MLA Referencing Guide: MLA 9th Edition with Examples

What is MLA referencing?

MLA referencing is a citation style developed by the Modern Language Association of America and used primarily in humanities subjects including English literature, cultural studies, media studies, linguistics, and foreign languages. The ninth edition of the MLA Handbook, published in 2021, is the current authoritative guide for the style and is the version most commonly required by UK universities that specify MLA. The style is characterised by its use of author-page in-text citations and a Works Cited list at the end of the document.

In the UK, MLA is less commonly required than Harvard or APA, but it remains the standard for literature and humanities programmes in many institutions. Students who have previously used Harvard or APA will notice several significant differences in MLA, particularly in the format of in-text citations, the format of source entries in the Works Cited list, and the approach to punctuation within quotations.

MLA in-text citations

MLA in-text citations use the author's last name and the relevant page number, placed in parentheses at the end of the sentence in which the source is used. There is no comma between the author's name and the page number. For example: "The relationship between power and knowledge is central to Foucault's argument" (Dreyfus and Rabinow 185).

If the author's name is mentioned in the sentence itself, only the page number is required in the parenthetical citation: "As Dreyfus and Rabinow argue, the relationship between power and knowledge is central to Foucault's project" (185).

For sources without page numbers, such as websites, the in-text citation includes only the author's name. If no author is identified, the title of the source or a shortened version of it is used in place of the author's name. For quotations from poetry, plays, or scripture, line numbers or act, scene, and line numbers are used rather than page numbers.

MLA Works Cited: books

The Works Cited list in MLA appears at the end of the document and lists all sources cited in the text in alphabetical order by the first author's surname. Unlike APA or Harvard, MLA uses full first names rather than initials for all authors. The general format for a book entry is: Author Last Name, First Name. Title of Book. Publisher, Year.

For example: Williams, Raymond. Marxism and Literature. Oxford University Press, 1977.

For books with two authors, both are listed with the first author in Last Name, First Name format and the second in First Name Last Name format, joined by "and": Said, Edward, and Richard Bulliet. Culture and Imperialism. Vintage, 1994.

For books with three or more authors, only the first author is listed, followed by "et al.": McLuhan, Marshall, et al. The Medium is the Message. Penguin, 1967.

MLA Works Cited: journal articles

The format for a journal article in MLA is: Author Last Name, First Name. "Title of Article." Journal Name, vol. Volume, no. Issue, Year, pp. Page Range.

For example: Hall, Stuart. "Encoding/Decoding." Culture, Media, Language, vol. 4, no. 2, 1980, pp. 128-138.

Note that in MLA, article titles are placed in quotation marks while journal names are italicised. The volume and issue number are introduced with the abbreviations "vol." and "no." followed by the numbers. The page range is introduced with "pp." for multiple pages or "p." for a single page. If a DOI or stable URL is available, it should be included at the end of the entry, preceded by the label "doi:" or as a URL.

MLA Works Cited: websites

The format for a website in MLA is: Author Last Name, First Name. "Title of Page or Article." Name of Website, Day Month Year of Publication, URL.

For example: Flood, Alison. "Reading fiction improves empathy, study finds." The Guardian, 8 Oct. 2013, www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/08/reading-fiction-empathy-study.

If no publication date is available, include the date you accessed the source at the end of the entry: Accessed 15 Sept. 2024. Website entries in MLA do not place the URL in angle brackets, which was a convention in earlier editions of the style. In the 9th edition, the URL is given without brackets.

Key differences between MLA and Harvard referencing

Students switching from Harvard to MLA, or vice versa, most frequently encounter difficulties with four differences. First, MLA uses author-page in-text citations rather than Harvard's author-date citations: (Smith 45) rather than (Smith, 2022). Second, MLA uses full first names in the Works Cited list, while Harvard uses initials. Third, in MLA the period after the in-text citation falls after the closing parenthesis, not before it, except in block quotations. Fourth, MLA titles use title case (capitalising all major words), while Harvard article titles use sentence case (capitalising only the first word and proper nouns).

These distinctions matter because mixing conventions from different styles within a single reference list is one of the most commonly penalised referencing errors in UK university assignments. If your assignment specifies MLA 9th edition, apply it consistently throughout without incorporating conventions from other styles. GradeQuill's Academic Referencing Generator supports MLA 9th edition alongside Harvard, APA, Chicago, and Vancouver, allowing students to generate correctly formatted citations and Works Cited entries for any source type instantly.

Common MLA mistakes

The most frequent MLA errors in student work include using initials rather than full first names in the Works Cited list, placing the period before the in-text citation parenthesis rather than after it, using "References" as the heading for the source list rather than "Works Cited," failing to italicise journal names while italicising article titles, and using the comma between the author's name and the page number in in-text citations. Each of these errors reflects a habit formed in a different citation style, and students who are transitioning between styles benefit from consulting the current edition of the MLA Handbook directly, or using a verified generator to format their citations before submitting.