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MLA Citation

A guide to citing sources according to the Modern Language Association Handbook

Works Cited

All of the items cited in your in-text citations should appear in your works cited at the end of your paper. MLA uses a template of core elements for its citation format. Here is the basic template:

1
Author.
2
Title of Source.

Container

3
Title of Container,
4
Contributor,
5
Version,
6
Number,
7
Publisher,
8
Publication Date,
9
Location.

Some sources can have multiple containers (such as an article published in a journal and contained in a database).

See tabs for guidance on works cited formatting divided by type of source.

Works Cited Format & Order

Format

The list of works cited should appear on at the end of the paper.

The list should be titled "Works Cited" and centered  with a 1 inch top margin.

The entire list should be double-spaced, including between the title and first entry.

All entries running more than one line should have a hanging indent of 0.5 inches.

Order

Entries should be ordered alphabetically by the beginning part of the entry, which could be a name, title, or description depending on the source.

If two works have the same title, order them chronologically. You can use oldest-to-newest or newest-to-oldest, but be consistent throughout the works cited list.

Initial articles (a, an, the) are ignored for alphabetization and omitted for corporate authors (i.e. United Nations not The United Nations).

For ordering multiple works by one author:

  • Alphabetize by the next element of the entry (usually title).
  • Give the author's name in the first entry only. Subsequent entries open with three em dashes in place of the author name.

Shakespeare, William. Coriolanus. Edited by Philip Brockbank, Methuen, 1976.

——. The Tragedy of King Lear. Edited by Tucker Brooke and William Lyon Phelps, Yale University Press, 1947.

  • If the named person performed different roles (author, editor, translator) in the different works, list that role following the three em dashes and and comma.

Behr, John. Asceticism and Anthropology in Irenaeus and Clement. Reprint ed., Oxford University Press, 2017.

——, editor. The Case Against Diodore and Theodore: Texts and Their Contexts. Oxford University Press, 2011.

——. “Nature, Wounded and Healed in Early Patristic Thought,” Toronto Journal of Theology, vol. 29, no. 1, 2013, 85–100.

  • If an author is cited for both single-author works and as coauthor in multiauthor works, list the single-author works first, alphabetized, then the coauthored works.

For ordering multiple works by two authors:

  • When two or more entries between with the same name, alphabetize by the surname of the second author (even though the surname comes after the first name).
  • For multiple entries by the same two authors, use the guidance for multiple entries by one author above.

For ordering multiple works by more than two authors:

  • For works with the same set of more than two authors, use the method for two authors, but list the name of the first author followed by "et al." After the first entry, replace all author names with em dashes as described above.
  • For works with the same lead author, but different coauthors or coauthor names in a different order, use "et al." as above, but do not use em dashes in place of names to make it clear that the set of authors is different (even if they all appear as Lead Author, et al.).