How to Cite Sources in MLA (9th Edition), With Examples

If you are taking an English or literature class, MLA is probably the citation style your instructor expects. MLA stands for the Modern Language Association, and its style is the standard across the humanities. Learning it once saves you real time, because the same small set of rules covers almost any source you will ever need to cite.

This guide walks through MLA 9th edition, the current version, in plain language. You will see how in-text citations and the Works Cited page work together, what the nine core elements are, and how to format the four sources students cite most. Every example below uses invented authors and titles, so copy the pattern and swap in your own details.

What MLA style is and who uses it

MLA is the house style of the humanities. You will most often meet it in English, literature, world languages, philosophy, film, and cultural studies — writing-heavy courses where you analyze texts and ideas. If your assignment asks for a Works Cited page or parenthetical citations, you are almost certainly working in MLA.

Two styles you may have heard of, APA and Chicago, belong mainly to the social sciences and to history. MLA differs in small but meaningful ways: it leads with the author and the page number rather than the year, and it collects full source details on a page titled Works Cited. This guide covers the ninth edition, released in 2021, which is what nearly every course uses today.

In-text citations and the Works Cited page

Every MLA citation has two halves that point to each other. A brief in-text citation sits inside your sentence and flags that an idea came from a source. The matching entry on the Works Cited page then gives the reader everything needed to track that source down.

An in-text citation is short on purpose. In most cases it is simply the author’s last name and the page number, with no comma between them and no p. label.

That (Rivera 42) points straight to the Rivera entry on your Works Cited page. If you have already named the author in your sentence, do not repeat it in parentheses — just give the page number. When a source has no page numbers, as with many web pages, use the author’s name alone. Rivera here is a fictional author, shown only so you can see the shape of the citation.

The nine core elements of MLA 9

The biggest idea in MLA 9 is that you no longer memorize a separate template for every kind of source. Instead, you describe any source with the same nine core elements, in the same order, including only the ones that apply. Each element is followed by a set punctuation mark, shown here after each label:

• Author. — who created the source
• Title of source. — the specific piece you are citing
• Title of container, — the larger work that holds it, such as a journal, website, or anthology
• Other contributors, — editors, translators, and similar roles
• Version, — an edition or version number
• Number, — a volume, issue, or season number
• Publisher, — the organization that released it
• Publication date, — when it appeared
• Location. — page numbers, a DOI, or a URL

The container is the key idea. An article can sit inside a journal, and that journal can sit inside a database; each one is a container with its own details. Once you can spot the container, building any entry turns into a fill-in-the-blank exercise.

Works Cited examples for common sources

Here are correctly formatted MLA 9 entries for the four sources students cite most. Every name, title, and detail is fictional, so treat them as templates rather than real works. In your document, titles of longer works such as books and journals are italicized, while shorter works such as articles and chapters take quotation marks.

Formatting your Works Cited page

The Works Cited page is where MLA gets fussy, but the rules stay consistent from paper to paper:

• Begin on a new page and center the title Works Cited at the top, with no bold, italics, or quotation marks.
• List entries alphabetically by the author’s last name, or by the first main word of the title when there is no author.
• Double-space the whole page, within and between entries, with no extra blank lines.
• Use a hanging indent: the first line of each entry starts at the margin, and every line after it is indented half an inch.
• Keep the same readable font as the rest of your paper, with one-inch margins all around.

When to cite, and staying honest

A citation is not only for direct quotations. If you paraphrase an idea, summarize an argument, or borrow a fact, statistic, or interpretation that is not your own, it still needs a citation. Rewording something does not turn the idea into yours.

The safe habit is simple: cite anything that did not come from your own head, and when you are unsure whether something needs a citation, cite it anyway. Over-citing is a minor style quibble; under-citing is plagiarism, and it is exactly the kind of mistake that is easy to avoid once the habit is in place.

Once the pattern clicks, MLA stops feeling like a chore and starts to run on muscle memory. Keep the nine core elements close, match each source to its container, and let the in-text citation and its Works Cited entry point to each other. Do that, and your ideas stay in the spotlight while your sources get the credit they are due.