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Citations: MLA 9th Ed

What is MLA Style?

MLA (Modern Language Association) style is a citation style often used in the Humanities, especially in English literature, such as Composition and Rhetoric courses. 

Reminders

Remember to use a hanging indent for your Works Cited page (not shown in these examples).

Have a question about MLA that you don't see in these examples? Ask a librarian for help!

MLA 9th Ed. Examples

Websites (a short work with a title)

Author. "Title of the Short Work." Site Title. Name of the Sponsor, Date of publication or last update. url.

Civil War Trust. "Abraham Lincoln." Civil War Trust: Saving America's Civil War Battlefields. History and Google, 2014. https://www.battlefields.org/learn/topics/abraham-lincoln. 

Notes:

  • If no author is listed, begin with the title of the short work.
  • If no title insert a descriptive label in place of the title such as Home page or Online posting.

More examples HERE

Scholarly Journal Articles (from online databases)

Author last name, Author first name. "Title of the Article." Title of the Journal Volume and issue numbers separated by a period (year of publication): page numbers of article. location (url, doi, etc.)

Kirchner, Michael J. "Supporting Student Veteran Transition to College and Academic Success." Adult Learning 26.3 (2015): 116-123. www.jstor.org/stable/4578135.

More examples HERE

Books

Author last name, Author first name. Title. City of publication: Publisher's name, Date of publication. 

Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. New York: Vintage Books-Random House, 1984. 

More examples HERE

Generative AI (such as ChatGPT)

Author
MLA does not recommend treating the AI tool as an author.  

Title 
Describe what was generated by the AI tool, such as listing the prompt.  

Title of Container
Name the AI tool used (e.g., ChatGPT).

Version
Name the version of the AI tool as specifically as possible. (e.g. ChatGPT 3.5) This can provide information about a specific date to the version.

Publisher
Name the company that made the tool (e.g. OpenAI).

Date
Give the date the content was generated.

Location / URL
Give the general URL for the tool.

More examples HEREHERE and HERE (scroll down to find MLA)

Author not named in your text

When the author is not named in your signal phrase, provide their last name and the page number(s) in parentheses.

One researcher notes that, " the ideal program would retain body-worn camera (BWC) footage for months or even years, the cost of video storage can become prohibitive very quickly" (Pagliarella 534).

More examples HERE

An author named in your text

If the author is named in the signal phrase, finish with the page number in parentheses. 

Chris Pagliarella notes that, "the ideal program would retain body-worn camera (BWC) footage for months or even years, the cost of video storage can become prohibitive very quickly" (534).

More examples HERE

A work with more than three authors

You have two choices: a) Provide all of the authors' last names plus the page number(s), or b) provide only the first author's name followed by et al (Latin for "and others") and the page number(s).

a) Despite enthusiasm surrounding body-worn cameras (BWCs), "there has been no research on law enforcement command staff perceptions of BWCs (Smykla, Crow, Crichlow, and Snyder 424).

b) Despite enthusiasm surrounding body-worn cameras (BWCs), "there has been no research on law enforcement command staff perceptions of BWCs (Smykla et al.424).

More examples HERE

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