MLA 9th Edition: MLA 9th Edition Home

Welcome to CSUB's MLA 9th Edition Citation Guide

This style guide is for the 9th edition of the MLA Handbook, the most recent manual from the Modern Languages Association. In this guide you will find information and examples for citing books, periodicals, newspapers, electronic sources, and multimedia materials. For help citing additional sources, we recommend consulting the MLA Handbook. Print copies are available at the reference desk on the first floor of Walter W. Stiern Library. For the most up to date information see the MLA Style Center website.

Use the tabs and dropdown menus on this guide to select which citation system and materials you can cite in MLA style.

Elements of MLA Citation Style:

Works Cited

A separate works cited list is included at the end of a MLA style publication. In MLA, author's last name comes first and citations are sorted alphabetically. 

In-Text Citations

In-text citations are included in the body of a MLA style publication, directly after the passage or sentence referring to the the cited materials. In MLA format, writers have the option to use narrative or parenthetical in-text citation.

• Narrative in-text citation means citing the author's last name in the sentence and only citing the page number at the end of the sentence, i.e. "Valdez argues.... (54)."
• Parenthetical citation includes the author's last name and page number of the cited material at the end of the passage or sentence, i.e. (Valdez 54).

For additional paper formatting information, refer to the MLA Handbook. Additionally, the Purdue OWL MLA Sample Paper is also a helpful resource.