MLA Works Cited Page: Basic Format Purdue OWL® (2023)

As per the MLA style, you should have a works cited page at the end of your research paper. All entries on the Works Cited page must correspond to works cited in your main text.

Basic rules

• Start your works cited page on a separate page at the end of your research paper. It should have the same 1-inch margins, last name, and page number as the rest of the paper.
• Label the Works Cited page (do not italicize or enclose the words "Works Cited" in quotation marks) and center the words "Works Cited" at the top of the page.
  • Only the title should be centered. The citation entries themselves must be aligned to the left margin.
• Double-space all quotes, but do not skip spaces between entries.
• Indent the second and following quote lines by 0.5 inches to create a hanging indent.
• Efficiently list font page numbers where necessary. If you are referring to a journal article that appeared on pages 225-250, list the page numbers on your works cited page as pages 225-50 (Note: MLA style dictates that you read the first few sentences of repeating digits should be omitted in our example, the digit in the hundreds place is repeated between225 e250, so omit the 2 of 250 in the citation: pp. 225-50). If the snippet spans multiple pages, use "pp".Note that the MLA style uses a hyphen in a page range.
• If only one side of a print font is used, mark it with the abbreviation "p". before the page number (for example, p. 157). If a page excerpt is used, identify it with the abbreviation "pp". before the page number (eg pp. 157-68).
• When citing an article or publication that originally appeared in print but was retrieved from an online database, you should italicize the name of the online database. You don't need to provide subscription information other than the database name.
• For online fonts, you should include a location to show readers where you found the font. Many scientific databases use a DOI (Digital Object Identifier). Use a DOI in your citation if you can; Otherwise, use a URL. Remove "http://" from URLs. The DOI or URL is usually the last element in a citation and must be followed by a period.
• All cited works end with a period.

Additional ground rules new in MLA 2021

New in MLA 2021:

• applications and databasesshould only be cited if they are recipients of the specific works you are citing, e.g. B. when dealing with platforms for publishing works in full, not an intermediary that redirects your access to a source published elsewhere, e.g. B. another platform. for example thephilosophical booksapp should be cited as a container when using one of its many jobs, as the app contains them in their entirety. However, a PDF article is saved in theDropboxapp is published elsewhere, so the app should not be specified as a container.
• When it is important for your readers to know about an author/personpseudonym, stage name or various other names,then you should cite the most familiar form of the author/personnel name. For example, once the author ofAlice in Wonderlandis better known by his pseudonym, quoteLewis Carrollacross fromCharles Dodgson(However, Name).
• Forannotated bibliographies, Annotations must be appended to the end of a source/entry, indented 1 inch from the beginning of the entry. Notes can be written as succinct sentences or complete sentences, usually no longer than a paragraph.

big and small letters

• Capitalize all words in titles of articles, books, etc., but do not capitalize articles (que, a), prepositions or conjunctions, unless one is the first word of the title or subtitle:Gone with the Wind, The Art of War, There's Nothing Left to Lose.
• Use italics (instead of underlining) for titles of longer works (books, periodicals) and quotation marks for titles of shorter works (poems, articles).

List author names

Entries are listed alphabetically by author's last name (or editor's name for edited entire collections). Author names are written last name first, then first name, then middle name or middle initial, if necessary:

Burke, Kenneth

Levi, David M.

WallaceDavid Foster

NoList titles (Dr., Sir, Saint, etc.) or degrees (PhD, MA, DDS, etc.) by name. A book listing an author named "John Bigbrain, PhD" appears simply as "Bigbrain, John". However, add suffixes like "Jr." or "II." All together, a work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. may be quoted as "King, Martin Luther, Jr." Here the suffix after the name or middle name and a comma.

More than an author's work

If you cited more than one work by a given author, sort the entries alphabetically by title, using three dashes after the first for each entry instead of the author's name:

Burke, Kenneth.A grammar of motives. [...]

---.A rhetoric of motives. [...]

If an author or collection editor is the sole author of a text and the first author of a group, list the single-author entries first:

Heller, Steven, Ed.Training an e-designer.

Heller, Steven and Karen Pomeroy.Design Skills: Understand graphic design.

Works without known author

Alphabetizing works without an author known by title; Use an abbreviated version of the title in parenthetical citations in your work. In this case, Boring Postcards USA has no known author:

BAUDRILLARD, Jean.Simulations and Simulations[...]

boring postcards from usa[...]

Burke, Kenneth.A rhetoric of motives. [...]

Work by an author using a pseudonym or artist name

New to the 9th edition of the MLA are steps to cite the work of an author or authors using a pseudonym, artist name, or other name.

If the person you are citing is well known, cite the most familiar form of the author's name. for example sinceLewis CarrollANDnot just a pseudonymCharles Dodgson, but also the more familiar form of the author's name, citing the first name against the second.

If the author's real name is less well known than her pseudonym, cite the author's pseudonym in square brackets after her real name: "Christie, Agatha [Mary Westmacott]."

Authors who have published different works under various names may be cited under a single form of the author's name. If the form of the name you wish to cite differs from that which appears in the author's work, enclose it in square brackets followed by italics published as: „Irving, Washington [published as Knickerbocker, Diedrich].

Another acceptable option, in cases where there are only two forms of the author's name, is to cite both forms of the author's name as separate entries, along with cross references in square brackets: "Eliot, George [See tooEvans, Mary Anne]“.