MLA Format: Works Cited, In-Text Citations and Paper Setup (MLA 9)

MLA format (9th edition) uses a short in-text citation, usually the author and page number such as (Okafor 14), and an alphabetical Works Cited page at the end. Every Works Cited entry is built from the same core elements: author, title, container, contributors, version, number, publisher, date and location. Below are the template, ten examples, the paper heading and a comparison with APA.

MLA format in one minute

MLA is the style of the Modern Language Association. It is the default in many English, literature, languages and humanities classes in US high schools and colleges. The current edition is the MLA Handbook, 9th edition (2021). It has two parts that work together:

1. In-text citations: a short note in your sentence, normally the author's surname and a page number, with no comma between them: (Okafor 14).
2. A Works Cited page: an alphabetical list at the end of the paper with the full details of every source you cited.

A reader who sees (Okafor 14) looks up Okafor in the Works Cited list and finds the book, article or page you used.

Sleep loss affects how well students remember new material (Okafor 14).

Okafor argues that sleep loss affects how well students remember new material (14).

In the second sentence the author's name is already in your sentence, so only the page number goes in brackets.

All the authors, titles, sites and figures in the examples below are invented for illustration. You cannot look them up, so do not copy them into a real paper. Italics are shown with asterisks.

The core elements template

MLA 9 does not give a separate rule for every kind of source. It gives one template. You go through the elements in order, include the ones that exist for your source, and skip the ones that do not. The punctuation after each element is shown below.

A container is the bigger thing that holds the source. A poem sits in an anthology, an article sits in a journal, a web page sits in a website, an episode sits in a series. If the source stands alone, like a whole book, it has no container and you skip elements 3 to 6 that do not apply.

Titles. Put the title of a standalone work in italics (a book, a website, a film). Put the title of a part inside quotation marks (an article, a chapter, a web page, a poem). Use title case, which means capitalizing the main words.

Location means a page range for print sources (pp. 45-62), a URL for web sources, or a DOI. MLA recommends leaving off the https:// at the start of a URL, and using a DOI written as https://doi.org/... when the source has one.

Optional access date. MLA says you may add Accessed 3 Nov. 2026. at the end for online sources. It is useful for pages that change. Ask your instructor whether they want it.

Ten Works Cited examples

1. Book

Okafor, Adaeze. Memory and Sleep in Young Adults. Northfield Press, 2019.

2. Book with two authors

Patel, Ravi, and Maria Reyes. Writing for Science Students. Riverbank Publishing, 2021.

Only the first author is inverted (surname first). Later authors use first name then surname.

3. Book with three or more authors

Walsh, Karen, et al. Teaching Writing in Large Classes. Hollin Academic, 2018.

With three or more authors, MLA 9 gives the first author followed by et al.

4. Chapter in an edited book

Lindqvist, Erik. "Sleep and Learning in Schools." Education and Health, edited by Karen Walsh, Hollin Academic, 2020, pp. 45-62.

5. Journal article

Okafor, Adaeze, and Erik Lindqvist. "Sleep Loss and Recall in First-Year Students." Journal of Applied Cognition, vol. 14, no. 3, 2022, pp. 211-29.

Page ranges are shortened to the last two digits when the numbers share leading digits (211-29), while ranges such as 98-104 are written in full.

6. Journal article from a database

Okafor, Adaeze, and Erik Lindqvist. "Sleep Loss and Recall in First-Year Students." Journal of Applied Cognition, vol. 14, no. 3, 2022, pp. 211-29. Example Scholar Database, doi.org/10.0000/example.2022.14.

Here the database is a second container. It is added after the first one, in italics.

7. Web page on a website

Reyes, Maria. "How to Plan a Study Schedule." Campus Learning Hub, Riverbank University, 12 Mar. 2025, www.example.edu/learning/study-schedule.

8. Web page with no author

"Citing Sources in Class Papers." Riverbank University Writing Center, Riverbank University, 2024, www.example.edu/writing/citing.

When there is no author, start with the title and alphabetize by the first main word of the title.

9. Online news article

Walsh, Karen. "City Library Extends Weekend Hours." The Northfield Courier, 8 Oct. 2026, www.example.com/news/library-hours.

10. Film or video

The Long Library. Directed by Jun Park, Harbor Pictures, 2023.

For a video online, add the platform as the container and the URL as the location.

Months in MLA 9 are abbreviated when they are longer than four letters: Jan., Feb., Mar., Apr., May, June, July, Aug., Sept., Oct., Nov., Dec.

In-text citation rules

The in-text citation must lead the reader to the first word of the Works Cited entry. That first word is usually the author's surname.

Three habits catch most mistakes. Do not write "p." or "page" before the number. Do not put a comma between the author and the page. Put the citation before the final period of the sentence.

Quotations. Short quotations (up to about four lines of prose) stay in your paragraph inside quotation marks. A longer prose quotation becomes a block quotation: start it on a new line, indent the whole block half an inch from the left margin, do not use quotation marks, and put the citation after the final punctuation.

Paraphrase still needs a citation. Putting an idea in your own words does not remove the need to name its source. See how to paraphrase and how to avoid plagiarism.

MLA paper setup: heading, header and Works Cited page

MLA does not require a title page for a student paper. Unless your instructor asks for one, put the heading at the top of page one.

1. Page. Letter size, one-inch margins on all sides.
2. Font. A readable 12-point font, such as Times New Roman.
3. Spacing. Double-space the whole paper, including the heading and the Works Cited page. Do not add extra space between paragraphs.
4. Heading (top left of page one). Four lines, each on its own line: your name, your instructor's name, the course, and the date written as day, month, year (for example, 3 November 2026).
5. Title. Centered on the next line, in the same font and size, with no bold, underline or quotation marks. Use title case.
6. Running header. Your surname and the page number in the top right corner, half an inch from the top edge, on every page (for example, Okafor 2).
7. Paragraphs. Indent the first line of each paragraph half an inch.
8. Works Cited. Start on a new page after the body. Center the title Works Cited at the top. List entries alphabetically with a hanging indent of half an inch, so the first line sits at the margin and later lines are indented.

If your class gives different instructions, follow your class. A teacher's rubric beats a general guide.

MLA vs APA at a glance

For the APA side in detail, read the APA 7 citation guide. For a general overview of the idea, see in-text citations.

Notes for US high school and college classes

• High school English. Many teachers use MLA with a simplified rubric: heading, header, double spacing, a Works Cited page. Follow the teacher's handout where it is stricter than MLA.
• College composition and literature. MLA is common. Writing about a poem, play or novel usually cites page numbers for novels, line numbers for poems (lines 4-6) and act, scene and line for plays.
• Citing the same text many times. After the first full mention, a page number alone is enough when the author is clear from your sentence.
• Other fields. Science and social science courses often ask for APA or another style. Check the syllabus before you format anything.

Common MLA mistakes

• Using APA habits: adding the year in brackets after the author in the Works Cited entry, or writing (Okafor, 2019) in the text.
• Writing "p." before the page number in-text.
• Forgetting the hanging indent, or putting the Works Cited list in the wrong order.
• Italicizing the title of an article instead of quoting it, or the reverse.
• Listing a source in Works Cited that the paper never cites, or citing in-text a source that is missing from the list.
• Pasting a URL with the https:// and tracking text at the end instead of a clean address.
• Leaving out a container, for example the website that holds a web page.

Checklist before you submit

1. Does the paper have the four-line heading, the centered title and the running header with your surname and page number?
2. Is everything double-spaced, with half-inch paragraph indents?
3. Does every in-text citation match the first word of a Works Cited entry, and the reverse?
4. Are entries in alphabetical order with a hanging indent?
5. Are standalone titles in italics and parts in quotation marks?
6. Are months abbreviated and URLs clean?

Using AdeptWrite while you format

The Citation Generator has an MLA 9 mode. You enter the source details (author, title, container, publisher, date, URL) and it builds a Works Cited entry and an in-text citation. It works with what you type, so a wrong year or a misspelled name will be copied into the result. It follows the general MLA 9 pattern, so compare the output with your instructor's example and edit unusual sources by hand.

Once the list is built, run your text and the entries through the Spell Checker to catch typos in names and titles, and the Grammar Checker for the sentences around your quotations. If you want to see whether your own wording sits too close to an open source, the Plagiarism Checker compares your text with open encyclopedic and academic sources and lists the ones it searched. It is an aid, not proof either way, and it does not search paid journals or private databases.

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