MLA 9: cite a journal article

The article and its container

MLA 9 builds an entry from core elements. For an article, the source is the article, A Small Study, in quotation marks, and its container is the journal, Journal of Sample Studies, in italics. Volume, number, date and pages then follow, separated by commas.

The reviewed works-cited entry is: Stone, Maya. “A Small Study.” Journal of Sample Studies, vol. 12, no. 2, 2024, pp. 12–18.

Workbench steps

With three or more authors, the workbench's MLA output keeps the first author, inverted, and adds et al. With two, the second name follows and in natural order, Stone, Maya, and Leo Rowan.

• Choose MLA 9 works-cited entry, Journal article and Print version.
• Enter Maya Stone; MLA output inverts the name to Stone, Maya.
• Type A small study as Source title and A Small Study as Reviewed title-case title. MLA uses the title-case field; when it is empty, the source title is printed as typed.
• Add the container, Journal of Sample Studies, then the numbers: volume 12, issue 2, year 2024 and pages 12-18.
• Press Create reference. The page range gets the pp. label.

Longer ranges, months and DOIs

For MLA the workbench shortens longer page ranges, so 436-444 would appear as pp. 436–44, while 12-18 stays whole. A publication month becomes part of the date element, as in June 2024. A DOI is added as a full https://doi.org/ link at the end; a plain URL, by contrast, is printed without https://. Article numbers instead of pages are outside the reviewed template.

The article in Citelle

MLA 9 is free in the app. Add the article by DOI or link and Citelle fills the record from doi.org or Crossref. For MLA it sets the title and an English journal name in title case itself. Copy in-text gives (Stone 12): the app takes the first page of the range, so change it to the page you are quoting. When a record has an article number, the app leaves out the p. or pp. label.

What to check in this entry

• Author order matches the article's byline.
• The article title and the journal title are in the right fields.
• Volume and issue come from the article, not from the journal's website menu.
• You checked which elements your source actually has; a template cannot decide that for you.
• The page range is the article's own, written with the pp. label.

Gather the source details

• Open the article or its publisher record.
• Record authors in the published order.
• Distinguish the article title from the journal title.
• Check volume, issue, pages or article number and any assigned DOI.

Author

Maya Stone

Title as supplied

A small study

Publication year

2024

Containing work or site

Journal of Sample Studies

Volume

12

Journal issue

2

Published pages

12-18

Tools

• Open the reference workbench

Sources

• MLA9: Citations by format

Next guide: NLM Vancouver: cite a journal article