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MLA Style Citations

Visit this guide to find examples of MLA style citations for your reference list and information about in-text citations.

Books

Place of publication

The place of publication is only needed if the publication date is before 1900, if the publisher has offices in more than one country, or if the publisher is unknown in North America.

Book

In-text

(Adeyemi 45)

Works Cited list:

Adeyemi, Tomi. Children of Blood and Bone. Henry Holt and Company, 2018.

Book with editors

In-text:

(Maddux and Winstead 31)

Works Cited list:

Maddux, James E., and Barbara A. Winstead, editors. Psychopathology: Foundations for a Contemporary Understanding. 4th ed., Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2020.

Book with two authors

In-text:

(Gravetter and Wallnau 173)

Works Cited list:

Gravetter, Frederick J. and Larry B. Wallnau. Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences. 10th ed., Cengage Learning, 2017.

Book with three or more authors

In-text:

(Hinkle et al. 527)

Works Cited list:

Hinkle, Dennis, E., et al. Applied Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences. 5th ed., Houghton Mifflin, 2003.

Book that is a special or later edition (not the first edition)

In-text:

(Mills 211)

Works Cited list:

Mills, Geoffrey. Educational Research: Competencies for Analysis and Application. 12th ed., Pearson, 2018.

eBook

In-text:

(Manning 120)

Works Cited list:

Manning, Erin. The Perfect Mango. Punctum Books, 2019. OAPEN Free, www.library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/25386.

Work in an anthology, reference, or collection

In-text:

(Fowler 30)

Works Cited list:

Fowler, Alastair. "Genre." International Encyclopedia of Communications, edited by Erik Barnouw, et al.Oxford UP, 1989. 4 vols.  

Illustrated book

In-text:

(Barrett 4)

Works Cited list:

Barrett, Hayley. What Miss Mitchell Saw. Beach Lane Books, 2019.

Dictionary entry

In-text:

("Compunction")

Works Cited list:

“Compunction.” Webster's Dictionary, Federal Street Press, 2008, p. 275.

The Bible

In-text:

(The Bible 1291)

Works Cited list:

The Holy Bible: Containing the Old and New Testaments. Trinitarian Bible Society, 2010.

Translated book

In-text:

(de Cervantes 148)

Works Cited list: 

de Cervantes, Miguel. Don Quixote: The Knight of La Mancha. Translated by Marc Church, New York UP, 1971.

Musical score

In-text:

(Handel, measures 275-93)

Works Cited list:

Handel, George F., et al. Messiah, Oxford U Press, 1998. Score.

  • Note: For musical scores, to be precise about the portion cited, you may use measure numbers instead of page numbers. If citing measure ranges repeatedly in your paper, abbreviate measures to "mm." For more information, see the examples on the MLA website: https://style.mla.org/citing-measures-musical-score/ 

Book review

In-text:

(Rodriques 35)

Works Cited list:

Rodriques, Elias. "Lonesome for our Home." Review of Barraccon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo," by Zora Neale Hurston. Nation, vol. 306, no. 18, 18 June 2018, pp. 35-39. MAS Ultra - School Edition