MLA STYLE WORKS CITED PAGE
The MLA formatting and citation style is commonly used in the humanities. The “Works Cited” page is
an alphabetical list of bibliographic entries for each work you reference in your text. This list allows
readers to trace your research path. As you do the groundwork for your paper, record citation information
for each source that you use; never wait until the end of your writing process to “add in” citation
information. This brief handout was compiled using the MLA Handbook, seventh edition For further
information, please refer to the MLA handbook or the Purdue Owl.
FORMAT

Begin the Works Cited section on a new page; number it continuously with the body of the paper.
Center the title Works Cited (no underline, no quotation marks; see below).

Keep the one-inch page margins, double-spaced format and flush left margin of regular text.

Entries must have a hanging indent (which means that the first line of each entry should be at the left
margin and the rest of the lines should be indented half an inch).

Alphabetize Works Cited entries by the last name of the author you cited. When there is no author,
alphabetize by the title of work.

When last names are similar, consider the full first names as well for alphabetical order.

When there are multiple works by the same author, replace the author’s name with three hyphens
(---) and list the entries of that author’s works by their titles in alphabetical order.
Frye, Northrop. Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1957.
---. The Double Vision: Language and Meaning in Religion. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1991.

If you cannot find some of this information, cite what is available to you, but work to find as much as
you can. This is especially important with electronic sources like web sites.
ANATOMY OF AN MLA WORKS CITED PAGE (entry is for a book)
Author’s Last Name[comma]
Author’s Other Names[period]
Italicize Title of Book[period]
(Capitalize first letter of key
words)
Special information about
Keep the same header
edition, translation,
as before and continue
volume, etc, about the
the page count
book, if any.
Doe 42
1” Margin
Works Cited
Keep the margins the
same as before and
double-space
throughout
Doyle, Arthur Conan. The Oxford Sherlock Holmes. Ed. Owen Dudley Edwards. 9 vols. New York:
½” Indent
1” Margin
Oxford UP, 1993. Print.
Place of Publication [colon]
Name of Publisher[comma]
Year of
Publication[period]
Indicate where the
source originates
(Print or Web)
∙ University of South Florida ∙ USF Main Library ∙ LIB 125C ∙ www.usf.edu/writing ∙ [email protected] ∙
∙ 813.974.8293 ∙
REFERENCES
BOOK
Papandreou, Giorgos. Modern Recipes for Traditional Families. Lansing: Michigan State
Press, 2004. Print.
JOURNAL OR
SCHOLARLY
ARTICLE
TWO TO THREE
AUTHORS
Smith, John. “Inventing the Wheel.” Breakthroughs of the Century 45.6 (2009): 85-98.
Print.
FOUR OR MORE
AUTHORS
WORK IN
ANTHOLOGY
Gilman, Sander, et al. Hysteria Beyond Freud. Berkeley: U of California P, 1993. Print.
AUTHOR UNKNOWN
“Hourly News Summary.” National Public Radio. Natl. Public Radio, 20 July 2007.
Web. 21 July 2007.
ONLINE JOURNAL
OR MAGAZINE
Green, Joshua. “The Rove Presidency.” The Atlantic.com. Atlantic Monthly Group,
Sept. 2007. Web. 20 July 2009.
Marquart, James W., Sheldon Ekland Olson, and Jonathan R. Sorensen. The Rope, the
Chair and the Needle: Capital Punishment in Texas, 1923-1990. Austin: U of Texas P,
1994. Print.
Cooke, Brooke. “Mourning Poem.” Trans. Marianne Jenine. Collected Poems of
Cooke. Ed. Henry Johnson. New York: Voight Press, 1978. Print.
To access additional resources, please
visit the USF Writing Center website
∙ University of South Florida ∙ USF Main Library ∙ LIB 125C ∙ www.usf.edu/writing ∙ [email protected] ∙
∙ 813.974.8293 ∙