MLA 9 citation rules: a complete reference

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.

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.

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.

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.

What to do next

Build clean Works Cited entries with the Phrasit citation generator, check the prose around them with the grammar checker, and read essay structure for advice on weaving quotations into your argument rather than dropping them in.