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MLA 9th

MLA (Modern Language Association) 9th edition is an author-page number referencing style requiring an in-text citation within the text of your document and a related entry in a works cited at the end of your document.

Other item types

This section covers how to do in-text citations when using multiple works and citing one source cited in another.

More than one work within the same parentheses

When information or ideas are sourced from two or more works, the citations are listed alphabetically by the first author's surname, within the same brackets and separated by a semi-colon.

Parenthetical citation

... current research (Brown 20; Jones 40).

Citation in prose

You can consolidate citations to different sources in a single parenthetical citation at the end of the sentence if it is clear which citation applies to which quote. Separate the citations by a semicolon.

Brown and Jones discussed how current literature is "woeful and lacking in structure", making the reader feel "let down by the process" (2; 41).

Only use secondary sources if you are unable to access the original source, i.e. it is out of print or unavailable through the library. It is better to refer back to the original source yourself so you can check the accuracy of the quoted material.

Works cited

The original authors are named in your in-text, but only the source you actually read goes into the works cited. For example, if a study by Stein and Markus was referred to in a work that you read by Henry, you would only list Henry in your works cited.

In the works cited

Henry, Alastair. “Multilingualism and Persistence in Multiple Language Learning.” The Modern Language Journal, vol. 107, no. 1, 2023, pp. 183–201, https://doi.org/10.1111/modl.12826.

Citation in prose

If the original source is unavailable, use qtd. in (for quoted in) within your text.

Parenthetical citation

… the importance of self-schema (Stein and Markus qtd. in Henry 186).

Narrative citation

Stein and Markus discussed the need to "motivate goal-directed behavior when ... closely tied to established current self-schemas" (qtd. in Henry 186).