from your textbook, or any chapter from an edited volume? Use this format or try our step-by-step video. 

Format:

Author of Reading. "Title of Reading." Title of Book, edited by Editor, # ed., Publisher, Year, pp. ###-###. 

 

Example:

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Citing a Reading from an Electronic Textbook

Format:

Author of Reading. "Title of Reading." Title of Book, edited by Editor, e-book, # ed., Publisher, Year, pp. ###-###. 

 

Example:

Important things to notice about textbook reading citations:

  • If a title ends in a punctuation mark other than a period (like a question mark or exclamation mark), you do not need to type a period after: use the original punctuation mark in the source as your closing punctuation.

  • If your textbook has three or more editors, only write the first editor's name and use the "et al." abbreviation like the example.

  • If your textbook has an edition number, put that after the editors' names like the example. If your textbook doesn't have an edition number, just skip that part of the citation. 

  • If your textbook has more than one publisher listed, use the first publisher's name on the title page as the publisher. 

  • If your textbook has more than one copyright year on the back of the title page, use the most recent year as the date.

  • Notice that page numbers have pp. before them in the Works Cited citation, but never use p. or pp. in MLA in-text citations.

 

Citing a Page on a Website

Format

Author. "Title of Webpage." Title of Website, Publisher of Website*, Date, URL. 

 

Example

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* Note: MLA says that if the title of a website and the publisher of the website are the same, you do not need to repeat it in the citation. In this example, the publisher of Medium as listed at the bottom of the site is A Medium Corporation. Since they are nearly the same, we didn't include it in the citation. 

 

Citing an Online News or Magazine Article

Format

Author. "Title of Article." Title of Website, Date, URL. 

 

Example:

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Citing a Webpage with No Author or Date

Format

 "Title of Article." Title of Website, Publisher of Website*, URL. 

 

Example

 

* Note: MLA says that if the title of a website and the publisher of the website are the same, you do not need to repeat it in the citation. We included it in this citation to let readers know what the NACCHO acronym stands for. 

 

Important things to notice about webpage citations:

  • A lot of webpages don't have a specific author listed. That's OK! Just skip the author and start the citation at "Title of Webpage."

  • MLA says that if the title of a website and the publisher of the website are the same, you do not need to repeat it in the citation.

  • A lot of webpages don't have dates. That's OK! Just skip the date and go right from Title of Website, to either the website publisher or the URL (depending on whether or not the publisher is different from the website title).

  • When you copy and paste the URL into your webpage citations, take off the http:// or https:// at the beginning: MLA does not require it. 

  • Type a period at the end of your URL. 

  • MLA does not require access dates (the date you looked at the webpage) unless a source changes frequently (like a Wikipedia entry). Some professors may require accessed dates, too, so if you need to include one, just pop it at the very end of the citation and format it as Accessed Day Month. Year (example: Accessed 24 Apr. 2020). 

Citing a Film (without a specific format noted)

Format

Film Title. Directed by Director, Film Distributor, Year.

 

Example

 

Citing YouTube videos

Format

"Video Title." YouTube Channel, Date, URL. 

 

Example

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Citing Films from Streaming Services (e.g., Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime)

Format

Film Title. Directed by Director, Film Distributor, Year. Streaming Service, URL. 

 

Example

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Citing TV Episodes from Streaming Services (e.g., Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime)

Format

"Title of Episode." TV Show, season #, episode #, TV Network, Date. Streaming Platform, URL. 

 

Example

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Citing Videos on DVD

Format

Film Title. Directed by Director, Film Distributor, Year, DVD. 

 

Example

 

Emphasizing a specific performer or director:

Format

Performer Name, performer. Film Title. Film Distributor, Year, DVD. 

 

Example

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Important things to notice about video/film citations:

  • If you want to emphasize a particular aspect of a film (like its director, performers, or writers), start the citation as if that person(s) were an author and include a word describing their role afterward, like in the Moana citation above. 

  • When you create in-text citations for videos, include the timestamp of the part of you're citing in the place where page numbers would normally go. In this example, I'm citing Cravalho's performance in Moana from minutes 30 - 32 in the film:

(Cravalho  00:30:00 - 00:32:00)

Citing an Image from the Web 

Format

Image Creator. Title of Image. Collection or Publisher, Date. Image Aggregator, URL. 

 

Example

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Important things to notice about image citations:

  • If you can't find one of the citation pieces for your image, that's OK! Just include as many citation elements as you can find.  

  • If an image doesn't have a specific title, you can create a title by describing it: 

Photograph of Women Holding Protest Signs at March. 

Most databases will format citations in MLA for you, but you always need to double check them!

Format:

Author. "Title of Article." Title of Publication, vol. #, no. #, Date, pp. ## - ##. Database Name, DOI or Permalink. 

 

Example:

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Important things to notice about database citations:

  • Databases do a good job of putting the right citation elements in the right order, but they do not do a good job on formatting: always double-check and edit database citations so they follow MLA formatting rules of Times New Roman font, 12 pt size, double spacing, and hanging indents. 

  • Citations from a database include the database name. If you are using an EBSCO database, the automatic citation will put in EBSCOhost as the database name: change that to the specific EBSCO database you used (like Academic Search Complete, Literary Reference Center, etc.)

  • Citations from a database will end in either a DOI (digital object identifier) or a URL. Remove the http:// from in front of a DOI or URL if the database includes it.  

  • Scroll down or visit the Citing Database Sources in MLA page in this guide for examples on correcting MLA citations from different library databases. 

 

Citing Journal Articles and eBooks from EBSCO Databases

 

 

 

Citing Something from the Credo Reference Database