Are you interested in what influences the guidance around documentation? The MLA Handbook provides details about each of the core elements and provides hundreds of citation examples. Understanding the template of core elements (pictured) and the punctuation after each element will help you cite all sources.
If you cannot find one of the elements, leave that element out of your citation. For example, if you cannot identify the author, skip author and start your citation with the title. There is one exception. Never omit the title. If your source does not have a title, provide a concise and informative description.
The author is the main creator of the work (whether it's a book, play, tweet, art piece or something else). The author can be:
In MLA style, we begin with the author's last name followed by a comma, then first name followed by a period. For example, Rayla Tokarz and Tati Mesfin are the authors of the article cited below:
Tokarz, Rayla E. and Tati Mesfin. "Stereotyping Ourselves: Gendered Language Use in Management and Instruction Library Job Advertisements." Journal of Library Administration, vol. 61, no. 3, 2021, pp. 301-311. https://doi.org/10.1080/01930826.2021.1883368.
What should I do if there is no author? Skip this element and begin with the title.
What if the author's name differs from the social media handle? Add the handle in square brackets after the author's name. For example:
Fogarty, Mignon [@GrammarGirl]. "It's beautiful outside and I'm at the library editing my next book, but I'm content. I love libraries." Twitter, 27 Mar. 2010, twitter.com/GrammarGirl/status/11162787313.
See pages 107-121 in the MLA Handbook for more information about this core element.
List the title of the work you are citing. For example, "Honors Students and Thesis Research: A Study of Information Literacy Practices and Self-Efficacy at the End of Students’ Undergraduate Careers" is the title of the work below.
Medaille, Ann, et al. "Honors Students and Thesis Research: A Study of Information Literacy Practices and Self-Efficacy at the End of Students’ Undergraduate Careers." College and Research Libraries, vol. 82, no. 1, 2021. https://doi.org/10.5860/crl.82.1.92.
What should I do if there is no title? Write a very short description of the work. For example, as shown on p. 121 of the MLA Handbook:
Advertisement for Upton Tea Imports. Smithsonian, Oct. 2018., p.84.
See pages 121-134 in the MLA Handbook for more information about this core element.
A container is a work that holds another work. For instance, a library database contains many different journals. The database may be the container or way you accessed a scholarly article. If you visit Special Collections, the document you are citing may come from a specific collection, box and folder. The collection name as well as box and folder numbers are containers. A container may be:
Some works such as articles may have two containers. For example, an article in a journal that is accessible through a library database. In the example below the journal and library database are containers.
Tokarz, Rayla E., and Rosalind Bucy. "Global Information Literacy: A Content Analysis of Three Journals." Global Knowledge, Memory and Communication, vol. 68, no. 3, 2019, pp. 242-254. ProQuest, https://doi.org/10.1108/GKMC-05-2018-0052.
A website is considered a container when it is the publisher of the version of the work you are referencing. For example, Youtube is considered a container when you are accessing a video directly on that platform and the New York Times website is considered the container for articles posted on nytimes.com.
See pages 134-145 in the MLA Handbook for more information about this core element.
Contributors include:
Examples from the MLA Handbook that show works-cited entries with contributor element follow:
Point of No Return. Directed by John Badham, Warner Bros., 1993.
Milton, John. Paradise Lost. Edited by Stephen Orgel and Johnathan Goldberg, Oxford UP, 2008.
Sometimes the key contributor will be listed in the Author element, and the author will be noted in the contributor element. For example, if you are focusing on a translated source, the works-cited list entry may be as follows:
Wall, Geoffrey, translator. Madame Bovary. By Gustave Flaubert, Penguin Books, 2003.
See pages 145-154 in the MLA Handbook for more information about this core element.
Some sources, such as books, films or websites, may include information showing that it is a version of the work. If the source you are using notes a version, include it in your works-cited list entry.
Miller, Casey, and Kate Swift. Words and Women. Updated ed., Harper Collins Publishers, 1991.
The Bible. Authorized Kings James Version, Oxford UP, 1998.
See pages 154-158 in the MLA Handbook for more information about this core element.
If the source you are using is part of a sequence (such as an episode, issue, series or volume), note it in the works-cited list. Often journals have volumes and issues, podcasts and television shows have episodes, and comic books are numbered. In the examples below, the article authored by Elena Azadbakht is in Volume 15, first issue of Communications in Information Literacy and the comic book by Daniel Clowes is issue 19.
Azadbakht, Elena. “The Many Faces of Instruction: An Exploration of Academic Librarians’ Teaching Personas.” Communications in Information Literacy, vol. 15, no. 1, Communications in Information Literacy, 2021, https://doi.org/10.15760/comminfolit.2021.15.1.3.
Clowes, Daniel. David Boring. Eightball, no. 19, Fantagraphics, 1998.
See pages 158-164 in the MLA Handbook for more information about this core element.
The publisher is the one that produced the work. This element includes:
Farrar, Straus and Giroux is the publisher of the following book authored by Justine Picardie.
Picardie, Justine. Miss Dior: A Story of Courage and Couture. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021.
See pages 164-173 in the MLA Handbook for more information about this core element.
The publication date is for the version of the work you are citing. Note when it was published, uploaded or (if a live performance or similar) viewed. If a work has not yet been published, the publication date may be replaced with the word "forthcoming".
Provide the date of the version of the work that you are citing using date month year order. Month names longer than four letters should be abbreviated: Jan., Feb., Mar., Apr., Aug., Sept., Oct., Nov., Dec.
Smialek, Jeanna. "Consumer prices rose at the fastest pace since 1982." New York Times. 10 Dec. 2021. www.nytimes.com/2021/12/10/business/cpi-inflation-november-2021.html.
See pages 173-189 in the MLA Handbook for more information about this core element.
Location may include the following depending on what the work is:
Auch Schultz, T. "Practicing What You Preach: Evaluating Access of Open Access Research." Journal of Electronic Publishing, 21(1). 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.3998/3336451.0021.103.
See pages 189-197 in the MLA Handbook for more information about this core element.
