MLA requires two parts: In-text citations throughout your paper and a Works Cited page at the end.
Jump to: In-text Citations | Works Cited
A Works Cited page at the end of your document has full citations in alphabetical order formatted with a hanging indent.
Last name, First name. Title of Container. Publisher, Year.
Morrison, Toni. The Bluest Eye. Knopf, 1993.
Sánchez Prado, Ignacio M., editor. Mexican Literature in Theory. Bloomsbury, 2018.
Bearden, Romare. The Train. 1975, MOMA, www.moma.org/collection/works/65232?locale=en.
Last name, First name. “Title of Smaller Work.” Title of Container, edited by First name Last name, Version, Number, Publisher, Year, Location (Pages, URL, or DOI).
Include as many of the above elements as possible. It is possible to have a second container as part of the Location; sometimes this is the database name, and it should also be italicized. For example:
Poe, Edgar Allan. "The Masque of the Red Death." The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, edited by James A. Harrison, vol. 4, Thomas Y. Crowell, 1902, pp. 250-58.
Simmons, William J. "Bad Feminism: On Queer-Feminist Relatability and the Production of Truth in Fleabag." Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media, vol. 61, no. 1, 2020, pp. 32–46, Project Muse, doi.org/10.13110/framework.61.1.0032.
Beyoncé. "Single Ladies." I Am... Sasha Fierce, Columbia Records, 2008.
"Places to Study." Southern Methodist University Libraries, www.smu.edu/libraries/spaces/places-study. Accessed 9 March 2022.
Data sets are not specifically covered in the MLA manual. Thus, if it is retrieved from online, cite it as similarly to a website as possible. Include accessed date if the data set will change.
Code Compliance Services Department, Consumer Health Division. "Restaurant and Food Establishment Inspections (Oct. 2016 to Present)." City of Dallas, 2023. www.dallasopendata.com/Services/Restaurant-and-Food-Establishment-Inspections-Octo/dri5-wcct. Accessed 15 May 2023.
Before using any generative AI tool, such as ChatGPT, for class assignments, refer to your syllabus and check with your professor for guidance.
For guidelines on citing generative AI in MLA, see the official MLA style website.
In-text citations include the author and page number and usually appear in parentheses at the end of a sentence before the period.
The author's name and page number are placed at the end of a sentence, before the closing punctuation mark.
If preferred, include the author or title of the cited work in the signal phrase by which you introduce the content. Then, the parentheses only contains the page number.
For short quotations, which consist of four typed lines or fewer of prose and three lines of verse, add quotation marks around the words and incorporate the quote into your own text. Include the author and page number in the parenthetical citation.
For longer quotations of more than 4 typed lines of text or more than 3 lines of poetic verse, format the quote in its own paragraph, with the entire section indented 1/2". Do not use quotation marks around it, and include the standard citation information at the end.
For example, if you wished to quote a longer section from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, that would be formatted as a block quote:
When the rabbit actually took a watch out of its waistcoat pocket, and looked at it and then hurried on, Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat pocket or a watch to take out of it, and burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge. (Carroll 10)
MLA Handbook (9th ed.) by 