MLA Citation Generator

Free MLA 9th edition citation generator. Paste a DOI, ISBN, URL, or reference and copy a Works Cited entry with the matching in-text citation. No sign-up.

Paste a source to get an MLA citation

MLA citation examples

The same two sources appear on every CiteTools generator page, so you can compare styles side by side.

Journal article

LeCun, Yann, et al. “Deep Learning.” Nature, vol. 521, no. 7553, May 2015, pp. 436–44, https://doi.org/10.1038/nature14539.

Book

Kahneman, Daniel. Thinking, Fast and Slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011.

MLA in-text citations

Parenthetical: (LeCun et al. 438)
Narrative: LeCun et al. (438)

How MLA 9 formats a Works Cited entry

The first author is inverted with the full first name: LeCun, Yann. A second author is written in normal order.
A work with three or more authors lists the first author followed by et al.
Titles use title case. Articles and chapters go in quotation marks, and books and journals are italic.
Each source sits in a container: the journal, volume, issue, date, and pages follow the article title in that order, separated by commas.
Page ranges use pp. and drop repeated digits, so pages 436 to 444 are written pp. 436–44.
An online source ends with its DOI or URL and a period.

Who uses MLA style

MLA style is published by the Modern Language Association in the MLA Handbook, 9th edition. Literature, languages, film, and other humanities courses use it, and many United States high schools teach it first. The in-text citation gives the author’s surname and a page number with no comma and no year, as in (LeCun et al. 438). Full entries go on a Works Cited page, alphabetized by the first element, with a hanging indent.

Frequently asked questions

Is this MLA 8 or MLA 9?

MLA 9. The 9th edition kept the container system introduced in MLA 8, so entries in the two editions look the same for most sources. CiteTools follows the 9th edition handbook.

Why does my Works Cited entry have no year after the author?

MLA places the publication date near the end of the entry, after the volume and issue, and leaves it out of the in-text citation. The author and page number are what a reader uses to find the entry.

Does MLA need the date I accessed a website?

The access date is optional in MLA 9. The handbook recommends it for pages that have no publication date or that change often. Add it at the end of the entry, as in Accessed 12 May 2026.

Build MLA citations from an identifier or file

Convert a reference from another style

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