MLA Referencing Generator (9th Edition)

What is MLA (9th Edition) Referencing?

MLA style is the referencing system of the Modern Language Association, used mainly across the humanities — English literature, modern languages, cultural and media studies, philosophy and the arts. The 9th edition, published in 2021, is the current standard. It pairs short in-text citations in the body of your work with a full Works Cited list at the end.

MLA 9 is built around a flexible template of “core elements” — author, title of source, title of container (the larger work it sits in, such as a journal or website), version, number, publisher, publication date and location. Because every source is described with the same building blocks, you can cite almost anything consistently, from a printed novel to an online article. The citations our generator produces are intended as reference material to support your own study, so always confirm the final formatting against your course style guide.

How to Use the MLA Referencing Generator

1. Choose your source type — book, journal article, website or newspaper.
2. Fill in the details. Add the author, title and publication information. Leave any optional field (such as edition) blank if it does not apply.
3. Click “Generate Reference” to see your formatted MLA 9 works-cited entry along with the matching in-text citation.
4. Click “Add to Works Cited” to build an alphabetised list. Repeat for every source you need.
5. Copy a single entry or the whole list and paste it into your document. Keep the hanging indent and double-check each entry before you submit your work.

Who Uses MLA Style?

MLA is the go-to style for the humanities and liberal arts. If you are studying English literature, creative writing, languages, linguistics, film and media, religious studies or the history of art, your department will often ask for MLA. It is standard across many UK and US universities for these subjects, while disciplines such as psychology tend to prefer APA and law favours OSCOLA. Our team of UK-qualified writers works across all of these styles every day.

In-Text Citations and the Works Cited List

MLA uses two connected parts. The in-text citation appears in brackets immediately after a quotation or paraphrase and usually gives the author surname and a page number with no comma between them — for example (Woolf 42). The Works Cited list sits at the end of your paper, is arranged alphabetically by author surname, and sets out the full details of every source. Each entry uses a hanging indent, where the first line sits flush left and following lines are indented. A reader should be able to move from any in-text citation straight to its matching full entry.

Common MLA Referencing Mistakes to Avoid

• Mixing up italics and quotation marks. Titles of whole works (books, journals, websites) are italicised; titles of parts (articles, chapters, web pages) sit in quotation marks.
• Getting the date format wrong. MLA 9 uses Day Month Year and abbreviates months longer than four letters (Jan., Feb., Mar., and so on).
• Leaving https:// in a URL. MLA 9 asks you to drop the protocol, so cite www.example.com rather than the full https:// address.
• Forgetting the hanging indent or failing to alphabetise the list by author surname.
• Over-punctuating. Core elements are separated by commas within a source and closed with a full stop, not a string of semicolons.

If you are comparing styles or switching between modules, it is worth reviewing the differences with other systems such as Harvard referencing, which many business and social-science courses require.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between MLA 8 and MLA 9?

MLA 9 was published in 2021 and keeps the same core-elements approach introduced in MLA 8 in 2016. The way you build a works-cited entry is largely unchanged; MLA 9 simply adds clearer guidance, many more worked examples, and advice on inclusive language and annotated bibliographies.

How do I write an MLA in-text citation?

An MLA in-text citation gives the author surname and the page number with no comma between them, for example (Smith 42). If the source has no page numbers, such as many web pages, you include just the author surname. The reader then finds the full entry in your Works Cited list.

Do I need to include the URL and an access date for a website?

In MLA 9 you include the URL in the works-cited entry but drop the https:// at the start. An access date is optional, though it is recommended when a page has no clear publication date or when the content is likely to change.

How do I reference a source that has no named author?

Begin the entry with the title of the source instead of an author. Put the title of an article or web page in quotation marks and the title of a book or whole website in italics, then alphabetise the entry by the first significant word of the title.

Is this MLA referencing generator free to use?

Yes. The tool is completely free, needs no sign-up, and runs entirely in your browser, so nothing you type is sent to or stored on our servers. Always check the finished references against your university's own MLA guidance.