Literature & Humanities
MLA Citation Generator
Create accurate MLA 9th edition works-cited entries for books, chapters, articles, websites and film. Paste a DOI, ISBN, URL, or title to get started.
Based on the MLA Handbook, 9th edition
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MLA cites by author and page
The parenthetical gives the author surname and the page you are using, with no comma and no year. The year lives in the works-cited entry.
- Author not named
- (Said 24)
- Author named in the sentence
- Said argues … (24).
MLA citation examples by source type
MLA 9 builds every entry from the same nine core elements. For a book you use four of them: author, title, publisher, date.
Said, Edward W. Orientalism. Pantheon Books, 1978.
Woolf, Virginia. A Room of One’s Own. Hogarth Press, 1929.
Give the edition you actually read. A 1929 first edition and a 2015 reprint are different sources.
Last, First, and First Last. Title of Book. Publisher, YYYY.
Last, First, et al. Title of Book. Publisher, YYYY.
Three names or more collapse to the first author and et al. MLA cuts off earlier than most styles.
A chapter is a source inside a container. The chapter title takes quotation marks, the book title is the italic container.
Last, First. "Title of Chapter." Title of Book, edited by First Last, Publisher, YYYY, pp. 100–25.
Last, First. "Title of Poem." Title of Anthology, edited by First Last, 2nd ed., Publisher, YYYY, pp. 45–48.
Last, First. Introduction. Title of Book, by First Last, Publisher, YYYY, pp. xi–xx.
Volume and issue are labelled in full: vol. 12, no. 3. Page ranges are shortened after the first two digits: pp. 53–92 stays, pp. 153–92 shortens.
Jameson, Fredric. "Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism." New Left Review, no. 146, 1984, pp. 53–92.
This journal numbers issues without volumes, so only no. appears.
Last, First. "Title of Article." Journal Name, vol. 12, no. 3, YYYY, pp. 100–25.
Last, First. "Title of Article." Journal Name, vol. 12, no. 3, YYYY, pp. 100–25. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.xxxx/xxxxx.
The database is a second container and goes in italics after the first one.
The URL is given without https:// and the access date is added when the page has no publication date.
National Institute of Standards and Technology. "NIST Chemistry WebBook." NIST Standard Reference Database Number 69, webbook.nist.gov/chemistry/. Accessed 15 Aug. 2026.
Last, First. "Title of Article." Site Name, DD Mon. YYYY, example.com/article.
@handle. "First words of the post up to about twenty." Platform, DD Mon. YYYY, example.com/post.
MLA is the style that actually expects films, episodes and performances, and it puts whichever contributor you are discussing in the author slot.
Title of Film. Directed by First Last, Studio, YYYY.
"Title of Episode." Title of Series, created by First Last, season 2, episode 5, Studio, YYYY.
Performer. "Title of Song." Title of Album, Label, YYYY.
Last, First. Title of Work. YYYY, Name of Museum, City.
A thesis names the degree and the institution after the title, in place of a publisher.
Last, First. Title of Dissertation. YYYY. University Name, PhD dissertation.
Last, First. Title of Thesis. YYYY. University Name, master's thesis.
Last, First. Title of Dissertation. YYYY. University Name, PhD dissertation. Repository Name, example.com/thesis.
Build your MLA bibliography
- Brown, Tom B., et al. "Language Models are Few-Shot Learners." Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems, vol. 33, 2020, pp. 1877–1901.
- He, Kaiming, et al. "Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition." Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, 2016, pp. 770–778, https://doi.org/10.1109/CVPR.2016.90.
- Jinek, Martin, et al. "A Programmable Dual-RNA-Guided DNA Endonuclease in Adaptive Bacterial Immunity." Science, vol. 337, no. 6096, 2012, pp. 816–821, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1225829.
- Vaswani, Ashish, et al. "Attention is All You Need." Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems, vol. 30, 2017, pp. 5998–6008.
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- Style-aware sorting Ordered and numbered for your style.
MLA citation rules at a glance
- Nine core elements Author, title, container, contributors, version, number, publisher, date, location, in that order.
- In-text citations Author surname and page, no comma: (Said 24). No year, ever.
- Author names Only the first author is inverted: Last, First, and First Last.
- Three or more authors Name the first author, then et al. MLA cuts off earlier than any other major style.
- Containers A source inside something larger names both. A database is a second container.
- URLs without the scheme Write example.com/page, not https://example.com/page, and prefer a DOI where one exists.
Checked against the MLA Handbook, 9th edition · Last reviewed August 2026
Read our methodologyCommon MLA citation mistakes
- Putting a comma before the page number MLA writes (Said 24). The comma belongs to APA.
- Including the year in the parenthetical MLA identifies the source by author and page. The date is in the works-cited entry only.
- Using et al. with two authors Two authors are both named. Et al. starts at three.
- Keeping https:// in the URL The 9th edition drops the scheme, and prefers a DOI or a permalink where one exists.
- Calling the list a bibliography MLA calls it Works Cited, and it holds only what you actually cited.
- Ignoring the second container An article read in JSTOR names the journal and then JSTOR. Leaving the database out hides where you found it.
MLA quick reference (one page, PDF)
The nine core elements with their punctuation, patterns for print and screen sources, and the in-text forms. Print it, or hand it to a first-year seminar.
- The nine core elements and the punctuation that separates them
- Reference patterns for eight source types, film and television included
- In-text forms for one, two, three or more, and unnamed authors
- How a second container works, with a database example
MLA citation generator FAQ
Is this MLA citation generator free?
Yes. Generate, copy, save, and export MLA citations without signing up. There is no paid tier and no export limit.
What are the nine core elements?
Author, title of source, title of container, other contributors, version, number, publisher, publication date, and location. Every works-cited entry is built from the same list, in the same order, using only the elements that apply.
What does an MLA in-text citation look like?
Author surname and page number with no comma: (Said 24). If you name the author in your sentence, the parenthetical carries the page alone: (24).
How many authors before et al. in MLA?
Three. One or two authors are named in full; with three or more you name the first and add et al.
How do I cite a film or a television episode?
Put whichever contributor your argument is about in the author slot, or start with the title. The film and media tab has patterns for films, episodes, recordings and works of art.
Where does the citation metadata come from?
Crossref for DOIs and Open Library for ISBNs. Films, performances and archival material have no catalogue record, so those you enter by hand using the patterns on this page. See our methodology.
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