mla citation of candide book

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It's easy to cite LitCharts for use in academic papers and reports.

Lucas, Julian. "Candide." LitCharts. LitCharts LLC, 16 Sep 2013. Web. 10 Apr 2024.

Lucas, Julian. " Candide ." LitCharts LLC, September 16, 2013. Retrieved April 10, 2024. https://www.litcharts.com/lit/candide.

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MLA Style (9th Edition) Citation Guide: Books & Ebooks

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Candide: Includes MLA Style Citations for Scholarly Secondary Sources, Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles and Critical Essays (Squid Ink Classics)

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Brought up in the household of a powerful Baron, Candide is an open-minded young man, whose tutor, Pangloss, has instilled in him the belief that 'all is for the best'. But when his love for the Baron's rosy-cheeked daughter is discovered, Candide is cast out to make his own way in the world.

And so he and his various companions begin a breathless tour of Europe, South America and Asia, as an outrageous series of disasters befall them - earthquakes, syphilis, a brush with the Inquisition, murder - sorely testing the young hero's optimism.

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Cite a Book in MLA

Don't let plagiarism errors spoil your paper

Citing books in mla.

How do you cite a book? What information do you need to include and where does it go? Citation Machine citing tools can help you easily create formatted citations for your research paper.

First, find your book using the search box above. The book’s author, title, or ISBN will work. If there are books with similar titles, authors, different editions, etc., you will be shown all possibilities, so you can choose the correct book. From there, the citing tools will automatically pull information on the source and help you create a citation.

Books aren’t just in print. They can be electronic, too. You can find them in online databases, websites, audiobooks, and other forms of media. Citation Machine citing tools can handle those, as well.

Standard book citation:

Collins, Suzanne. The Hunger Games. Scholastic, 2008.

Translated works in MLA format:

If the focus was on the text, rather than the actual translation, cite the source like this:

Vila-Matas, Enrique. Never Any End to Paris. Translated by Anne McLean, New Directions, 2011.

If the focus was on the translation, include the translator’s name first in the citation.

McLean, Anne, translator. Never Any End to Paris. By Enrique Vila-Matas, New Directions, 2011.

Wish you had an automatic MLA citation generator to do all of the heavy lifting for you? Try out our generator, at the top of this page.

How to cite a textbook in print:

To cite a full textbook in print in MLA format, you’ll need to find the following pieces of information:

• Name of the author(s) or editor(s)
• Title of the textbook, including any subtitles
• Version of the textbook (such as a numbered edition or revised edition)
• Name of the publisher
• Year the textbook was published

Place the pieces of information in this format:

Last name, First name of the author or Last name, First name, editor. Title of the Textbook. Version, Publisher, Year published.

If the textbook was compiled by an editor, use this format at the beginning of the citation:

Last name, First name, editor.

Examples of how to cite a textbook in print:

Lilly, Leonard S. Braunwald’s Heart Disease: Review and Assessment . 9th ed., Elsevier Saunders, 2012.

Cherny, Nathan, et al., editors. Oxford Textbook of Palliative Medicine . 5th ed., Oxford UP, 2015.

E-books in MLA format:

Citing an e-book (a digital book that lacks a URL and that you use software to read on a personal e-reader):

Alcott, Louisa May. Little Women. E-book ed., Barnes & Noble Classics, 2004.

In the “version” section of the citation, include “E-book ed.” to specify that you used an e-book version of a printed book.

You can also use the “final supplemental” section of the citation to specify the file type of the electronic edition of the work if you know the work varies by file format.

Alcott, Louisa May. Little Women. E-book ed., Barnes & Noble Classics, 2004. EPUB.

If you’re citing a book available from a website, here’s an example in MLA format:

Doyle, Arthur Conan. “A Scandal in Bohemia.” The Complete Sherlock Holmes, Internet Archive, archive.org/details/deysayan844_gmail_Cano/mode/2up?ref=ol&view=theater&q=119.

The website is the container, which is found in the third position of the citation, in italics.

Wish you had a second set of eyes to review your citations? Use our MLA citation generator and compare the output to yours.

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Works-Cited-List Entries

How to cite a book.

To create a basic works-cited-list entry for a book, list the author, the title, the publisher, and the publication date. You may need to include other elements depending on the type of book you are citing (e.g., an edited book, a translation) and how it is published (e.g., in print, as an e-book, online). Below are sample entries for books along with links to posts containing many other examples.

Book by One Author

Mantel, Hilary. Wolf Hall . Picador, 2010.

Book by an Unknown Author

Beowulf . Translated by Alan Sullivan and Timothy Murphy, edited by Sarah Anderson, Pearson, 2004.

An Edited Book

Sánchez Prado, Ignacio M., editor. Mexican Literature in Theory . Bloomsbury, 2018.

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Home / Guides / Citation Guides / MLA Format / MLA Book Citation

How to Cite a Book in MLA

Books are written works or compositions that have been published. They are no longer restricted to paper and have evolved into the online realm.

Below are examples of how to cite different types of books in MLA 9. If you need a different citation style, there is also a guide on citing a book in APA .

In MLA, a basic book citation includes the following information:

• Author’s name
• Title of book
• Publisher of the book
• Year published

Additional information is needed when citing:

• Name of website or database
• Name of e-book device
• Name of the translator or editor
• Name of book editor or author
• Name of chapter author
• Page numbers or ranges used
• Volume number of the book
• City the book was published in

Citing a book in MLA (print)

View Screenshot | Cite your book

Citing a book found on a Website or database in MLA

Many books are now found online. Popular sites or databases that hold e-books include Google Books, Project Gutenberg, and EBSCO.

Cite your book

*Keep “https:” at the beginning of the URL only when citing a DOI.

Digital sources with no page numbers means that no page numbers should be included in the in-text citation.

Citing an E-book in MLA (found via an e-reader)

E-Readers are electronic devices that display e-books. Kindles and Nooks are some of the more popular e-readers available today. Individuals can purchase or borrow e-books and read them on their e-readers.

Cite your ebook

Since the page numbers of an e-book can vary across e-reader, text preferences, and other factors, you should not include a page number. This is because a consistent page number does not exist. You can include section numbers (sec., secs.) or chapter numbers (ch., chs.) instead, if they exist and you feel it would be helpful.

Citing a translated or edited book in MLA

Citing a chapter of a book in mla.

*In the above citation example, The Body of the Queen: Gender and Rule in the Courtly World, 1500-2000 is an edited book that features a chapter by Louis Montrose. The title of the chapter that he wrote is found in quotation marks (“Elizabeth Through the Looking Glass: Picturing the Queen’s Two Bodies”).

Citing a book with multiple authors in MLA

*et al. is Latin for “and others.”

Published October 20, 2011. Updated May 9, 2021.

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In the works cited: If the organization is the author and publisher, don’t include an author and start the citation with the book’s title. If the author and publisher are different, use the organization name as the author.

When the chapter’s author is different from the book’s editor or author. Chapters are usually cited when you use anthologies, multi-volume sets, or a foreword/afterword written by someone other than the book’s main author.

Place the author’s last name and the quote chapter number in parenthesis after the borrowed quote or information. Example: “Feeling that Peter was on his way back, the Neverland had again woke into life” (Barrie ch. 5).

MLA is the style most often used in literature, language, history, art and theater subjects.

If any important information is missing (e.g., author’s name, title, publishing date, URL, etc.), first see if you can find it in the source yourself. If you cannot, leave the information blank and continue creating your citation.

Yes! Whether you’d like to learn how to construct citations on your own, our Autocite tool isn’t able to gather the metadata you need, or anything in between, manual citations are always an option. Click here for directions on using creating manual citations.

To cite a book with multiple authors in MLA style, you need to have basic information including the authors, publication year, book title, and publisher. The templates for in-text citation and works-cited-list entry of a book written by multiple authors and some examples are given below:

In-text citation template and example:

Citation in prose:

For sources with two authors, use both full author names in prose (e.g., Harold Napoleon and Richard Harris). For sources with three or more authors, use the first name and surname of the first author followed by “and others” or “and colleagues” (e.g., Harold Napoleon and others). In subsequent citations, use only the surname of the first author followed by “and others” or “and colleagues” (e.g., Napoleon and others).

First mention: Harold Napoleon and colleagues…. or Harold Napoleon and others ….

Subsequent occurrences: Napoleon and colleagues…. or Napoleon and others ….

Parenthetical:

In parenthetical citations, use only the author’s surname (e.g., Napoleon). For sources with two authors, use two surnames (e.g., Napoleon and Harris). For sources with three or more author names, use the first author’s surname followed by “et al.”

….(Napoleon et al.)

Works-cited-list entry template and example:

The title of the book is given in italics and title case.

Surname, F. M., et al. Title of the Book . Publisher, Publication Date.

Napoleon, Harold, et al. Yuuyaraq the Way of the Human Being: With Commentary . University of Alaska, 1996.

Use only the first author’s name in surname–first name order in the entry and follow it with “et al.”

A book is a printed copy, whereas an e-book is an online version and is available via different electronic media (e.g., epub and Kindle).

To cite a print book in MLA format, you need to know the names of the authors, the title of the book, publisher name, publication date, and page range (optional). You need the same information to cite an e-book, however, you will not include page numbers unless they are the same as those in the print version of the book. MLA mostly treats citations for print books and e-books the same, except for noting that the e-book version is being cited within the entry.

The templates and examples for in-text citations and works cited list entries for a book and an e-book are provided below:

In-text citation template and example for a book:

Author Surname

(Author Surname Page)

(Damasio 7)

Works cited list entry template and example:

Surname, First Name. Title of the Book . Publisher, Publication Date, Page range.

Damasio, Antonio. Emotion, Reason and the Feeling Brain . Penguin, 1994.

In-text citation template and example for an e-book:

(Author Surname)

Author’s Surname, First Name. Title of the Book . E-book ed., Publisher, Publication Date.

Davis, Barbara. The Keeper of Happy Endings . E-book ed., Lake Union Publishing, 2021.

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MLA Citation Guide (MLA 9th Edition): Books

• Understanding Core Elements
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General Guideline

The general MLA 9 formatting for books is:

Work Cited List: Last Name, First Name.  Title of Book.  Publisher, Publication Date. 

In-Text: (Author Last Name page number of quote or idea).

Book with One Author

Last Name, First Name. Title of Book.  Publisher, Publication Date. 

(Author Last Name page number).

Kirsh , Steven J.  Children, Adolescents, and Media Violence: A Critical Look at the Research.  Sage, 2006.

Book with More Than One Author

When a book has two authors , order the authors in the same way they are presented in the book.

Last Name, First Name of First Author, and First Name Last Name of Second Author. Title of Book.  Publisher, Publication Date. 

(First Author Last Name page number).

Wykes , Maggie, and Barrie Gunter.  The Media and Body Image: If Looks Could Kill.  Sage, 2005. 

If there are three or more authors , list only the first author followed by the phrase et al. (Latin for "and others") in place of the subsequent authors' names.

Last Name, First Name of First Author, et al. Title of Book . Publisher, Publication Date.

(First Author Last Name, et al. page number).

Nickels, William, et al. Understanding Canadian Business . McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 2016.

(Nickel, et al)

Book with Editor(s) and No Author

Last Name of Editor, First Name, editor(s). Title of Book . Publisher, Publication Date.

Matuz, Roger, editor. Contemporary Canadian Artists . Gale Canada, 1997.

A Work in an Anthology, Reference, or Collection

 format.

Last Name, First Name. "Title of Essay." Title of Collection, e dited by Editor's Name(s), Publisher, Year, Page range of entry. 

(Last Name page number)

 Example

Ross, Colin. "The Story of Grey Owl."  Fiction/Non-Fiction: A Reader and Rhetoric,  edited by Garry  Engkent  and Lucia  Engkent , Thomson Nelson, 2006, pp. 327-333. 

  Note:  The first author's name listed is the author of the chapter/essay/short story. If there is no editor given you may leave out that part of the citation.

Book by a Group or Corporate Author

Name of Corporate Author. Title of Book.  Publisher, Publication Date.

Calgary Educational Partnership Foundation.  Employability Skills: Creating My Future,  Nelson, 1996.

 Note : When a work is published by an organization that is also its author, begin the entry with the title, skipping the author element. List the organization as publisher.

Self-Published

Last Name, First Name. Title.  Date. 

Hocking, Amanda. Fate.  2010.

(Hocking 10).

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😕 What is an MLA Citation Generator?

An MLA citation generator is a software tool designed to automatically create academic citations in the Modern Language Association (MLA) citation format. The generator will take information such as document titles, author, and URLs as in input, and output fully formatted citations that can be inserted into the Works Cited page of an MLA-compliant academic paper.

The citations on a Works Cited page show the external sources that were used to write the main body of the academic paper, either directly as references and quotes, or indirectly as ideas.

👩‍🎓 Who uses an MLA Citation Generator?

MLA style is most often used by middle school and high school students in preparation for transition to college and further education. Ironically, MLA style is not actually used all that often beyond middle and high school, with APA (American Psychological Association) style being the favored style at colleges across the country.

It is also important at this level to learn why it's critical to cite sources, not just how to cite them.

🙌 Why should I use a Citation Generator?

Writing citations manually is time consuming and error prone. Automating this process with a citation generator is easy, straightforward, and gives accurate results. It's also easier to keep citations organized and in the correct order.

The Works Cited page contributes to the overall grade of a paper, so it is important to produce accurately formatted citations that follow the guidelines in the official MLA Handbook .

⚙️ How do I use MyBib's MLA Citation Generator?

It's super easy to create MLA style citations with our MLA Citation Generator. Scroll back up to the generator at the top of the page and select the type of source you're citing. Books, journal articles, and webpages are all examples of the types of sources our generator can cite automatically. Then either search for the source, or enter the details manually in the citation form.

The generator will produce a formatted MLA citation that can be copied and pasted directly into your document, or saved to MyBib as part of your overall Works Cited page (which can be downloaded fully later!).

MyBib supports the following for MLA style:

Daniel is a qualified librarian, former teacher, and citation expert. He has been contributing to MyBib since 2018.

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Candide: Includes MLA Style Citations for Scholarly Secondary Sources, Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles and Critical Essays (Squid Ink Classics) Paperback – September 14, 2015

• Print length 108 pages
• Language English
• Publication date September 14, 2015
• Dimensions 6 x 0.26 x 9 inches
• ISBN-10 1517355184
• ISBN-13 978-1517355180
• Lexile measure 1010
• See all details

Product details

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform (September 14, 2015)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 108 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1517355184
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1517355180
• Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 1010
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 6.1 ounces
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.26 x 9 inches
• #34,143 in Fiction Satire
• #47,072 in Coming of Age Fiction (Books)
• #123,800 in Classic Literature & Fiction

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Quotes from Voltaire's "Candide"

Important Excerpts from the 1759 Novella

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Voltaire offers his satirical view of society and nobility in Candide , a novel that was published first in France in 1759 and is often considered the author's most important work—representative of the Enlightenment period.

Also known as Candide: or, the Optimist in its English translation, the novella begins with a young man being indoctrinated by optimism and follows the character as he faces the harsh reality outside of his protected upbringing.

Ultimately, the work concludes that optimism must be approached realistically, as opposed to the indoctrinated approach of his Leibnizian teachers who thought "all is for the best" or "best of all possible worlds."

Read on to explore a few of the quotes from this great literary work below, in order of their appearance in the novella.

The Indoctrination and Sheltered Beginnings of Candide

Voltaire begins his satirical work with a not-too-kind observation of what we are taught is right in the world, from the idea of wearing glasses to the concept of being pantless, all under the lens of "all is for the best:"

"Observe that noses were made to wear spectacles, and so we have spectacles. Legs were visibly instituted to be breeched, and we have breeches. Stones were formed to be quarried and to build castles; and My Lord has a very noble castle; the greatest Baron in the province should have the best house; and as pigs were made to be eaten, we eat pork all year round; consequently, those who have asserted all is well talk nonsense; they ought to have said that all is for the best." —Chapter One

But when Candide leaves his school and enters the world outside his safe home, he is confronted with armies, which he finds splendid as well, for different reasons: "Nothing could be smarter, more splendid, more brilliant, better drawn up than two armies...Trumpets, fifes, hautboys, drums, cannons, formed a harmony such as never been heard in hell" (Chapter Three).

Bitingly, he comments in Chapter Four: "If Columbus in an island of America had not caught the disease, which poisons the source of generation, and often indeed prevents generation, we should not have chocolate and cochineal."

Later, he also adds that "Men...must have corrupted nature a little, for they were not born wolves, and they have become wolves. God did not give them twenty-four-pounder cannons or bayonets, and they have made bayonets and cannons to destroy each other."

On Ritual and Public Good

As the character Candide explores more of the world, he observes the great irony of optimism, that it is a selfish act even as it is a selfless one to want more for the public good. In Chapter Four Voltaire writes "...and private misfortunes make the public good, so that the more private misfortunes there are, the more everything is well."

In Chapter Six, Voltaire comments on the rituals performed in the local communities: "It was decided by the University of Coimbra that the sight of several persons being slowly burned in great ceremony is an infallible secret for preventing earthquakes."

This makes the character consider what could possibly be worse than that cruel form of ritual if the Leibnizian mantra held true: "If this is the best of all possible worlds, what are the others?" but later conceded that his teacher Pangloss "deceived me cruelly when he said that all is for the best in the world."

Involving Suffering

Voltaire's work had a tendency to discuss the taboo, to comment on the parts of society others dare not in more straightforward works than his satire. For this reason, Voltaire controversially stated in Chapter Seven, "A lady of honor may be raped once, but it strengthens her virtue," and later in Chapter 10 expanded on the idea of triumphing over worldly suffering as a personal virtue of Candide:

"Alas! My dear... unless you have been raped by two Bulgarians, stabbed twice in the belly, have had two castles destroyed, two fathers and mothers murdered before your eyes, and have seen two of your lovers flogged in an auto-da-fe, I do not see how you can surpass me; moreover, I was born a Baroness with seventy-two quarterings and I have been a kitchen wench."

Further Questioning of Man's Value on Earth

In Chapter 18, Voltaire once again visits the idea of ritual as a folly of mankind, jeering at the monks: "What! Have you no monks to teach, to dispute, to govern, to intrigue and to burn people who do not agree with them?" and later in Chapter 19 posits that "Dogs, monkeys, and parrots are a thousand times less miserable than we are" and "The malevolence of men revealed itself to his mind in all of its ugliness."

It was at this point that Candide, the character, realized that the world is almost wholly lost to "some evil creature," but there is a practical optimism in being adaptable to what the world still offers in its limited goodness, as long as one realizes the truth of where mankind has come to:

"Do you think... that men have always massacred each other, as they do today? Have they always been liars, cheats, traitors, brigands, weak, flighty, cowardly, envious, gluttonous, drunken, grasping, and vicious, bloody, backbiting, debauched, fanatical, hypocritical, and silly?" —Chapter 21

Closing Thoughts from Chapter 30

Ultimately, after years of travel and hardships, Candide asks the ultimate question: would it be better to die or to continue doing nothing:

"I should like to know which is worse, to be raped a hundred times by Negro pirates, to have a buttock cut off, to run the gauntlet among the Bulgarians, to be whipped and flogged in an auto-da-fé, to be dissected, to row in a galley, in short, to endure all the miseries through which we have passed, or to remain here doing nothing?" —Chapter 30

Work, it is, then, that Voltaire posits will keep the mind occupied from the eternal pessimism of reality, the understanding that all of mankind has been dominated by an evil creature bent on war and destruction rather than peace and creation for, as he puts it in Chapter 30, "Work keeps at bay three great evils: boredom, vice, and need."

"Let us work without theorizing," Voltaire says, "...'tis the only way to make life endurable."

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How to cite in MLA format

MLA is one of the most common citation styles used by students and academics. This quick guide explains how to cite sources according to the 9th edition (the most recent) of the MLA Handbook . You can also use Scribbr’s free  citation generator to automatically generate references and in-text citations.

An MLA citation has two components:

• In-text citation : Every time you quote or paraphrase a source, you cite the author and the page number in parentheses.
• Works Cited : At the end of your paper, you give a full reference for every source you cited, alphabetized by the author’s last name.

MLA Works Cited list

The list of Works Cited (also known as the bibliography or reference page) gives full details of every source you cited in your text. Each entry is built from nine core elements:

Following this format, you can create a citation for any type of source—for example, a book , journal article , website , or movie . You only include information that’s relevant to the type of source you’re citing.

Missing information in MLA citations

Regardless of the source type, the most important elements of any MLA citation are the author , the source title , and the publication date. If any of these are missing from the source, the Works Cited entry will look slightly different.

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MLA in-text citations

MLA in-text citations are brief references that direct your reader to the full source entry. You include them every time you quote , block quote , paraphrase or summarize a source.

The in-text citation must match the first word of the Works Cited entry—usually the author’s last name . It also includes a page number or range to help the reader locate the relevant passage.

If you already named the author in your sentence, include only the page number in parentheses:

Sources with no page numbers

If the source has no page numbers, you either use an alternative locator, or leave the page number out of the citation:

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Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts

MLA Formatting and Style Guide

Welcome to the Purdue OWL

This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice.

Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.

MLA (Modern Language Association) style is most commonly used to write papers and cite sources within the liberal arts and humanities. This resource, updated to reflect the MLA Handbook (9 th ed.), offers examples for the general format of MLA research papers, in-text citations, endnotes/footnotes, and the Works Cited page.

The following overview should help you better understand how to cite sources using MLA  9 th edition, including how to format the Works Cited page and in-text citations.

Please use the example at the bottom of this page to cite the Purdue OWL in MLA. See also our MLA vidcast series on the Purdue OWL YouTube Channel .

Creating a Works Cited list using the ninth edition

MLA is a style of documentation that may be applied to many different types of writing. Since texts have become increasingly digital, and the same document may often be found in several different sources, following a set of rigid rules no longer suffices.

Thus, the current system is based on a few guiding principles, rather than an extensive list of specific rules. While the handbook still describes how to cite sources, it is organized according to the process of documentation, rather than by the sources themselves. This gives writers a flexible method that is near-universally applicable.

Once you are familiar with the method, you can use it to document any type of source, for any type of paper, in any field.

Here is an overview of the process:

When deciding how to cite your source, start by consulting the list of core elements. These are the general pieces of information that MLA suggests including in each Works Cited entry. In your citation, the elements should be listed in the following order:

• Title of source.
• Title of container,
• Other contributors,
• Publication date,

Each element should be followed by the corresponding punctuation mark shown above. Earlier editions of the handbook included the place of publication and required different punctuation (such as journal editions in parentheses and colons after issue numbers) depending on the type of source. In the current version, punctuation is simpler (only commas and periods separate the elements), and information about the source is kept to the basics.

Begin the entry with the author’s last name, followed by a comma and the rest of the name, as presented in the work. End this element with a period.

Bhabha, Homi K. The Location of Culture. Routledge, 1994.

Title of source

The title of the source should follow the author’s name. Depending upon the type of source, it should be listed in italics or quotation marks.

A book should be in italics:

Henley, Patricia. The Hummingbird House . MacMurray, 1999.

An individual webpage should be in quotation marks. The name of the parent website, which MLA treats as a "container," should follow in italics:

Lundman, Susan. "How to Make Vegetarian Chili." eHow, www.ehow.com/how_10727_make-vegetarian-chili.html.*

A periodical (journal, magazine, newspaper) article should be in quotation marks:

Bagchi, Alaknanda. "Conflicting Nationalisms: The Voice of the Subaltern in Mahasweta Devi's Bashai Tudu." Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature , vol. 15, no. 1, 1996, pp. 41-50.

A song or piece of music on an album should be in quotation marks. The name of the album should then follow in italics:

Beyoncé. "Pray You Catch Me." Lemonade, Parkwood Entertainment, 2016, www.beyonce.com/album/lemonade-visual-album/.

*The MLA handbook recommends including URLs when citing online sources. For more information, see the “Optional Elements” section below.

Title of container

The eighth edition of the MLA handbook introduced what are referred to as "containers," which are the larger wholes in which the source is located. For example, if you want to cite a poem that is listed in a collection of poems, the individual poem is the source, while the larger collection is the container. The title of the container is usually italicized and followed by a comma, since the information that follows next describes the container.

Kincaid, Jamaica. "Girl." The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Short Stories, edited by Tobias Wolff, Vintage, 1994, pp. 306-07.

The container may also be a television series, which is made up of episodes.

“94 Meetings.” Parks and Recreation, created by Greg Daniels and Michael Schur, performance by Amy Poehler, season 2, episode 21, Deedle-Dee Productions and Universal Media Studios, 2010.

The container may also be a website, which contains articles, postings, and other works.

Wise, DeWanda. “Why TV Shows Make Me Feel Less Alone.”  NAMI,  31 May 2019,  www.nami.org/Blogs/NAMI-Blog/May-2019/How-TV-Shows-Make-Me-Feel-Less-Alone . Accessed 3 June 2019.

In some cases, a container might be within a larger container. You might have read a book of short stories on Google Books , or watched a television series on Netflix . You might have found the electronic version of a journal on JSTOR. It is important to cite these containers within containers so that your readers can find the exact source that you used.

“94 Meetings.” Parks and Recreation , season 2, episode 21, NBC , 29 Apr. 2010. Netflix, www.netflix.com/watch/70152031?trackId=200256157&tctx=0%2C20%2C0974d361-27cd-44de-9c2a-2d9d868b9f64-12120962.

Langhamer, Claire. “Love and Courtship in Mid-Twentieth-Century England.” Historical Journal , vol. 50, no. 1, 2007, pp. 173-96. ProQuest, doi:10.1017/S0018246X06005966. Accessed 27 May 2009.

Other contributors

In addition to the author, there may be other contributors to the source who should be credited, such as editors, illustrators, translators, etc. If their contributions are relevant to your research, or necessary to identify the source, include their names in your documentation.

Foucault, Michel. Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason. Translated by Richard Howard , Vintage-Random House, 1988.

Woolf, Virginia. Jacob’s Room . Annotated and with an introduction by Vara Neverow, Harcourt, Inc., 2008.

If a source is listed as an edition or version of a work, include it in your citation.

The Bible . Authorized King James Version, Oxford UP, 1998.

Crowley, Sharon, and Debra Hawhee. Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students. 3rd ed., Pearson, 2004.

If a source is part of a numbered sequence, such as a multi-volume book or journal with both volume and issue numbers, those numbers must be listed in your citation.

Dolby, Nadine. “Research in Youth Culture and Policy: Current Conditions and Future Directions.” Social Work and Society: The International Online-Only Journal, vol. 6, no. 2, 2008, www.socwork.net/sws/article/view/60/362. Accessed 20 May 2009.

Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria. Translated by H. E. Butler, vol. 2, Loeb-Harvard UP, 1980.

The publisher produces or distributes the source to the public. If there is more than one publisher, and they are all are relevant to your research, list them in your citation, separated by a forward slash (/).

Klee, Paul. Twittering Machine. 1922. Museum of Modern Art, New York. The Artchive, www.artchive.com/artchive/K/klee/twittering_machine.jpg.html. Accessed May 2006.

Women's Health: Problems of the Digestive System . American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 2006.

Daniels, Greg and Michael Schur, creators. Parks and Recreation . Deedle-Dee Productions and Universal Media Studios, 2015.

Note : The publisher’s name need not be included in the following sources: periodicals, works published by their author or editor, websites whose titles are the same name as their publisher, websites that make works available but do not actually publish them (such as  YouTube ,  WordPress , or  JSTOR ).

Publication date

The same source may have been published on more than one date, such as an online version of an original source. For example, a television series might have aired on a broadcast network on one date, but released on  Netflix  on a different date. When the source has more than one date, it is sufficient to use the date that is most relevant to your writing. If you’re unsure about which date to use, go with the date of the source’s original publication.

In the following example, Mutant Enemy is the primary production company, and “Hush” was released in 1999. Below is a general citation for this television episode:

“Hush.” Buffy the Vampire Slayer , created by Joss Whedon, performance by Sarah Michelle Gellar, season 4, Mutant Enemy, 1999 .

However, if you are discussing, for example, the historical context in which the episode originally aired, you should cite the full date. Because you are specifying the date of airing, you would then use WB Television Network (rather than Mutant Enemy), because it was the network (rather than the production company) that aired the episode on the date you’re citing.

“Hush.” Buffy the Vampire Slayer, created by Joss Whedon, performance by Sarah Michelle Gellar, season 4, episode 10, WB Television Network, 14 Dec. 1999 .

You should be as specific as possible in identifying a work’s location.

An essay in a book or an article in a journal should include page numbers.

Adiche, Chimamanda Ngozi. “On Monday of Last Week.” The Thing around Your Neck, Alfred A. Knopf, 2009, pp. 74-94 .

The location of an online work should include a URL.  Remove any "http://" or "https://" tag from the beginning of the URL.

Wheelis, Mark. "Investigating Disease Outbreaks Under a Protocol to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention." Emerging Infectious Diseases , vol. 6, no. 6, 2000, pp. 595-600, wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/6/6/00-0607_article. Accessed 8 Feb. 2009.

When citing a physical object that you experienced firsthand, identify the place of location.

Matisse, Henri. The Swimming Pool. 1952, Museum of Modern Art, New York .

Optional elements

The ninth edition is designed to be as streamlined as possible. The author should include any information that helps readers easily identify the source, without including unnecessary information that may be distracting. The following is a list of optional elements that can be included in a documented source at the writer’s discretion.

Date of original publication:

If a source has been published on more than one date, the writer may want to include both dates if it will provide the reader with necessary or helpful information.

Erdrich, Louise. Love Medicine. 1984. Perennial-Harper, 1993.

City of publication:

The seventh edition handbook required the city in which a publisher is located, but the eighth edition states that this is only necessary in particular instances, such as in a work published before 1900. Since pre-1900 works were usually associated with the city in which they were published, your documentation may substitute the city name for the publisher’s name.

Thoreau, Henry David. Excursions . Boston, 1863.

Date of access:

When you cite an online source, the MLA Handbook recommends including a date of access on which you accessed the material, since an online work may change or move at any time.

Bernstein, Mark. "10 Tips on Writing the Living Web." A List Apart: For People Who Make Websites, 16 Aug. 2002, alistapart.com/article/writeliving. Accessed 4 May 2009.

As mentioned above, while the MLA handbook recommends including URLs when you cite online sources, you should always check with your instructor or editor and include URLs at their discretion.

A DOI, or digital object identifier, is a series of digits and letters that leads to the location of an online source. Articles in journals are often assigned DOIs to ensure that the source is locatable, even if the URL changes. If your source is listed with a DOI, use that instead of a URL.

Alonso, Alvaro, and Julio A. Camargo. "Toxicity of Nitrite to Three Species of Freshwater Invertebrates." Environmental Toxicology , vol. 21, no. 1, 3 Feb. 2006, pp. 90-94. Wiley Online Library, doi: 10.1002/tox.20155.

Creating in-text citations using the previous (eighth) edition

Although the MLA handbook is currently in its ninth edition, some information about citing in the text using the older (eighth) edition is being retained. The in-text citation is a brief reference within your text that indicates the source you consulted. It should properly attribute any ideas, paraphrases, or direct quotations to your source, and should direct readers to the entry in the Works Cited list. For the most part, an in-text citation is the  author’s name and the page number (or just the page number, if the author is named in the sentence) in parentheses :

When creating in-text citations for media that has a runtime, such as a movie or podcast, include the range of hours, minutes and seconds you plan to reference. For example: (00:02:15-00:02:35).

Again, your goal is to attribute your source and provide a reference without interrupting your text. Your readers should be able to follow the flow of your argument without becoming distracted by extra information.

How to Cite the Purdue OWL in MLA

Entire Website

The Purdue OWL . Purdue U Writing Lab, 2019.

Individual Resources

Contributors' names. "Title of Resource." The Purdue OWL , Purdue U Writing Lab, Last edited date.

The new OWL no longer lists most pages' authors or publication dates. Thus, in most cases, citations will begin with the title of the resource, rather than the developer's name.

"MLA Formatting and Style Guide." The Purdue OWL, Purdue U Writing Lab. Accessed 18 Jun. 2018.