Book: Last Name, First Name. Title of Book. Publisher, publication date.
Journal Article: Last Name, First Name. “Title of Article.” Title of Periodical, Volume, Issue, Year, Pages.
Magazine or Newspaper: Last name, First Name. “Title of Article.” Title of Periodical, Day Month Year, pages.
Watson Library has a variety of books and eBooks on MLA citation. The books listed below are a sampling of what we have available in the library - to find more, check our library catalog, or use the "Ask Us!" tab on the left for help.
Book (One Author): Doe, John. Citations. Penguin, 2022.
Book (Two Authors): Doe, John, and Jane Doe. More Citations. Penguin, 2023.
Book (More than two authors): Doe, Jane, et al. Even More Citations. Penguin, 2024.
Journal Article: Doe, Jane. “A Study of Citations.” Journal of Citation Research, vol. 22, no. 4, 2020, pp. 45-67.
Magazine or Newspaper: Doe, John. “Citations are Fun.” Citation News, 11 Dec. 2012, pp. 2-9.
Online articles are cited in the same way physical articles are, but indicate the database you retrieved them from and when you retrieved them:
Doe, John. “Another Study of Citations.” American Journal of Citation Research. vol.13, no.2, 2021, pp.10-30. JSTOR, https://doi.org/215-9825.948//129083. Accessed 19 June 2022.
In-text citations are short references to external sources that are included in the body of the work. They direct readers to the full citation in the works cited list.
All MLA in-text citations include author name, publication date, and page number. You can put the author’s name either in the sentence itself, or in parentheses at the end of the sentence. See examples here:
John Doe described the citations as “utterly delightful, and a dream to create” (234).
The citations were described as “utterly delightful, and a dream to create” (Doe 234).
