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MLA Citation Guide (MLA 8th edition)

Citations examples on this page:

  • Book in Print with One Author
  • Book in Print with Two Authors
  • Book in Print with Three or More Authors
  • Book With a Group or Corporate Author
  • Course Package - Journal Article
  • Course Package - Short Story
  • eBook From a Library Database with One Author
  • eBook From a Library Database with Two Authors
  • eBook from a Library Database with Three or More Authors
  • eBook / Open Textbook (web format)
  • eBook / Open Textbook (PDF format)
  • Pamphlet
  • Short Story, Essay, or Article from a Book (Anthology or Collection)

How Can I Tell if it's a Book in Print or an eBook?

A print book means it's printed on paper. If you checked the book out of a library or bought it from a bookstore, it's print.

An eBook is a book you can read entirely online.

Note that most of the time, references are exactly the same for a print copy of a book and an eBook copy of the same book from a library database.

Tips

Authors/Editors

An author won't necessarily be a person's name. It may be an organization or company, for example Health Canada. These are called group or corporate authors.

If a book has no author or editor, begin the citation with the book title, followed by the year of publication in round brackets.

If an author is also the publisher, put the word "Author" where you'd normally put the publisher name. This happens most often with corporate or group authors.

When a book has one to twenty authors or editors, all authors' names are cited in the Reference List entry. When a book has twenty-one or more authors or editors, list the first nineteen authors followed by three spaced ellipse points (. . .) , and then the last author's name. Rules are different for in-text citations; please see the examples provided.

Titles

Capitalize the first letter of the first word of the title. If there is a colon (:) in the title, also capitalize the first letter of the first word after the colon.

Capitalize the first letter of proper names in titles, such as names of places or people. Example: Canada