Abbreviate months in MLA format for publication dates or access dates in Works Cited entries. MLA requires abbreviations for all months except May, June, and July.
The abbreviations for MLA date format are Jan., Feb., Mar., Apr., Aug., Sept., Oct., Nov., and Dec.
MLA month abbreviation example
Studach, Mel. “Inside SNL Star Heidi Gardner’s Midcentury
Home, a Disco Fantasy Come True.” Architectural Digest, 29 Oct. 2024, www.architecturaldigest.com/gallery/heidi-gardner-inside-the-snl-stars-midcentury-disco-fantasy.
Don’t abbreviate months in the heading or main text of an MLA document (e.g., “Harry Potter was born on July 31, 1980.”)
QuillBot’s free Citation Generator can help you format months and dates correctly in MLA Works Cited entries.
Minor words, such as prepositions (e.g., “behind” or “with”) and coordinating conjunctions (e.g., “and” or “but”) should not be capitalized unless they’re the first or last word of the title or the first word after a colon.
The guidelines apply to MLA poetry citations on the Works Cited page and any titles that you mention in the main text.
You can also use QuillBot’s free Citation Generator to format poem titles correctly in MLA writing and Works Cited entries.
DOIs and URLs are sometimes necessary in reference entries but never in in-text citations.
For all sources that have DOIs, put the DOI at the end of the reference entry. The DOI should be a hyperlink that readers can follow for more details about the publication.
If a DOI isn’t listed on the source, you can usually search for the DOI online. If you confirm that a source doesn’t have a DOI, you can omit it from the references entry.
Only include a URL (in place of a DOI) for journal articles that don’t have DOIs and that you accessed on the journal’s homepage.
QuillBot’s free Citation Generator can help you use DOIs and URLs correctly in your APA reference entries.
A journal article is a type of scholarly source that is common in academic writing. Journals are periodicals, which means that they are published multiple times per year (like magazines).
Each journal is focused on a specific aspect of a larger academic field. For example, within the broader field of nursing, there are scholarly journals about nursing education, intensive care nursing, cardiovascular nursing, and many other subcategories.
Each issue of a journal includes multiple articles by different authors. Journal articles often focus on original research experiments.
If you quote, paraphrase, or summarize journal articles in your writing, follow the format for APA style journal article citations, MLA citations, or whichever citation format you’re using.
You can also use QuillBot’s free Citation Generator to create journal article citations.
Cite a book chapter in MLA when each chapter has a different author listed in the table of contents and/or on the first page of each chapter.
In MLA book citations for chapters in edited books, include the chapter author and a page range in each in-text citation (Smith 234). In the Works Cited entry, include the following details.
Name, First and Middle (if the middle name is part of the byline). “Chapter/Story/Essay/Poem Title.” Book Title, edited by Editor’s Name(s), nth ed., vol. x, Publisher, Year, Page range.
(An edition or volume number before the page range is only necessary if the book has multiple editions/volumes.)
MLA book chapter citation example
Roy, Ashok, and Kogan, Cary S. “Disorders of Intellectual Development and Developmental Learning Disorder.” A Psychological Approach to Diagnosis: Using the ICD-11 as a Framework, edited by Geoffrey M. Reed et al., American Psychological Association, 2024, pp. 41-60.
You can also use QuillBot’s free Citation Generator to create Works Cited entries and in-text citations for chapters in edited books.
Also capitalize the first and last words and the first word after a colon. Minor words, such as prepositions (e.g., “over” or “under”) and coordinating conjunctions (e.g., “and” or “but”) should not be capitalized.
To cite a government website in MLA, begin the Works Cited entry with the name of the country, the department name, and then the committee or division name if applicable. Separate each part of the government with a comma.
The rest of the Works Cited entry should have the title of the page/article/report in quotation marks, the website name in italics, the publication date, and the URL.
The in-text MLA website citation should include the name of the government department and a page number if there are numbered pages to cite. If there aren’t numbered pages, only cite the department name, which you can also abbreviate.
MLA government websites examplesWorks Cited entry:
United States, Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. “Highlights of Women’s Earnings in 2023.” BLS Reports, Aug. 2024, bls.gov/opub/reports/womens-earnings/2023/home.htm.
In-text citation:
(US Dept. of Labor)
QuillBot’s free Citation Generator can help you create correct citations for government websites.
Don’t capitalize minor words, which include prepositions (e.g., “above” or “between”), coordinating conjunctions, or “to” when it’s part of an infinitive unless any of these words are the first or last word of the website name or the first word after a colon.
Website titles in MLA website citations don’t need “.com” or other details from the URL.
MLA website title example
Krebs, Eric. “No Matter Who Wins, the Real Work of Sustainability Will Continue.” Reasons to Be Cheerful, 31 Oct. 2024, reasonstobecheerful.world/no-matter-who-wins-sustainability-energy/.
QuillBot’s free Citation Generator can help you use correct capitalization and formatting in MLA website citations.
You only need a page number in an MLA website citation when the source has numbered pages.
Most MLA website citations don’t have page numbers because websites don’t usually have numbered pages. MLA in-text citations for sources without numbered pages only include the author.
You can cite the author in the narrative of the sentence or in parentheses at the end of the sentence, like this example (Currin).
If you’re citing a PDF version of a report from a website, include the author and the page number of the information you’re quoting or paraphrasing, like this example (Carr 5).
Works Cited entries for websites, whether they’re paginated or not, don’t need page numbers.
QuillBot’s free Citation Generator can help you write correct MLA website citations.
Do not italicize article titles in MLA writing. Instead, place article titles in quotation marks (e.g., “Quincy Jones’s Legacy in 14 Essential Songs”).
Do italicize the titles of journals, magazines, and newspapers that contain individual articles (e.g., The New York Times).
These guidelines apply to MLA journal article citationsand MLA style prose (e.g., a sentence in an essay that mentions an article title).
QuillBot’s free Citation Generator can help you format journal article titles correctly on a Works Cited page.
