MLA Citation Guide (MLA 9th edition) CGS
Your research paper ends with a list of all the sources cited in the text of the paper. This is called a Works Cited list. See an example in the "Sample Paper & Works Cited List" box on this page.
Here are eight quick rules for this list:
- Start a new page for your Works Cited list (e.g., if your paper is 4 pages long, start your Works Cited list on page 5).
- Center the title, Works Cited, at the top of the page and do not bold or underline it.
- Double-space the list.
- Start the first line of each citation at the left margin; indent each subsequent line five spaces (also known as a "hanging indent").
- Put your list in alphabetical order. Alphabetize the list by the first word in the citation. In most cases, the first word will be the author’s last name. Where the author is unknown, alphabetize by the first word in the title, ignoring the words a, an, the.
- For each author, give the last name followed by a comma and the first name followed by a period.
- Italicize the titles of full works: books, audiovisual material, websites.
- Do not italicize titles of parts of works, such as: articles from newspapers, magazines, or journals / essays, poems, short stories or chapter titles from a book / chapters or sections of an Internet document. Instead, use quotation marks.
Formatting
This free book chapter offers explanations and examples of MLA formatting such as margins, title, page numbers and works cited lists. Click on the name of the book chapters (to the left of the free button) to learn more about each topic.
The MLA Sample Paper Template may be used to set up your assignment. The template includes:
- A sample assignment page;
- and a Works CIted list in MLA format.
The Word document sample paper template may display incorrect margins. Please double check to ensure 1" margins on all sides.
