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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.

Images, video, and audio

The elements required to appropriately cite images, video, and audio sources vary widely.

Order of elements

Depending what you want to emphasize, you may want to list the director first, the show/song title, or the performer.

Number of containers

Some video examples may require two containers, as a film would that was streamed online via a streaming service.  A DVD of a film, however, would only need one container.

Multiple publishers

If more than one publisher seems to report equal responsibility for the work, include them in the citation and separate them using a forward slash (/).

Time Stamps

For in-text citations related to audio or video sources, page numbers are swapped out with timestamps in the following format:

(Last name/or Title hours:min:sec-hours:min:sec)

The end time can be shortened to simplify the citation. For example, if you are referring to a two minute interval between 1 hour, 20 minutes, 0 seconds to 1 hour, 22 minutes, 0 seconds, the entry could be written like this:

(01:20:00-22:00)

Example available on p. 250 of the MLA Handbook

Artwork

In-text:

(Chagall)

Works Cited list:

Chagall, Marc. America windows. 1977. Art Institute Chicago, www.artic.edu/artworks/109439/america-windows. Accessed 22 June 2020.

Photograph (not associated with a museum)

In-text:

(Hirve)

Works Cited list:

Hirve, Néha. “Wasabi sits for a portrait.” National Public Radio, 20 Oct. 2019, www.npr.org/sections/pictureshow/2019/10/20/737787659/activists-occupy-an-ancient-forest-in-germany-to-save-it. Accessed 23 June 2020.

Photograph (associated with a museum)

In-text:

(Klimt)

Works Cited list:

Klimt, Gustav. The Kiss. 1907. Austrian Gallery Belvedere. Belvedere, www.belvedere.at/en/museum. Accessed Oct 2020.

Clip art or stock photo that requires attribution

In-text:

(Lagerås)

Works Cited list:

Lagerås, Anders. "Friendly pumpkin." Wikimedia Commons, 31 Oct. 2009, commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Friendly_pumpkin.jpg. Accessed 15 Oct. 2020.

Youtube video

In-text:

("15-Yr-Old Kelvin Doe" 00:07:14-10:06)

Works Cited list:

“15-Yr-Old Kelvin Doe Wows M.I.T.” YouTube, uploaded by THNKR, 16 Nov. 2012, www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOLOLrUBRBY.

Single song or track on a music album

In-text:

(Childish Gambino 00:01:10-02:45)

Works Cited list:

Childish Gambino. “This is America.” RCA Records/Wolf + Rothstein/mcDJ Recording, 2018.

An online interview in a database or collection

In-text:

(Anderson 00:23:45-37:17)

Works Cited  list:

Anderson, Charlie. “Interview with Charlie Anderson.” 18 Jan. 2006. Middletown Digital Oral History Collections, Ball State U Libraries, dmr.bsu.edu/digital/collection/MidOrHis/id/501/Accessed 23 June 2020.

Radio broadcast

In-text:

(National Public Radio 00:02:10-03:30)

Works Cited list:

“The Rich Have Stopped Spending and That’s Tanked the Economy.” Morning Edition. National Public Radio, Washington DC, 19 June 2020.

TV series

In-text:

(Schur el al.)

Works Cited list:

Schur, Michael et al., creators. The Good Place. NBC Universal Television Distribution, 2016.

An episode in a TV series on Netflix

In-text:

("Chapter 1" 00:40:20-47:10)

Works Cited list:

"Chapter 1: Suzie, Do You Copy?" Stranger Things, season 3, episode 1, Monkey Massacre Productions and 21 Laps Entertainment, 4 July 2019. Netflix, www.netflix.com/title/8005728.

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/