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MLA Style 9th edition: Works Cited Basics

This guide covers the basics of MLA Style writing, formatting, and citing.

Works Cited

At the end of your paper, you'll need to include a Works Cited page. This section covers the most common mediums and shows how to format the citations for your Works Cited page. If you're using a medium that you don't see listed here, contact the ERC at any campus for help.

Formatting Sources

Whenever you’re using outside sources in your research, include a list of the works you’ve cited. Including the Works Cited page allows readers to locate and retrieve sources that you cited in your text.

To list your sources, begin on a new page after the last page of your text, label the page “Works Cited” at the center of the page (do not include quotation marks; do not italicize; and do not use bold font) and continue double-spacing.

Basic Rules for Works Cited

Use hanging indentation in your Works Cited list. If you’re not sure how to set up the hanging indent-see the video MLA Style 9th ed. Formatting on the ERC YouTube channel.

Invert authors’ names (last name first, then first name and middle name, if included).

Arnold, Barry T. OR Arnold, Barry.

Citation Generator

A citation generator is a software tool designed to automatically create academic citations in the Modern Language Association (MLA) citation format. The generator will take information such as document titles, author, and URLs as in input, and output fully formatted citations that can be inserted into the Works Cited page of an MLA-compliant academic paper. MLA 9th edition is the style being followed at this time.

Nina Paley, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons