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MLA Guide

This guide contains information to help you cite your sources in MLA format.

Citing a Journal Article (Print or Electronic)

Please see below for MLA guidelines on how to cite journal articles according to where they were found (in a library database or a website).

Basic Format

Format: Author(s). "Title of Article." Title of Journal in Italics, vol. #, no. #, Date of Publication, page number(s). Database or Website Name in Italics (if electronic), URL/DOI.

*Note: If piece is a single page, use: p. for page number; if article is multiple pages, use: pp.

*Note: Date of publications are written as Day Month Year (Example. 15 Sept. 2020) leaving out any information that the source doesn’t include (Example. Aug. 2017 or simply 2017 depending on what's provided). Remember to abbreviate the months that are more than 4 letters.

 

Journal Article found on a Database 

Example: Godwin, John. "Wallace’s 'Jest'." Explicator, vol. 61, no. 2, 2003, pp. 122-24. General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A186269246/ITOF?u=spartechcl&sid=ITOF&xid=1e4615a6.

*Note: You can usually omit the http:// unless needed to hyperlink.

*Note: For URLs longer than 3 lines, you can shorten the URL. Always retain the host (main website) of the URL.

*Note: a DOI is a unique code assigned to academic articles to help you locate them. It's sort of like an article's social security number. A DOI may look like a link (https://doi.org/10.1109/5.771073) or they may just have the DOI itself (10.1109/5.771073). In your Works Cited, format the DOI as a link. If you see this on your article, you should include it, but not every source will have one. If a source has a DOI, you would use instead of the URL.

Article with a DOI:

Example: Goldman, Ann. “Reading Primo Levi Reading.” The Georgia Review, vol. 64, no. 1, 2010, pp. 69-88. Gale Literature Resource Center, https://doi.org/10.1632/adfl.43.2.11.

Journal Article from a Website

Example: Enright, Lyle. “Powers of the False: The Slender Man, and Post-Postmodernism.” Cultural Analysis, vol. 16, no. 2, 20 Apr. 2017, www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~culturalanalysis/volume16_2/vol16_2_Enright.html.

Article with a DOI:

Example: Eckardt, Nancy and Sabeeha Merchant. "Journal Impact: Brave New World." The Plant Cell, vol. 29, no. 9, Sept. 2017, pp. 2071-74. ResearchGate, https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.17.00680.