MLA Style Guide

As part of MLA style, you are required to have a Works Cited page at the end of your research paper. This is important because it gives credit to the original content creators and allows readers to locate sources you referenced in your paper by providing complete publication information for each of those resources.

Formatting

For your Works Cited page:

• Include the words "Works Cited" centered at the top of the page (NOT bolded, underlined, italicized, in a larger font, or in quotation marks)
• Double-space, alphabetize, and apply a hanging indent (all but the first line is indented) to each entry
• For works with 3 or more authors, use the first author's full name followed by "et al."
• Italicize larger works and use quotation marks for shorter works
• Use "p." for a single page, and "pp." for a range of pages
  • Ex: "p. 3" vs. "pp. 20-25"
• Include website URLs or DOI numbers
• For journals, use the season or month in addition to the volume and issue numbers
  • Ex: vol. 22, no. 4, June 2016

Citations may vary here and there depending on the source or the amount of publication information you have available to you, but they all follow the same formula:

Author. Title of Source. Title of Container (such as a journal title), Other contributors, Version, Number, Publisher, Publication Date, Location.

This guide covers some common examples below.

Book with One Author

• Sword, Helen. Stylish Academic Writing. Harvard U, 2012.

Book with Two Authors

• Morentson, Greg and David Oliver Relin. Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace...One School at a Time. Penguin Books, 2007.

Book with Three or More Authors

• Howe, Roger J., et al. Quality on Trial. West Publishing Company, 1993.

Reference Book, such as a print encyclopedia

• "Neurodevelopmental Disorders." American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: DSM-5. 5th ed., American Psychiatric Association, 2013, pp. 31-86.
• Booker, Keith M. "English Dystopian Satire in Context." A Companion to the British and Irish Novel: 1945-2000, edited by Brian W. Shaffer, Blackwell, 2005, pp. 32-44.

When the reference book is part of a multi-volume set:

If you only use one volume:

• "Rabies." Infectious Diseases. Edited by Brenda Wilmoth Lerner and K. Lee Lerner. Vol 2, Thompson/Gale, 2008.

If you use two or more volumes from the same set:

• Taruskin, Richard, editor. The Oxford History of Western Music. Oxford U P, 2005. 6 vols.

An eBook from EBSCOhost

• Benson, Michael. Why the Grateful Dead Matter. Ebook Collection (EBSCOhost), ForeEdge, 2016. https://carlowuniversity.on.worldcat.org/oclc/918940854

An eBook from Google Books

• Curtin, Jeremiah. Hero-Tales of Ireland. Little, Brown, 1921. Google Books. books.google.com/books?
       id=2zHaAAAAMAAJ&dq=ireland&pg=PR4#v=onepage&q=ireland&f=false

An eBook downloaded from a Kindle

• Lupi, Giorgia and Stefanie Posavec. Dear Data. Kindle ed., Princeton Architectural Press, 2016.

An Introduction, Preface, Forward, or Afterward

• Hardy, Doug. Introduction. Career wisdom for college students: Insights you won't get in class, on the Internet, or from your parents. Ferguson, 2007, pp. vii-x.

A Short Story or Poem

• Sexton, Anne. "Funnel." To Bedlam and Part Way Back."  Houghton Mifflin Company, 1960, pp. 28-29.

A Work in an Anthology

• Zaimof, Gueni. "The Star Obscure." Women on War: An International anthology of writings from Antiquity to the present, edited by Daniela Gioseffi, Feminist Press at the City U of New York, 2003, p. 131.

The Bible

• The Bible. The New American version, Catholic Bible, 1991.

Article from a Print Journal

• Bathgate, Meghan E., et al. “Children’s Motivation Toward Science Across Contexts, Manner of Interaction, and Topic.” Science Education, vol. 98, no. 2, Mar. 2014, pp. 189–215. 

Article from a Print Magazine

If the magazine you are citing is published every week or every other week, give the complete date in the citation. if not, include the month and year.

• Brindley, David. “Forests, For Life.” National Geographic, vol. 241, no. 5, 1 May 2022, pp. 4–5.
• Houser, Mark, et al. “A History of Pittsburgh in 50 Artifacts.” Pittsburgh Magazine, Mar. 2017, pp. 42–73.

Article from Online Journal

Make a note of which database you are searching and the date you accessed the information, as you will need to include this information in your reference list.

• Strach, Patricia, and Kathleen S. Sullivan. “The Tradeoff Between Corruption and Capacity: The Case of Nineteenth Century St. Louis and Pittsburgh.” Public Integrity, Jan. 2025, pp. 1–13. EBSCOhost, https://research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=712a5605-ab99-35cf-8196-7d4caae4c00c.
• Barrett, James R. “Americanization from the Bottom Up: Immigration and the Remaking of the Working Class in the United States, 1880-1930.” The Journal of American History, vol. 79, no. 3, 1992, pp. 996–1020. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/2080796.

Reference Database, such as Issues & Controversies

• “Cell Phone Bans.” Issues & Controversies, Infobase, 2 June 2025, https://icof.infobase.com/articles/QXJ0aWNsZVRleHQ6NTU0MzQxNg==?aid=95504.
• "Caravaggio." Britannica Academic, Encyclopædia Britannica, 13 Feb. 2025. academic.eb.com/levels/collegiate/article/Caravaggio/20229. 

Journal Article Free Online

• Tomaselli, Keyan G, and Damien R Tomaselli. “New Media: Ancient Signs of Literacy, Modern Signs of Tracking.” New Techno Humanities, vol. 1, no. 1, Dec. 2021, p. 100002. ScienceDirect, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techum.2021.100002.

Online Video

• Hendren, Robert L. "Robert Hendren, D.O.: Autism." American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. May 2008, www.aacap.org/AACAP/Families_and_Youth/Resource_Centers/Autism_Resource_Center/Home.aspx.

YouTube Video

• "Dixmont: Breakdown of Mental Hospital." YouTube, uploaded by WQED, 13 May, 2020, https://youtu.be/LkyZWMvnLWI?si=xRpGKoi0Ktvy7K3I.