A Guide to Using MLA Citations

MLA referencing is common in the humanities. If you are studying on a literature or language-based course, then, you may be asked to use MLA citations in your written work. To make sure you get this right, check out our guide to using MLA citations in an essay. This will cover basic citations, but also citing multiple authors and other tricky situations.

1. Basic MLA Citations

The basic MLA citation style uses an author surname and a page number in brackets. Typically, you will need to give this at the end of the relevant clause before punctuation:

Bad news travels fast (Hawkins 201).

Here, for example, the citation points to page 201 of a source by Hawkins. You would then give the full source details in the Works Cited list at the end of your document. The main variation on this style comes when an author is already named in the text of your document. For instance:

Hawkins claims that bad news ‘travels fast’ (201).

As shown here, when the author’s name appears in the text, there is no need to repeat this information in the citation. Instead, we just give the page number after the quote.

2. Citing Sources with Multiple Authors

When a source has two authors, name both in the in-text citation:

The exact speed of bad news is a mystery (Ptaszynski and Schreiber 14).

Here, for example, we’re citing page 14 of a text by Ptaszynski and Schreiber.

For sources with three or more authors, use the first name plus ‘et al.’:

Harkin et al. argue that good news is equally fast (101).

‘Et al.’ here means ‘and others’, showing the reader that some names have been left out. The same applies if a source has three or more editors or translators in the Works Cited list.

3. Citing More than One Author with the Same Surname

To cite more than one author with the same surname in a single document, you will need to adapt your references accordingly. And with MLA citations, this means giving a first initial before the author’s surname:

News moves slower in water (A. Smith 32) and faster in a vacuum (Z. Smith 412-414).

You can also use the first names to determine the order of sources in the Works Cited list. However, give the full first names and surnames of all authors as usual, not just the first initials.

4. Citing Multiple Works by the Same Author

Rather than using a year of publication to distinguish between sources by the same author, MLA referencing recommends using the source title in place of the author’s name.

For example, imagine that Hawkins had written both a book called A History of Bad News and an article called ‘The Pace of News: A Comparative Study of Communicative Speed’. To cite both of these in the same document, we would need to include their titles in the citations:

Hawkins says that bad news travels fast (A History of Bad News 201). Its speed seems to be increasing, too (‘The Pace of News’ 1136).

The examples above show two things about using titles in MLA citations:

1. Titles should be formatted according to the source type (e.g. italics for books and quote marks for shorter pieces such as articles)
2. Long titles should be shortened (e.g. changing ‘The Pace of News: A Comparative Study of Communicative Speed’ to just ‘The Pace of News’)

In addition, if the author is not named in the text, you should include this in the citation. For instance:

Bad news travels fast (Hawkins, A History of Bad News 201). Its speed seems to be increasing, too (Hawkins, ‘The Pace of News’ 1136).

In the Works Cited list, meanwhile, you should organise sources by the same author alphabetically by title. In addition, use three hyphens in place of the author’s name for each entry after the first:

Hawkins, Justin. A History of Bad News. Sydney, PMD Publications, 2007.

– – – . ‘The Pace of News: A Comparative Study of Communicative Speed’. The Journal of Alternative Telecommunications, vol. 9, no. 3, 2015, pp. 1124-1139.

5. Citing More than One Source at Once

Finally, to cite more than one source in the same place, separate each citation with a semicolon:

Bad news moves faster than light (Hawkins 198; Smith 22).

Here, for example, we’re citing both Hawkins and Smith to support the same point. This can be especially useful for showing that many people share the same idea or theory.