MLA: Works Cited Page - Academic Skills

In addition to the parenthetical citations, information about your sources is acknowledged at the end of the essay, in a Works Cited list. Every source you cited in your essay text must appear in the Works Cited. Sources that you have consulted but not cited are not included.

Guidelines for the Works Cited list

The Works Cited list should be on its own page. This page is numbered in sequence with the pages of the essay. (Occasionally, if your list is short, your professor may allow you to put the Works Cited list on the last page of your essay, four to six spaces down from your last paragraph. This only works if the entire list will fit on the last page. Get your instructor's permission before doing this.)
The title, Works Cited, or occasionally, Work Cited, is centered. The title does not have to put in bold, italics, or underlined.
The entire list is double-spaced (or in 1.5, if that is what you are using throughout the essay).
Each entry is in a format called a "hanging-indent." This means the first line of each entry is flush with the left margin but any subsequent lines are indented five-seven spaces or one Tab.
Arrange the entries in alphabetical order by the author's last name. If the author is unknown, alphabetize by the title, ignoring the articles, "A"," An", and "The".
If two or more works by the same author are to be listed, alphabetize the works by title, then give the author's name in the first entry. For additional entries, type three unspaced hyphens and a period instead of the author's name; leave one space and type the title.

Shakespeare, William. Antony and Cleopatra. William Shakespeare: The Complete Works, edited by Alfred Harbage, Penguin, 1969, pp. 930-76.

---. Julius Caesar. William Shakespeare: The Complete Works, pp.1000-1051.

Note that in the above example, both plays were from the same anthology. To avoid unnecessary repetition in the Works Cited, the first entry is complete, but the second one cross-references the first. In the second entry, enough information (the title of the anthology) is given so it is clear Julius Caesar came from the same anthology as Antony and Cleopatra. The rest of the information can then be skipped in the second entry, with only the page range of Julius Caesar added. See additional explanation and examples.

The Core Elements of MLA Citation (9th ed.)

The MLA Handbook, 9th edition, identifies nine “core elements” (105) that could appear in a works cited entry (not every source will have all nine core elements). The core elements are given below, followed by the punctuation mark that should follow when they appear in the works cited list. MLA Style Centre provides additional examples and an interactive template to support you as you cite sources in MLA style.

Author. The author refers to the person or entity who produced or created the work. So an editor, translator, producer, director or performer can go here as well.
Title of source. The source can be a book, essay, story, poem, article, television series, television series episode, web site etc.
Title of container, When the source (see above) is part of a larger whole, the larger whole is the container. Thus, a container can be a book that is a collection of shorter pieces, a periodical, a television series, a web site, a comic book series, a digital platform such as JSTOR, Google Books, or Netflix, etc. More than one container can enclose a source. For an article, its container is the periodical it was published in. However, this periodical is contained on JSTOR. In such a case, after all the core elements (6-10) have been given for the first container, put a period, and then give the second container title and its core elements.
Other Contributors, Some sources have other important contributors besides the author: an editor, adaptor, director, performer(s) or others. Include those contributors who are most relevant to your essay. Before each name put the description of what that person does: edited by, adapted by, directed by, performances by, etc.
Version, Version indicates the source has been published in different forms. For example, an edition is a version. A director’s cut of a movie would be considered a version.
Number, Some sources are part of a numbered sequence. A number would include a book volume number, a periodical’s volume and issue number, a comic book number, or the season and episode numbers of a television series.
Publisher, Publishers are the organization that are responsible for producing or making sources available: book publishers, film and television production companies, the many different kinds of organizations that have web sites etc.
Publication date, Cite the date that is most relevant to your source, if more than one date is given. Write the full date as the source gives it: if the day and month is given, that is what you should use.
Location. A location can be a page number or page range, a URL or web address, permalink or DOI, a disc number for a DVD set, the name of the city where a work of art can be found, an archive number, or the venue and city of a performance or other live presentation

There are also several optional elements, on top of the core nine:

Date of original publication.
City of publication,
Other facts about the source.This could be the following: transcript, lecture, address, total number of volumes in a multivolume publication, title of a book series, or information about original publication.
Date of Access. This can be helpful for online works.

We have used these nine core elements, and four optional elements, as the basis for the examples we provide on the following pages:

Basic Book Format:

Author’s Last Name, First Name. Title of Book. Publisher, Year of Publication.

Basic Article Format

Author's Last Name, First Name. "Title of the Article." Title of the Journal, volume number, date of publication, page range. DOI or permalink.