MLA 9 citation rules: a complete reference
The ninth edition of the MLA Handbook kept the elegant containers model from the eighth edition and added more worked examples plus formal advice on inclusive language. This guide explains how the system actually works, with worked examples for ten source types you are likely to cite.
The Modern Language Association published the ninth edition of the MLA Handbook in April 2021. The biggest change was not the rules themselves but how the handbook explains them. The eighth edition had introduced a single template called "Core Elements" that replaced the long list of format patterns used in the seventh edition. The ninth edition kept that template and added back the worked examples that some teachers missed. If you only ever learn one thing about MLA, learn the template.
The MLA template of core elements
Every Works Cited entry in MLA 9 is built from nine core elements, in this order: Author, Title of Source, Title of Container, Other Contributors, Version, Number, Publisher, Publication Date, Location. Each element ends with a specific punctuation mark. The author finishes with a period; the title of the source ends with a period; container elements end with commas until the very last one, which closes with a period. Once you internalise the rhythm, you can build a citation for almost any source by walking down the list and filling in what you have.
The "container" concept is the heart of the system. A container is whatever the source you are citing sits inside. A journal article sits inside a journal. A film on a streaming platform sits inside Netflix. A short story in an anthology sits inside the anthology, which itself might sit inside a larger collected works edition. MLA 9 lets you nest containers when you need to, separating each level with the appropriate punctuation. The handbook calls this approach "documentation as practice" because it asks you to think about the source rather than match it to a fixed format.
Here is the order of the nine elements with the punctuation that follows each one. Keep this table beside you the first few times you build an entry by hand, and the rhythm stops feeling arbitrary.
| Position | Core element | Ends with | Example fragment |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Author | Period | Smith, Zadie. |
| 2 | Title of source | Period | "Memory and Metaphor." |
| 3 | Title of container | Comma | Modern Fiction Studies, |
| 4 | Other contributors | Comma | edited by Mona Eltahawy, |
| 5 | Version | Comma | expanded ed., |
| 6 | Number | Comma | vol. 65, no. 4, |
| 7 | Publisher | Comma | Penguin, |
| 8 | Publication date | Comma | 2019, |
| 9 | Location | Period | pp. 612-635. |
Elements three through eight all belong to one container, so they take commas. The last element you actually supply closes the container with a period. If a second container follows, the same pattern repeats: commas inside, period to close. You skip any element you do not have. A book with one author and no editor simply runs author, title, publisher, date, and that is a complete, correct entry.
In-text citations
MLA uses author-page citations rather than the author-date used by APA. The usual parenthetical form is (Smith 42), with no comma between the surname and the page number. If the author is named in the sentence, only the page number goes in parentheses: Smith argues that the symbol becomes a fixture of the genre (42). For two authors, name both: (Smith and Patel 17). For three or more, use the first author followed by "et al.": (Garcia et al. 204).
When you cite a source with no pagination, such as a website, omit the number. Do not invent paragraph numbers unless the source itself uses them. For a source with explicit paragraph or section numbering, write "par. 4" or "sec. 2". If you have two sources by the same author, add a short title to disambiguate: (Smith, Symbol 42) versus (Smith, Genre 11).
Block quotations begin a new line, are indented half an inch from the left margin, and the parenthetical citation goes after the final punctuation. The threshold in MLA 9 is four lines of prose or three lines of verse.
If you have written essays in more than one discipline, you have probably mixed MLA up with APA at some point. They are easy to confuse because both rely on an in-text marker and an end-of-paper list, but the details differ at almost every step. This table covers the choices that most often get crossed.
| Decision | MLA 9 | APA 7 |
|---|---|---|
| In-text marker | Author and page: (Smith 42) | Author and year: (Smith, 2021) |
| List heading | Works Cited | References |
| List title style | Plain, centred | Bold, centred |
| Title capitalisation | Title Case (most words capitalised) | Sentence case (first word only) |
| Author names | First author reversed, full first names | All authors reversed, initials only |
| Three or more authors | "et al." in text from first cite | "et al." in text from first cite |
| Date position | Near the end, after publisher | Second element, after author |
| DOI label | https://doi.org/ link | https://doi.org/ link |
If your course uses APA instead, the APA 7 citation rules guide walks through the same source types in that style, and the differences in author formatting and date placement become a lot clearer once you see both side by side.
Works Cited entries
The Works Cited list starts on its own page at the end of the paper, with "Works Cited" centred at the top in plain text (no bold, no italics, no underlining). Entries are alphabetised by the author's surname, double spaced, and use a hanging indent of half an inch. The same font and size as the rest of the paper carries through.
Book by one author
Smith, Zadie. White Teeth. Hamish Hamilton, 2000.
Note the title in italics, the publisher with no city, and the year. MLA dropped the city of publication after the seventh edition.
Book by two authors
Reverse the first author's name, then write the second in normal order joined by "and".
Goodwin, James, and Anya Reed. Reading the Modernist Page. Oxford UP, 2018.
Edited book chapter
Chapter authors come first, then chapter title in quotation marks, then the container (the book) in italics, then the editors, publisher, year, and page range.
Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. "We Should All Be Feminists." Feminist Solidarity Now, edited by Mona Eltahawy, Penguin, 2019, pp. 45-62.
Journal article
Journals are containers. The article title in quotation marks comes first, then the journal name in italics, then volume, issue, year, page range, and DOI or URL.
Patel, Riya. "Memory and Metaphor in Late Joyce." Modern Fiction Studies, vol. 65, no. 4, 2019, pp. 612-635. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.1353/mfs.2019.0033.
The database name in italics (JSTOR, Project MUSE, ProQuest) functions as a second container, because the article sits inside the journal which sits inside the database.
Article from a newspaper website
Hern, Alex. "What the New EU AI Rules Actually Do." The Guardian, 12 Mar. 2024, www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/mar/12/eu-ai-act-explained.
MLA 9 drops the "https://" from URLs in Works Cited entries by default, though you can include the protocol if your tutor prefers. Always include the full date for newspaper articles.
Page on a website
For a single page on a website with no clear publication date, give the most specific date you can find and add an access date at the end.
World Health Organization. "Mental Health: Strengthening Our Response." WHO, 17 June 2022, www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/mental-health. Accessed 4 May 2024.
Film or television episode
For a film, the director often comes first if your discussion centres on their work. For a television episode, name the episode in quotation marks and the series in italics.
"Pine Barrens." The Sopranos, written by Tim Van Patten and Terence Winter, directed by Steve Buscemi, season 3, episode 11, HBO, 6 May 2001.
YouTube video
Treat YouTube as a container. The uploader is the publisher unless they are the same as the author, in which case you omit the duplicate.
Veritasium. "The Surprising Genius of Sewing Machines." YouTube, 12 Aug. 2023, www.youtube.com/watch?v=sewing-machine-physics.
Podcast episode
Glass, Ira, host. "The Retrievals." This American Life, episode 765, WBEZ Chicago, 1 Apr. 2022, www.thisamericanlife.org/765.
Tweet or short social media post
MLA 9 treats social posts like other short works. Use the author's handle in parentheses after their real name if both are known, then the text of the post in quotation marks (up to a sensible length), the platform name in italics, the date and time, and the URL.
Roy, Arundhati [@ArundhatiRoyOfc]. "Another world is not only possible, she is on her way." X, 8 Mar. 2024, twitter.com/ArundhatiRoyOfc/status/1234567890.
The containers model in practice
The reason MLA 9 is easier than people fear is that the same template covers the long list of formats that older editions itemised. A film on Criterion Channel and an academic article in JSTOR look superficially different, but the bones are identical: source, container, publisher, date, location. Once you stop hunting for the "right format" and start asking which container holds the source, the choices fall into place.
For nested containers, finish one container before starting the next. A film you streamed on Criterion would be: Stalker. Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, Mosfilm, 1979. The Criterion Channel, www.criterion.com. The first period ends the source. The container The Criterion Channelthen takes its own location. The handbook lays out exactly this kind of example in chapter 5.
Quoting and paraphrasing
Short quotations sit inside your paragraph with double quotation marks. If you change a word for grammar, use square brackets. If you cut material, mark the omission with three spaced periods: . . . inside the quotation. Single quotation marks are used only for a quotation inside a quotation.
Paraphrasing in MLA still requires a citation. The handbook is firm on this point: you cite for ideas, not only for quoted phrases. If you summarise an entire chapter, the citation goes at the end of the summary; if you weave specific ideas from different chapters, cite each one where it appears.
Punctuation rhythm in Works Cited
Punctuation is where MLA novices most often slip. The handbook insists on a specific rhythm. After the author's full name, a period. After the title of the source, a period. After every element inside a container, a comma. After the last element of a container, a period. If a second container follows (the database that holds the journal that holds the article), repeat the pattern: commas inside, period to close. The period at the end of an entry is the visible signal that the entry has finished.
URLs and DOIs end with a period in MLA 9. Some online style guides drop the final period because clicking a URL with a trailing dot can break the link, but the handbook is firm: the period is part of the punctuation of the entry, not of the URL itself. Print readers will appreciate the closure; most browsers strip a trailing period when resolving the URL anyway.
Multiple works by the same author
When you cite two or more works by the same author, MLA 9 replaces the name in the second and later entries with three em dashes (also written as a 3-em dash) followed by a period. Within the cluster, alphabetise by title, ignoring articles like "A", "An", and "The" at the start of titles. The cluster sits in the standard alphabetical position of the author's surname within the overall Works Cited list.
Smith, Zadie. NW. Hamish Hamilton, 2012.
---. On Beauty. Hamish Hamilton, 2005.
---. White Teeth. Hamish Hamilton, 2000.
In-text citations for these works disambiguate with a short title: (Smith, White Teeth 47) versus (Smith, On Beauty 112). The italics on the book title carry over from the Works Cited entry; an article title would sit in quotation marks instead.
Common mistakes and how to fix them
Most marks lost on MLA are not lost on the hard cases. They are lost on a handful of small habits that repeat across every entry. Here are the ones that examiners flag most, with the correction.
Putting a comma between author and page in text
The most common slip is writing (Smith, 42) with a comma, which is the APA habit bleeding through. MLA uses no comma between the surname and the page number: it is (Smith 42). The comma only appears when you add a short title to disambiguate two works by the same author, as in (Smith, White Teeth 47).
Listing the city of publication
Older worksheets still tell students to write "London: Penguin, 2019." MLA dropped the place of publication after the seventh edition. In MLA 9 you give the publisher and the year only: Penguin, 2019. If you see a city in your entry, delete it.
Italicising the wrong title in a container
Within a container, the smaller work takes quotation marks and the larger work that holds it takes italics. An article title sits in quotation marks while the journal is italicised; an episode title sits in quotation marks while the series is italicised. The error is flipping them, so a chapter title ends up italicised and the book it sits in ends up in quotation marks. Ask which thing contains the other: the container is always the one in italics.
Faking the hanging indent with the space bar or tab key
A hanging indent is a paragraph setting, not a row of spaces. Typing spaces or hitting Tab at the start of the second line looks right until you change the font or add an entry, at which point the alignment collapses. Apply a real hanging indent of half an inch: in Word, select the entries and press Ctrl+T; in Google Docs, use Format, then Align and indent, then Indentation options, and choose Hanging.
Citing only direct quotations
A paraphrase needs a citation just as a quotation does. Students often cite the lines they put in quotation marks and silently absorb the surrounding paraphrased ideas without a reference. That is accidental plagiarism. If the idea came from a source, it gets an in-text citation, quotation marks or not. The paraphrasing without plagiarising guide shows how far you have to rework a passage before it counts as your own wording, and the plagiarism cross-check tool helps you spot passages that stayed too close to the original.
Inventing page numbers for a website
Web pages usually have no fixed pagination, so you omit the number entirely rather than guessing one. Only use "par." or "sec." numbers when the source itself prints them. A citation like (Hern par. 3) for an article that has no numbered paragraphs is wrong; just write (Hern).
Mixing up "Works Cited" with "Bibliography"
MLA papers head the list "Works Cited," not "Bibliography" and not "References." Each of those words belongs to a different style or a different scope. The MLA list contains only the sources you actually cited in the paper, so a source that never earns an in-text citation does not appear on it.
Formatting the paper itself
MLA 9 expects a readable serif or sans-serif font in 11 or 12 point, double spacing throughout, one-inch margins on all sides, and the writer's surname with the page number in the top right corner of every page. There is no separate title page; instead, the first page carries the writer's name, tutor, course, and date in the upper left, with the title centred above the first paragraph. Headings are optional in shorter papers; if you use them, MLA suggests numbered or bolded levels but does not prescribe a single scheme.
Frequently asked questions
Does MLA 9 use a bibliography or a Works Cited page?
MLA calls the list Works Cited, and it includes only the sources you actually cited in the paper. A bibliography in the broader sense lists everything you consulted, cited or not, which is closer to what MLA calls a Works Consulted list. For a standard MLA paper, use Works Cited and put every source that has an in-text citation, and nothing else, on it.
Do I include the URL in an MLA Works Cited entry?
Yes, for online sources you include the location, which is usually a URL or a DOI. MLA 9 prefers a DOI when one exists because it is stable. By default you drop the https:// from a plain URL, though you can keep it if your tutor asks. A DOI is written in full as a clickable link beginning with https://doi.org/.
How do I cite a source with no author in MLA 9?
Begin the entry with the title instead of an author, and alphabetise by the first significant word of the title (ignore A, An, and The). In your in-text citation, use a shortened version of the title in place of the surname, italicised for a long work or in quotation marks for a short one, followed by the page number if there is one.
What is the difference between MLA 8 and MLA 9?
The rules barely changed. MLA 9 kept the core-elements template that MLA 8 introduced, so any citation you built correctly under MLA 8 is still correct. What MLA 9 added is presentation: worked examples for many source types, fuller chapters on mechanics and formatting, and formal guidance on inclusive language. If you learned MLA 8, you already know MLA 9.
How do I cite a source I found in a database like JSTOR?
Treat the database as a second container. Build the entry for the article inside its journal first (author, article title, journal name, volume, issue, year, pages), then add the database name in italics and the DOI or stable URL. The article sits inside the journal, which sits inside the database, so you finish the first container with a period and then give the second.
Where does the in-text citation go relative to the full stop?
For a normal sentence, the parenthetical citation comes before the closing full stop: the symbol recurs throughout the novel (Smith 42). For a block quotation of more than four lines of prose or three lines of verse, the citation goes after the final punctuation of the quotation, with no full stop after the parenthesis.
Do I need to cite a paraphrase, or only direct quotations?
You cite both. MLA is explicit that you credit ideas, not just quoted words. A paraphrase that borrows another author's reasoning or findings needs an in-text citation even though no quotation marks appear. Failing to cite a paraphrase is one of the most common forms of accidental plagiarism.
What to do next
Build clean Works Cited entries with the Phrasit citation generator, then check the prose around them with the grammar checker and confirm you are inside the assignment limit with the word counter.
For the source types students cite most, the dedicated walkthroughs go deeper than the summary entries above: see how to cite a journal article, how to cite a website, and the roundup of common citation mistakes. When you are ready to assemble the argument around your sources, essay structure covers weaving quotations in rather than dropping them on the page.
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