Rules and Examples

BOOK by a single author:

Author Last Name, First Name. Book Title: Subtitle. Publisher, Year.

Example:

Garcia Marquez, Gabriel. Love in the Time of Cholera. Vintage, 1988.

For an ebook:

Author Last Name, First Name. Book Title: Ebook Source, Publisher, Year.
OR
Author Last Name, First Name. Book Title: Subtitle, Publisher, Year. E-book Source, URL of the source page of the e-book provider.

Example:

Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. Americanah. Kindle edition, Fourth Estate, 2013.

Book with two authors:

Author Last Name, First Name and Author First Name, Last Name. Book Title: Subtitle. Publisher, Year.

Example:

Kahneman, Daniel, and Olivier Sibony, Cass R. Sunstein. Noise: A Flaw in Human
Judgment. Harper Collins, 2021.

Two books by the same author:

(author’s name does not need to be repeated…. second citation uses 3 dashes and period before title)

Example:

Morrison, Toni. Beloved. Knopf, 1987.

—. Song of Solomon. Knopf, 1973.

If quoting from a republished book, then also include the year of first publication:

Example:

Silko, Leslie Marmon. Ceremony. 1977. Penguin, 1986.

Author using a pseudonym (and including the year of first publication):

Example:

Twain, Mark [Samuel Langhorne Clemens]. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. 1884. Penguin, 1959.

Book or article with no author:

Book Title: Subtitle. [Edition information], Publisher, Year.

Example:

United Nations. Consequences of Rapid Population Growth in Developing Countries. Taylor and Francis, 1991.

Anthologies or compilations:

(below “UP” is short for “University Press”)

Example:

Claeys, Gregory, editor. The Cambridge Companion to Utopian Literature. Cambridge UP, 2010.

Short story/poem/essay/article/chapter in an anthology or collection:

Last name, First name. “Title of Essay.” Title of Collection, edited by Editor Name(s). Publisher, Year, pp Page range of entry.

Example:

Dunbar, Paul Laurence. “A Prayer.” 1896. The Wiley Blackwell Anthology of African American Literature, edited by Andrew Jarrett Gene, vol. 1 (1746–1920), Blackwell, 2014, p. 872.
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. “The Yellow Wallpaper.” 1892. The Norton Anthology of American Literature, edited by Nina Baym et al., 3rd ed., vol. 2, Norton, 1989, pp. 649–60.

Article in a Scholarly Print Journal:

Author, First Name. “Title of Article.” Title of Journal, vol. issue no., year, pp. page range.

Example:

Northover, Alan. “Strangers in Strange Worlds: Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam Trilogy.” Journal of Literary Studies, vol. 33, no.1, 2017, pp. 121–37.

Article from a Scholarly Journal from an Online Database (such as JSTOR/Muse):

Author, First Name. “Title of Article.” Title of Journal, vol. issue no., year, pp. page range. [Database source, doi or url]

Example:

Crick, Robert Alan. “Mark Twain, Fenimore Cooper, and Batman.” The English Journal, vol. 81, no. 5, 1992, pp. 72-74. JSTOR, doi: 10.2307/819899.
Lavigne, C. “‘I’m Batman’ (and You Can Be Too): Gender and Constrictive Play in the Arkham Game Series.” Cinema Journal, vol. 55, no. 1, 2015, pp. 133-41. Project Muse, muse.jhu.edu/article/595611.

Article in an Online Journal:

Example:

Cohen, Lara Langer. “Emily Dickinson’s Teenage Fanclub.” The Emily Dickinson Journal, vol. 23, no. 1, 2014, muse.jhu.edu/article/543643.

SAMPLE WORKS CITED LIST

Ahmad, Dohra. Landscapes of Hope: Anti-Colonial Utopianism in America. Oxford UP, 2009.

Dickinson, Emily. “Because I Could Not Stop for Death.” The Norton Anthology of American Literature, edited by Jeanne Campbell Reesman and Arnold Krupat, 7. ed., vol. C, Norton, 2007, p. 86.

Eckstein, Lars. “Recollecting Bones: The Remains of German-Australian Colonial 
Entanglements.” Postcolonial Studies, vol. 21, 2018, pp. 6-19.

Leroux, Marcel. Global Warming: Myth or Reality?: The Erring Ways of Climatology. Springer, 2005.

For more information on how to cite both in the essay and in the Works Cited list, please refer to:

MLA Style Introduction // Purdue Writing Lab

MLA Works Cited Guide