Here's some examples of common MLA style citations. These rules and examples follow the rules outlined in the 8th edition of the MLA handbook, which is the most recent edition.
If you need to check a specific rule for MLA Style, you should consult the MLA Handbook. We have several copies available.
MLA Handbook by
The Modern Language Association, the authority on research and writing, takes a fresh look at documenting sources in the eighth edition of the MLA Handbook. Works are published today in a dizzying range of formats. A book, for example, may be read in print, online, or as an e-book--or perhaps listened to in an audio version. On the Web, modes of publication are regularly invented, combined, and modified. Previous editions of the MLA Handbook provided separate instructions for each format, and additional instructions were required for new formats. In this groundbreaking new edition of its best-selling handbook, the MLA recommends instead one universal set of guidelines, which writers can apply to any type of source. Shorter and redesigned for easy use, the eighth edition of the MLA Handbook guides writers through the principles behind evaluating sources for their research. It then shows them how to cite sources in their writing and create useful entries for the works-cited list. More than just a new edition, this is a new MLA style.
Sometimes it's helpful to see an example of all of the parts of a citation style in action. This Sample Paper, courtesy of the Purdue OWL, shows what a perfectly-formatted MLA paper should look like.
MLA Style uses parenthetical citations for in-text citations. In general, these in-text citations are formatted as (LastName Page#). If you use the source's last name within the sentence you're citing, all you need to include in the parenthesis is the page number.
For a non-print source (such as a website) you don't need to include page numbers. Instead, you'll just need to use the first item that appears in the Works Cited entry that corresponds to the citation. This could be an author name, an article name, the name of the website, etc.
See below for some examples.
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Author and page: Tolkien's work on translating Old English words may have influenced his Middle-Earth imagery (Lee 29). According to Lee, Tolkien's work on translating Old English words may have influenced his Middle-Earth imagery (29). Website with no author: This database contains information from multiple sources, including the British Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Fine Art ("Online Coins of the Roman Empire"). |
Need more help? More information, including even more examples, can be found on the Purdue OWL's MLA In-Text Citations page.
The basic formula for a book citation looks like this:
Last Name, First Name. Title of Book. City of Publication, Publisher, Publication Date, Location (pages, paragraphs, URL or DOI).
*Note: the City of Publication should only be used if the book was published before 1900, if the publisher has offices in more than one country, or if the publisher is unknown in North America.
However, if the book has an editor, or is an ebook, you'll need to add additional information to the citation. See the examples below:
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One author or editor: Cornwall, Jeffrey. Bootstrapping. Prentice Hall, 2010. More than one author or editor: Chandler, Marthe, and Ronnie Littlejohn, editors. Polishing the Chinese Mirror: Essays in Honor of Henry Rosemont, Jr. Global Scholarly Publications, 2008. Work in an edited collection: Fingarette, Herbert. "Getting Rights Right." Polishing the Chinese Mirror: Essays in Honor of Henry Rosemont, Jr., edited by Marthe Chandler and Ronnie Littlejohn, Global Scholarly Publications, 2008, pp. 110-126. |
Need more help? More information, including even more examples, can be found on the Purdue OWL's Works Cited Page: Books.
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Ebooks Many of the books you use from the library will be ebooks from one our ebook databases. Citations for ebooks closely resemble those for physical books, but you will also want to add the name of the database, the DOI or URL, and the date of access if you wish. Here is an example: Fry, Robert W. Performing Nashville: Music Tourism and Country Music's Main Street. Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2017. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/belmont-ebooks/detail.action?docID=4841608. For more help with citing ebooks, see Purdue OWL's MLA Works Cited: Electronic Sources page, and look at examples of how to cite AN ARTICLE FROM AN ONLINE DATBASE, and adapt it for an ebook. |
The basic formula for articles (whether it came from a scholarly journal, newspaper, or magazine) citations looks like this:
Last Name, First Name. "Title of Article." Title of Periodical, Day Month Year, pages.
If you accessed the article in a database, you'll need to add the name of the database and either the DOI or the URL. The date of access is optional.
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Journal: Bullington, Judy. "Thelma Johnson Streat and Cultural Synthesis on the West Coast." American Art, vol.19, no. 2, 2005, pp. 92-107. Magazine: Cranford, John. "Taking It to the Limit." CQ Weekly, 24 Jan. 2011, pp. 200-205. Newspaper: Cornwall, Jeff. "Service Gives Small Businesses Edge Over Big Guys." Tennessean, 20 June 2011, p. B3. Article from a database: Bullington, Judy. "Thelma Johnson Streat and Cultural Synthesis on the West Coast." American Art, vol. 19. no. 2, 2005, pp. 92-107. JSTOR, doi:10.1086/444483. Accessed 23 Jan. 2020. |
Need more help? More information, including even more examples, can be found on the Purdue OWL's MLA Works Cited Page: Periodicals page.
The basic formula for an MLA website citation looks like this:
Editor, author, or compiler name. Name of Site. Version number, Name of institution/organization affiliated with the site (sponsor or publisher), date of resource creation, URL, DOI or permalink. Date of access.
The date of access is optional but encouraged. In addition, sometimes you won't be able to find all of the information in the formula. That's ok; just try to make it as complete as possible. See the examples below.
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Page from a web site: Zielinski, Sarah. "Henrietta Lacks' 'Immortal' Cells." smithsonianmag.com. 22 Jan. 2010, www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/henrietta-lacks-immortal-cells-6421299/. Entire web site: |
Need more help? Curious about how you cite a tweet, email or Youtube comment? Check out the Purdue OWL's MLA Works Cited: Electronic Resources page for more information and examples!