You must include an citation for any information source you cite in your paper on your Works Cited list.
The purpose of the Works Cited list is to give as much information as possible about the sources you used. This allows your reader to see where you're getting your information and to find the source again so they can read it for themselves.
Every citation on your Works Cited list must correspond to at least one in-text citation somewhere in your paper.
If you don't include Works Cited citations for information you use from your sources, you are at risk of plagiarism (passing off others' work as your own). Plagiarism has serious academic consequences.
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If your book has two authors, write them both out. Only reverse the order of the first author's names and include a comma after:
Kendi, Ibram X., and Jason Reynolds.
If your book has three or more authors, only write the first author's name and then type a comma and the "et al." abbreviation:
Doe, Jane, et al.
If your book has an edition number, put that after the book title and before the publisher. If your textbook doesn't have an edition number, just skip that part of the citation. Example:
Danielewski, Mark. House of Leaves. 2nd ed., Pantheon, 2000.
If your book has more than one publisher listed, use the first publisher's name on the title page as the publisher.
If your book has more than one copyright year on the back of the title page, use the most recent year as the date.
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If your textbook has three or more editors, only write the first editor's name and use the "et al." abbreviation like the example.
If your textbook has an edition number, put that after the editors' names like the example. If your textbook doesn't have an edition number, just skip that part of the citation.
If your textbook has more than one publisher listed, use the first publisher's name on the title page as the publisher.
If your textbook has more than one copyright year on the back of the title page, use the most recent year as the date.
Notice that page numbers have pp. before them in the Works Cited citation, but never use p. or pp. in MLA in-text citations.
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A lot of webpages don't have a specific author listed. That's OK! Just skip the author and start the citation at "Title of Webpage."
A lot of webpages don't have dates. That's OK! Just skip the date and go right from Title of Website, to the URL.
When you copy and paste the URL into your webpage citations, take off the http:// or https:// at the beginning: MLA does not require it.
Type a period at the end of your URL.
MLA does not require access dates (the date you looked at the webpage) unless a source changes frequently (like a Wikipedia entry). Some professors may require accessed dates, too, so if you need to include one, just pop it at the very end of the citation and format it as Accessed Day Month. Year (example: Accessed 24 Apr. 2020).
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If you want to emphasize a particular aspect of a film (like its director, performers, or writers), start the citation as if that person(s) were an author and include a word describing their role afterward, like in the Moana citation above.
When you create in-text citations for videos, include the timestamp of the part of you're citing in the place where page numbers would normally go. In this example, I'm citing Cravalho's performance in Moana from minutes 30 - 32 in the film:
(Cravalho 00:30:00 - 00:32:00)
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If you can't find one of the citation pieces for your image, that's OK! Just include as many citation elements as you can find.
If an image doesn't have a specific title, you can create a title by describing it:
Photograph of Women Holding Protest Signs at March.
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Databases do a good job of putting the right citation elements in the right order, but they do not do a good job on formatting: always double-check and edit database citations so they follow MLA formatting rules of Times New Roman font, 12 pt size, double spacing, and hanging indents.
Citations from a database include the database name. If you are using an EBSCO database, the automatic citation will put in EBSCOhost as the database name: change that to the specific EBSCO database you used (like Academic Search Complete, Literary Reference Center, etc.)
Citations from a database will end in either a DOI (digital object identifier) or a URL. Remove the http:// from in frontof a DOI or URL if the database includes it.
Scroll down or visit the Citing Database Sources in MLA page in this guide for examples on correcting MLA citations from different library databases.