On this page
- MLA style edition and punctuation
- Key points
- Book
- Book (later edition)
- Book (republished)
- Book (scholarly edition)
- Book (translation)
- Anthology or edited book
- Work in an anthology or edited book
- Introduction, preface, foreword or afterword
- Online book
- E-book reader book
- Other sources
- Referencing disclaimer
- Related content
MLA style edition and punctuation
The examples on this page use the MLA 9th edition.
Punctuation is important. Use the same punctuation and formatting as the order instructions and examples (commas, full stops and brackets). Use 1 space after any punctuation mark.
In this edition, you don't need to state the publishing medium. For example, 'Print' for physical books and journals and 'Web' for online material.
Key points
Each source entry has 3 basic parts:
- Name of the author – if a source has 3 or more authors, give the first author's last name and first name, followed by 'et al.' for the other authors. The author or authors can be a person, people, an organisation or an institution.
- Title of the work – put a colon between the title and subtitle unless the title ends with a question mark or exclamation mark.
- Publication information – the publishing medium is not required in the 9th edition of MLA.
The city of publication is only required for books published before 1900 or if the publisher has offices in more than 1 city or is unknown outside of North America.
Book
Order: Authors. Book Title, subtitle. Contributors, Version (edition), Number and (or) volume, City of publication, publisher name, year of publication.
For books with multiple authors, use the last-name first-name format for the first author's name and the first-name last-name format for subsequent authors.
Contributors are translators or editors. The subtitle is optional.
If each chapter is written by a different author, go to Work in an anthology or edited book.
Example
Butt, John, and Kathleen Tillotson. Dickens at Work. Routledge, 2009.
Wikse, Maria. Materialisations of a Woman Writer: Investigating Janet Frame's Biographical Legend. Peter Lang, 2006.
Book (later edition)
Order: Authors. Book Title, subtitle. Edition, city of publication, publisher name, year of publication.
The subtitle is optional.
Example
Wallis, Mick, and Simon Shepherd. Studying Plays. 2nd ed., Hodder Arnold, 2002.
Book (republished)
Order: Authors. Book Title, subtitle. Original year of publication. City of publication, publisher name, current year of publication.
The subtitle is optional.
Example
Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. 1959. Penguin, 2006.
Book (scholarly edition)
Use this format for books prepared for publication by someone other than the author, for example, modern reprints of older books that include a named editor.
Order: Authors. Book Title, subtitle. Original year of publication. Editor, city of publication, publisher name, current year of publication.
The subtitle and original year of publication are optional.
Example
Defoe, Daniel. The Storm. 1704. Edited by Richard Hamblyn, Penguin, 2005.
The city of publication is only required for books published before 1900 or if the publisher has offices in more than 1 city or is unknown outside of North America. In this example, the edition cited was published in 2005, so the publisher's name is given. If, however, the edition cited was published in 1705, you would use the city of publication, London, instead of the publisher Penguin.
Book (translation)
Order: Authors. Book Title, subtitle, translator, city of publication, publisher name, year of publication.
The subtitle is optional.
Examples
Kristeva, Julia. Colette. Translated by Jane Marie Todd, Columbia UP, 2004.
The Saga of King Hrolf Kraki. Translated by Jesse L. Byock, Penguin, 1998.
Anthology or edited book
Order: Editors. Book Title, subtitle. City of publication, publisher name, year of publication.
The subtitle is optional.
Examples
Temple, Philip, editor. Lake, Mountain, Tree: An Anthology of Writing on New Zealand Nature and Landscape. Godwit, 1998.
Allen, Robert C., and Annette Hill, editors. The Television Studies Reader. Routledge, 2004.
Work in an anthology or edited book
Order: Authors. Book Title, subtitle. Original year of publication. City of publication, publisher name, current year of publication.
The subtitle is optional.
Examples
Pere, Vernice Wineera. "Song from Kapiti." Lake, Mountain, Tree: An Anthology of Writing on New Zealand Nature and Landscape, edited by Philip Temple, Godwit, 1998, pp. 220-221.
Hills, Matt. "Defining Cult TV: Texts, Inter-texts and Fan Audiences." The Television Studies Reader, edited by Robert C. Allen and Annette Hill, Routledge, 2004, pp. 509-523.
If the individual works or chapters are written by different authors, list them separately. If they're all written by the same person, list the entire book rather than each part.
Write the book title (the container) in italics, but put the work or chapter title (the source) in quotation marks.
The page number range includes the first and last page of the complete work or chapter, not just the pages you used.
Introduction, preface, foreword or afterword
Order: Authors. Section type. Book title, subtitle. Source author or editor name, city of publication, publisher name, year of publication, page range.
The subtitle is optional.
Example
Praz, Mario. Introduction. Three Gothic Novels. Edited by Peter Fairclough, Penguin, 1968, pp. 7-34.
For the section type, use Introductions, Preface, Foreword or Afterword.
Use the last name-first name format for the source author or editor name.
Online book
Order: Authors. Book title, subtitle, contributors, version (edition), number and (or) volume, publisher name, year of publication. Second container's title, DOI, permalink or URL. Date of access.
The subtitle and date of access are optional.
Example
Evans, Charlotte. Over the Hills, and Far Away: A Story of New Zealand. Sampson Low, Marston, and Company, 1874. New Zealand Electronic Text Centre, nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-BroOver.html. Accessed 28 June 2011.
Start URLs with www or the website name, don't use https:// or http://.
If a DOI is available, use this instead of the URL.
In this example, the title of the second container (New Zealand Electronic Text Centre) is given because this source is unique to that platform. Generally, this second container is unnecessary, particularly in undergraduate assignments not intended for publication.
The date of access is optional but recommended when the source provides no indication of production or publication date.
The date you looked at the web page (date of retrieval) is included because, unlike printed materials, websites can be updated and changed over time.
MLA works cited list: List format – Title
MLA works cited list: List format – Publication information, DOIs and URLs
E-book reader book
To read an e-book on a device, such as a Kindle, you need the right software or computer rather than a URL. According to the MLA Handbook, this is considered a version. If the reader is unknown, simply specify 'e-book'.
Order: Authors. Book title, subtitle, edition no. or E-reader version, publisher name, year of publication.
The subtitle is optional.
Example
Roach, Mary. Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void. Kindle ed., W. W. Norton, 2010.
As different e-readers paginate differently, don't use device-specific location numbers for an e-book in the in-text citation. If the e-book reader version does not have the same page numbers as the print version, use the rules for no page numbers.
Other sources
The referencing of encyclopedia entries, study guides and other book-like sources is covered in Referencing other material in MLA style
Referencing disclaimer
This page is a guide to proper referencing. Your course, department, school or institute may prescribe specific conventions. Their recommendations supersede these instructions. If your questions are not covered here, ask your course coordinator or ask on our Academic Q&A forum.
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