How MLA references look
These examples were formatted by the same engine the generator uses.
MLA citation generator
Find any article, book or chapter and copy it in MLA Style (9th edition). Free, no sign-up.
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Journal article
Suri, Tavneet, and William Jack. “The Long-Run Poverty and Gender Impacts of Mobile Money.” Science, vol. 354, no. 6317, Dec. 2016, pp. 1288–92, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aah5309.
In-text: (Suri and Jack)
Book
Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. Heinemann, 1958.
In-text: (Achebe)
Web page
World Health Organization. “Malaria.” World Health Organization, 4 Dec. 2023, https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/malaria.
In-text: (World Health Organization)
MLA rules at a glance
- Reference list
- Works Cited: alphabetical by first author’s surname
- In-text citations
- author and page number in parentheses with no comma, e.g. (Suri and Jack 1290)
- Author names
- First author inverted with full names, the second in normal order, e.g. Suri, Tavneet, and William Jack
- Many authors
- Three or more authors: first author followed by “et al.”
- Date
- Near the end, after the journal or publisher details
- Titles
- Title case; article titles: in quotation marks, title case
- Italics
- Containers: journal, website and book titles
- DOIs and links
- DOI written as https://doi.org/… at the end; URLs without “https://” are also accepted
Who uses MLA?
MLA is the usual choice for English literature, modern languages and other humanities subjects, where quoting and pinpointing pages matters more than dates. The style is published by the Modern Language Association; CiteSwap follows the 9th edition (2021).
MLA citation generator: frequently asked questions
How do I cite a journal article in MLA?
Search for the article by title, author or DOI above and copy the formatted reference. For example, the Suri and Jack article in Science becomes: Suri, Tavneet, and William Jack. “The Long-Run Poverty and Gender Impacts of Mobile Money.” Science, vol. 354, no. 6317, Dec. 2016, pp. 1288–92, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aah5309.
How do in-text citations work in MLA?
MLA uses author and page number in parentheses with no comma, e.g. (Suri and Jack 1290). For the same article: (Suri and Jack).
What is the MLA reference list called?
Works Cited. Alphabetical by first author’s surname.
Which edition of MLA does this generator use?
MLA Style (9th edition), published by the Modern Language Association (9th edition (2021)). CiteSwap formats references with the official Citation Style Language definition of the style.
How do I cite a website in MLA?
Use “Cite manually” under the search box: enter the author or organisation, page title, website name, date and URL. A web page in MLA looks like this: World Health Organization. “Malaria.” World Health Organization, 4 Dec. 2023, https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/malaria.
Is this MLA citation generator free?
Yes. There is no sign-up and no limit. Everything runs in your browser, and your references are not stored anywhere.