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MLA Citation Style 8th Edition

This guide will help you cite sources in MLA Citation Style 8th Edition.

Article from an Online Database

Citation Recipe

  1. Author.    DeCarlo, John.
  2. Title of source.      "Mother and Son: The Dynamics of Hamlet's Cartesian Madness."
  3. Title of container,     Journal of Philosophy: A Cross-Disciplinary Inquiry,
  4. Other contributors,    
  5. Version,
  6. Number,     vol. 6, no. 4,
  7. Publishers,  
  8. Publication date,     Winter 2011,
  9. Location.     pp. 51-60.

Container 2 (in this case the database that the article was retrieved from):

  1. Title of container,    MLA International Bibliography,
  2. Other contributors,    
  3. Version,
  4. Number,
  5. Publishers, 
  6. Publication date,  
  7. Location.     ezproxy.ardc.talonline.ca/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mzh&AN=2011027184.

Example

In-Text Citation

(DeCarlo 55)

Works Cited

DeCarlo, John. "Mother and Son: The Dynamics of Hamlet's Cartesian Madness." Journal of Philosophy: A Cross-Disciplinary Inquiry, vol. 6, no. 4, Winter 2011, pp. 51-60. MLA International Bibliography, ezproxy.ardc.talonline.ca/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mzh&AN=2011027184.

Tips

Check How to Build a Citation to learn how to find and format individual elements of the citation.

If an element is not present (e.g., other contributors), leave it out.

MLA recommends including the URL unless your instructor specifies that it shouldn't be included (p. 48). When providing a URL for a journal within an article database, look for the permalink (p. 48). This link is different from the one found in a web browser address bar.

If your article has a DOI (digital object identifier) use that number as the "Location" element, in lieu of a URL (p. 48).