MLA Website Citation Manual: 9th Edition Referencing Guide

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Introduction
MLA 9th Edition
MLA Website Rules & Examples
MLA Website Citation Generator

MLA Website Citation Manual: 9th Edition Referencing Guide

Any kind of information is available online today, which makes college students across the United States seek for information and sources in diverse digital sources. From websites to blogs and social networks, MLA 9 format citation is used everywhere! It brings additional challenges when it comes to citation formats. In addition to website citation generator, provided by EduBirdie, we offer a handy MLA citation format guide that will help you to learn formatting rules and see real-life MLA reference examples for websites, blogs, social media, and all kinds of online sources where citing is necessary. How to cite a website MLA will not be an issue for you.

MLA 9 Edition General Recommendations

MLA, currently in its 9th edition, a standard format for English Studies, Culture, Foreign Languages, Sociology, and Linguistics among other subjects, which stands for Modern Language Association. It includes:

Page layout and formatting rules.
Stylistics in terms of footnotes, indents, and italics where necessary.
Format of how the sources are cited.
Getting one’s paper ready for publication or peer review.

The main changes in the latest MLA 9^th edition are related to website citations that are included in this guide.

The format has also become simpler and now the city of publication is not necessary as it was in MLA 7 format.
The MLA 9 edition also added the rule of including both volume and number of journal publications like “Vol.24, no.3”.
When citing seasons, they should not be capitalized (eg. summer, autumn 2009).

Finally, in MLA 9 a lot of digital sources have been added, including social media citing rules in particular where one must provide the real name of the author, if possible.

MLA Website Citation Rules and Examples

Here are different examples of various sources referencing and MLA citations related to information found on the websites. Get to know how to cite a website in MLA and master knowledge on editing papers on your own quickly and accurately.

Remember that italics in each MLA citation formatting example must be used to the letter.

Article on a Website

In most cases, if the author’s name is known:

Specify author’s name, if available, article name in quotation marks, web site /
Magazine name in italics, publisher, publication date, URL, access date.

Citation examples:

(Shelly)
Shelly, Mary. “Beneficial Use of Complex Web Passwords” Network Security Web Association,
13 Feb. 2009, www.url.com. Accessed 1 May 2012.

If there is no author and title of the website, just an article on it, it is allowed to include a website description. However, it should be written neither in quotation marks nor in italics. Just write the description and then follow it with website’s name. You can also check our MLA website citation generator to reference any content needed.

General Information on the Polar Bears. Iceland Review Online, Akureyri National Geology
Archive/ISAAR, www.site.is/.

Website Article with an Author

(Shelly)
Shelly, Mary. “Beneficial Use of Complex Web Passwords” Network Security Web Association,
13 Feb. 2009, www.url.com. Accessed 1 May 2012.

Website Article without an Author

When the website does not contain the information about the author of the article, that is required for citation, exclude it from article citation. Start with the name, as shown below for MLA in-text citation website with no author:

(“Rare Marine Species”)
“Rare Marine Species.” Andalusian National Marine Museum, Andalusian Institute,
www.site.com. Accessed 1 May 2012.

Website with no Date

If no date is provided, skip that information. Add the date of source access at the end of citation.
An example:

Accessed 2 Aug 2018.

Article From an Online Periodical with DOI Assigned

Author’s Last Name, First N, and First N Last N. “Article Title.” Journal, vol.
#, no. #, date, pp. ##-##. Database, doi: 10.0000/000000000.

(Trachsel et al.)
Trachsel, Manuel et al. “Palliative Psychiatry for Severe Persistent Mental Illness as a New
Approach to Psychiatry? Definition, Scope, Benefits, and Risks”. BMC Psychiatry, vol
16, no. 1, 2016. Springer Nature, doi:10.1186/s12888-016-0970-y. Accessed 5 Mar 2019.

Article From an Online Periodical with no DOI Assigned

If no DOI is assigned, use the provided URL where the source has been found / accessed.

Online Scholarly Journal Article: Citing DOI

Author’s Last Name, First N. “Article Name.” Journal, First N. Last N.
of any other contributors (if applicable), Version (if applicable), Numbers (such as a volume
and issue number), Publication date, Page numbers. Database Name, URL or DOI.

Online Interviews

In MLA 9 citation rules, online interviews should be listed by the title of an interviewee. If interview has a name, it should be written in quotation marks. The rest of the information is cited as usual when citing a web content. Website title should be written in italics, then state publisher, publication date, and the web address.

If there is no title, add a descriptor word.

Jackson, Anthony. Interview by Jean Simmons. Music & Culture, 21 Apr. 2001, www.site.com.
Accessed 13 May. 2010.

Book on a Website Citation

For the web address citation part, remember to omit http:// or https:// .

Author’s Last Name, First N. “Name of the chapter or section.” E-book, translated by or
edited by First N. Last N., vol. number, Publisher, Publication Year, page
number(s). Web page or database, web address.

Social Media: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram

FACEBOOK:

Last N, First N. of Facebook Post Creator. “Text from Facebook post.” Facebook, Date posted, Time posted, web address.

TWITTER:

@username. “Tweet text.” Twitter, Date posted, Time posted, URL.

INSTAGRAM:

Account Owner’s Last, First name or Username. “Photo or Description.”, Instagram,
Other contributors, Date when the photo was published, web address.

If no title is available, make a simple description. Write it neither in quotations nor in italics.

See an actual example below:

BBC Prime. Photo of Glasgow Castle. Instagram, photographed by Nigel Hicks, 1 Apr. 2018,
www.instagram.com/url/?taken-by=bbcprime.

Website Comments Citing

List author’s user name. Use an actual phrase, Comment on, before the title. Use quotation marks around the article’s title. Publisher, date, comment’s time, web address.

Randy Jones. Bullies are victims themselves. Comment on “Middle-School Bullying.” CNN
News, 1 Jul 2017, 2:00 p.m., abcnews.go.com/yoururl.

Blog Post Citation

General blog post-citation in MLA 9 follows this format:

Blogger’s Last, First name. “Blog post.” Blog/Web page, Publisher (if differs from
original website), Date published, URL.

Image on a Website Citation

When citing online images, sculptures or any kinds of graphics, follow this format, according to MLA 9 Handbook:

Start with artist’s name, work of art italicized, creation date, institution and city where artwork is

present. web address. Access date.

For example:

Willems, John. Lady With Camellias In Red. 2010, Rotterdam National Museum. http://site.com.
Accessed 5 Mar 2019.

Educational Materials on Website Citation

Name of Document: Subtitle if Given. Edition, if given, (if not a first edition), Education
Department, Agency, Committee or Web Source, Publication Date, URL. Access Date.

Online Lecture Notes MLA Citation

According to MLA Handbook 9^th edition, there are no officially accepted rules, yet the most common format rules are given below:

Author’s Surname, First Name (speaker). “Lecture or Presentation Title.” Other Related
Information (location of the lecture). URL. Access date is optional.

Presentation Slides MLA Citation

If presentation slides are given by a college professor or seen/heard in the lecture hall:

Professor’s Last, First Name. “Title of PowerPoint Presentation.” Title of Course, Date of
PowerPoint presentation, University or URL. Microsoft PowerPoint presentation.

If presentation slides were made by a student:

Last, First Name. “Title of Presentation Slides.” Course, University or URL. Date
the presentation was received. Course handout.

There should be no course title italicized. If a slide page is known, specify it.

Online Encyclopedias / Dictionaries

Author’s Last, First Name. “Title of Entry.” Title of Encyclopedia or Dictionary,
Publication or Update Date, Webpage. URL. Accessed Day Month Year of Access.

O’Kane, Liam. “The Irish Culture Songs.” The Large Irish Encyclopedia, 6 Mar. 2018, Irish
History Archives. www.url.ie. Accessed 7 Jun. 2018.

Advantages of MLA Website Citation Generator

When a student has to deal with more than 10-15 diverse sources for a single assignment, it takes a lot of time and can be quite bogging. Exactly for such cases, there is MLA Website Citation Generator that becomes a real lifesaver and a timely solution. Here are some of its benefits:

MLA Website Citation Machine helps you to quickly add the information that you have, making it automatically cited.
Get through any type of assignment and Cite a website MLA anytime and anywhere.
All the italics and indent rules are noted and listed.
No ads or complex registration forms to fill.
MLA website citation generator helps you to avoid common citation mistakes.
MLA website citation help at Edubirdie is one source for all your formatting issues.

Even by turning for help to MLA format website citation generator or reading through the rules, any student may still get stuck or feel unsure about what kind of a source he or she has. Having this in mind, the writing experts at EduBirdie offer all kinds of formatting and citation help in MLA and many other formats.

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