This page will explain how to cite sources on an MLA Style Works Cited page. This list will focus on the most common kinds of sources. Use the examples below to learn how to format the citation for each kind of source. Remember that Works Cited page citations should be double spaced, with a hanging indent, and each citation in alphabetical order by the author’s last name.
Journal Articles
Journal article citations begin with author last name, followed by first name, article title, journal title, volume and issue number, month, year, page numbers, database name, and the link or DOI.
Books/eBooks
Books are simple to cite. Citations begins with author last name and first initial, book title in italics, the name of the publisher, and finally the year of publication. The format is the same for books or eBooks.
Crichton, Michael. Jurassic Park. Random House, 1990.
Website article with an author and a date of publication
It’s always best to find websites with the author name and date of publication if you can. Here is an example of one.
Website article with no author or publication date
Many websites will not include important information like author name and date of publication. The citation for these will begin with the website article title, then the name of the website, and lastly the URL. Since there is no publication date include the date you accessed the website at the end.
Textbooks
How you cite a textbook will be vary depending on if it has an author or an editor.
Here is how to cite a textbook with an author. This also shows how to cite a textbook with more than one edition.
Here is an example of citing a textbook that has an editor instead of an author.
YouTube
Citing YouTube videos begins with the title in quotation marks, YouTube in italics, the name of who uploaded the video, the date it was uploaded, and finally the URL. If using YouTube try to find videos that were uploaded by trustworthy sources.
Citing images or works of art
Here is an example of a work of art. Ideally, you will locate the artwork on the website of the museum that owns it. The museum will provide all the information you need for a citation.
Bearden, Romare. The Train. 1975. MOMA, www.moma.org/collection/works/65232
Citing an image from a webpage
Some images you find won’t have a known artist or author, they will be inserted in a webpage without any details about them. In this case, describe the image in the body of the paper and then cite the article itself in-text. This will key in the reader that the image comes from the article. For your references page, cite the webpage as usual.
Jyothi, Arya. “This Project Cuts Emissions by Putting Data Centers Inside Wind Turbines.” CNN, 1 Oct. 2016. https://www.cnn.com/world/windcores-data-center-wind-turbines-climate-scn-spc-c2e/index.html
More details on citing images can be found on the MLA website here.
Citing AI Generated Text
Only use AI generated information in your paper if your professor allows it. When citing AI generated text on the works cited page you will skip the author. Instead, begin the citation with the prompt you gave the AI to generated a response. Next, you’ll include the name of the AI tool in italics (ChatGPT, Bard, etc.), followed by the version of the AI tool, then the publisher of the tool. Lastly, you include the date you accessed the AI and a link to the AI tool homepage. Here is an example,
Go to the MLA website here to learn more about citing AI.
If you still have questions about citing sources for an MLA Style Works Cited page consult the MLA Style website, the MLA Style Guide book in the Library collection, or contact [email protected]