MLA Works Cited

Documenting Sources at the End of Your Paper

MLA style requires that you include a Works Cited page at the end of your research paper. All in-text citations in your paper must have an entry in the Works Cited page. The Works Cited page must conform to the following rules:

• Begin on a separate page at the end of your essay, using the same format as your essay (i.e., one-inch margins and last name, page number header, etc.).
• Center the words Works Cited at the top of the page.
• Double-space all citations.
• Don't skip spaces between entries.
• Capitalize each word in the titles of articles, books, etc.
• Don't capitalize articles (e.g., a, an, the), short prepositions (e.g., of, by, with), or conjunctions (e.g., and, or, yet) unless one is the first word of the title or subtitle.
• Use italics or underlining for titles of larger works (books, magazines) and quotation marks for titles of shorter works (poems, articles).

A Note on Print Versus Web Sources

Every MLA citation should end with the medium it was accessed as (either Print or Web). So while a journal article may have first appeared in a print publication, if you accessed that article online, then you would cite it as a Web resource.

Click on the image below to view to download an interactive PDF on creating specific Works Cited entries for your source types.