MLA Rules: The Core Elements

Sources appear in a variety of mediums and forms. Books or articles can be in print, online, or both. Web pages may be part of a larger site, a blog, a tweet, an image, or a combination of all. To provide for this variety, MLA has developed a way to describe the essential parts of a source regardless of format. These parts, called “core elements,” are what to look for when preparing a citation.

The core elements for a citation in a Works Cited list are given below in the order in which they usually appear. Punctuation is also provided. For each source you use in your research paper, you will gather the core elements directly from the item or from the online record. If an element does not occur in a source, you can skip it and go on to the next available element.

Author.
Title of source.
Title of container,
Other contributors,
Version,
Number,
Publisher,
Publication date,
Location.

Let’s examine each core element, and see how it appears within an MLA citation:

Author

A single author should be written: Last name, First name Middle name
For two authors, only invert the first author's name. List the names in the order in which they appear on the source.
For three or more authors, use et al. (which means, ‘and others’).
When citing an edited book, add a descriptive label (“editor”) after the name.

Daniek, Michel A. Do It Yourself 12 Volt Solar Power. Permanent Publications, 2011.

Fothergill, Alice, and Lori Peek. Children of Katrina. U of Texas P, 2015.

Byatt, Andrew, et al. The Blue Planet: A Natural History of the Oceans. DK Publishers, 2001.

Haerens, Margaret, editor. Illegal Immigration. Greenhaven Press, 2012.

Title of Source

Include both the title and subtitle separated by a colon [:].
Capitalize the first word of the title and subtitle, plus all other important words.
Enclose in "quotation marks:"
- If the title is part of a larger work, such as a story in an anthology, an article in a journal, or a Web page from a Web site
Place in italics:
- If the title is a for an entire book, journal, or Web site

“Foiling the Plan of a Cyberbully.” National Science Foundation, 22 Nov. 2011, www.nsf.gov/discoveries/disc_summ.jsp?cntn_id=122372.

Williams, Jay. Life is Not an Accident: A Memoir of Reinvention. HarperCollins, 2016.

Title of Container

When a source is part of a larger work, the larger work is called the “container.”
The container is italicized and followed by a comma.
Containers can be:
- Periodicals (magazines, journals, newspapers)
- Anthologies (books which contain short stories, essays, poetry, etc.)
- Entire Web sites (which contain individual Web pages)
- Library or other online databases (which contain articles, books, etc.)

Twain, Mark. “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.” The Portable Mark Twain, edited by Tom Quirk. Penguin Books, 2004.

Moretti, Anthony. "On Your Marks, Get Set, Spend: Money, TV, and the Olympic Games." Phi Kappa Phi Forum, vol. 96, no. 2, 2016, pp. 13-15. Academic Search Complete, 0-search.ebscohost.com.library.cabrillo.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=cookie,ip,url&db=a9h&AN=115637343&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

Other Contributors

Contributors other than the author are named in the entry if they are important to your research or the identification of the source (i.e. editors and translators).
When citing a source with both an author and editor, list the author first and the editor after the title of the source.

Steinbeck, John. Steinbeck: A Life in Letters. Edited by Elaine Steinbeck and Robert Wallsten, Penquin Books, 1976.

Version

If a source carries a notation that it is a work in more than one form (i.e. book edition), identify the version.

7th ed.
Expanded ed.

Stephens, Mitchell. A History of the News. 3rd ed., Oxford UP, 2007.

Number

Journals are typically numbered with volume (vol.) and issue numbers (no.).
If you are using a multi-volume set, include the volume (vol.) number.

Yetter, Georgette. “Exercise-Based School Obesity Prevention: An Overview.” Psychology in the Schools, vol. 46, no. 8, 2009, pp. 739-47. ERIC, doi:10.1002/pits.20412.

Lucas, Ann Lawson. “Ferdinand the Bull.” The Oxford Encyclopedia of Children’s Literature, editor-in-chief, Jack Zipes, vol. 2, Oxford UP, 2006, p. 134.

Publisher

Only include the first publisher listed, unless the source was published by multiple independent organizations. Separate independent publishers with a forward slash [/].
Abbreviate publisher names in the following cases:
- Omit business words like Company, Corporation, Incorporated, and Limited
- Replace University Press with UP (i.e. Oxford UP, U of California P, MIT P).
A publisher’s name may be completely omitted for the following types of sources:
- Web page whose publisher is the same as the name of the overall website
- Periodical (journal, magazine, newspaper)
- Work published by the author

Goodin, Robert E., et al. Discretionary Time: A New Measure of Freedom. Cambridge UP, 2008.

Nguyen, Huan. History of the Book. U of California P / Bibliographic Society of America, 2015.

Publication Date

Dates should be given as fully as they appear in your sources.
If multiple dates are listed, cite the date most meaningful to your use of the source.
Format as: Day Month Year. Abbreviate the names of months longer than 4 letters.

22 Apr. 2018

July 2014

Spring 2008

Location

In print sources, a page number (preceded by p.) or a range of page numbers (preceded by pp.) specifies the location.
In online sources, location is indicated by the URL, DOI, or Permalink.
- URL: Copy in full from your Web browser, but omit http:// or https://
- DOI: Journal articles are often assigned “Digital Object Identifiers”. When possible, cite a DOI (preceded by doi:) instead of the URL.
- Permalink: Web sources (especially Library databases) often provide stable URLs, called “permalinks”. When possible, use these instead of the URL.

“Aretha Franklin: It Won’t Be Long, 1964.” YouTube, uploaded by Soul Roulette, 25 Aug. 2013, www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1p92gQTQCg.

Hansen, James T. "The Relevance of Postmodernism to Counselors and Counseling Practice." Journal of Mental Health Counseling, vol. 37, no. 4, 2015, pp. 355-63. MasterFILE Premier, doi: 10.17744/mehc.37.4.06.

Borushko, Matthew C. "The Politics of Subreption: Resisting the Sublime in Shelley's 'Mont Blanc'." Studies in Romanticism, vol. 52, no. 2, 2013, pp. 225-52. Academic Search Complete, 0-search.ebscohost.com.library.cabrillo.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=cookie,ip,url&db=a9h&AN=90408782&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

MLA Handbook. 9th ed., Modern Language Association of America, 2021.