5.3 MLA Overview & Basics

What is "MLA" Style?

The Modern Language Association (MLA) is a professional association for scholars of literature and language. Among other things, the MLA publishes a style manual for writing and citing sources, used primarily in the humanities (including most English classes).

MLA is one of several types of style guides. Other guides you may have encountered are American Psychological Association (APA), Chicago, or Council of Science Editors (CSE).

Good writers understand why they create citations. The reasons include demonstrating the thoroughness of the writer’s research, giving credit to original sources, and ensuring that readers can find the sources consulted in order to draw their own conclusions about the writer's argument. Writers achieve the goals of documentation by providing sufficient information in a comprehensible, consistent structure.

MLA Handbook

Citing Sources: The Basics

"In-Text" Citations

Citations in a research paper come in two general forms. The first form, an in-text or parenthetical citation, credits the sources you used within the body of your text or research paper.

The in-text citation alerts the reader that:

  1. You used another author’s words or ideas
  2. You will provide a complete citation at the end of the paper in the Works Cited list

To cite your source in-text:

  • Include the author’s last name within your sentence, and the page number in parentheses at the end of the sentence
  • Or, place both the author’s last name and the page number in parentheses at the end of the sentence
  • With sources that have no author, such as a Web page, include an abbreviated title and page number (if available)

In-Text Examples

  • According to Susan Cain, “excessive stimulation seems to impede learning: a recent study found that people learn better after a quiet stroll through the woods than after a noisy walk down a city street” (85). 
  • Or,  “A recent study found that people learn better after a quiet stroll through the woods than after a noisy walk down a city street” (Cain 85).
  • If the source has no author, cite the title, abbreviated: “The Cooper-Molera garden represents the methods and plantings available in 1860’s California” (“Secret Gardens”).

Citations in the "Works Cited" List

The second form of citation, in the Works Cited list, credits the sources you used in a bibliography at the end of your paper. Each citation in your Works Cited list expands the in-text citation you used in the body of your paper. Whereas the in-text citation normally comprises just an author and page number in parenthesis, an entry in the Works Cited is a specially-formatted, full citation that contains enough information for your reader to find the source.

Important: The in-text citation and entry in the Works Cited list are linked. Once you cite a source in the text of your paper, you must include a complete citation in the Works Cited list.

Works Cited Examples

Cain, Susan. Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking. Crown, 2012.

“The Secret Gardens of Old Monterey.” California Dept. of Parks and Recreation, 2017, www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=952.

MLA Handbook. 8th ed., Modern Language Association of America, 2016.

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