The Purdue OWL is an amazing resource that gives great examples of how to cite different materials in MLA. Your citations in MLA will change slightly depending on the format of the work that you are using. Citing a book is slightly different than citing an article.
The Purdue OWL: MLA Formatting and Style Guide is a wonderful resource that breaks down how to cite different formats in MLA.
The Excelsior OWL is also a great resource for learning how to cite in formats like MLA.
For more information, check out our citing sources library guide.
For more information and examples of citations, please be sure to check out these additional resources:
Citations are short, yet thorough, references to another's work within your own writing, particularly in scholarship and academic communities.
So why are they important and necessary for us to understand AND be able to use?
Finally, citing your sources accurately & fully is the best way to avoid plagiarism!
There are many different kinds of citation styles out there, but the Big 3 are:
Each style is utilized in specific disciplines. For example, MLA and Chicago tend to be utilized in The Humanities disciplines, while APA is used in the social and health sciences.
MLA is most commonly used to cite sources within in the liberal arts, specifically the humanities.
What does that really mean?:
When you cite in MLA, you use parenthetical citations for your in-text citations and a works-cited page at the end of your paper.
A typical MLA citation will include:
What does an in-text citation typically look like?:
Wordsworth stated that Romantic poetry was marked by a "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" (263).
Romantic poetry is characterized by the "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" (Wordsworth 263).Wordsworth extensively explored the role of emotion in the creative process (263).*
What does a Works Cited citation typically look like?:
Your works-cited page and your in-text citations should line up with each other - meaning that if you include an in-text citation, you will be able to find more detailed information about that source in the complete works-cited list.
For example the in-text citation might read, "(Worsdworth, 263)" - indicating the author's last name, and the page used in the paper.
The works-cited citation for that book would be:
Wordsworth, William. Lyrical Ballads. London: Oxford UP, 1967.
The general format for a citation in your works-cited list in MLA will more or less follow this guideline:
Author Last Name, Author First Name. Title of the Book. Publisher Location: Name of Publisher, Year of Publication.
For a peer-reviewed journal article you find through a library database, you can use the following template:
Author(s). "Title of Article." Title of Journal, Volume, Issue, Year, pages.