82 MLA: Citing Books
Sarah Bailey; Kara Blizzard; Doris Wagner; and Christina Frasier
Books are a key type of information source when you’re doing scholarly research. The examples below illustrate each element of a book citation, along with images of where you can find each element within a source.
Book citation examples
Let’s look at some examples of different types of book citations.
Print book
A print book is a physical copy of a book (as opposed to an ebook). To cite this type of source, you usually only need about four or five different elements.
Steussy, Joe, and Scott Lipscomb. Rock and Roll: Its History and Stylistic Development. 7th ed., Pearson, 2013.
The example above includes these citation elements:
| Citation Element | Example |
|---|---|
| Authors. | Steussy, Joe, and Scott Lipscomb. |
| Title of Source. | Rock and Roll: Its History and Stylistic Development. |
| Version, | 7th ed., |
| Publisher, | Pearson, |
| Publication Date. | 2013. |
E-book
An ebook might be located on a website or in a library database, or it might be a file that you download. This example is for an ebook in a library database.
Dolmage, Jay Timothy. Academic Ableism: Disability and Higher Education. U of Michigan P, 2017. JSTOR, https://jstor.org/stable/j.ctvr33d50.
The example above includes these citation elements:
| Citation Element | Example |
|---|---|
| Author. | Dolmage, Jay Timothy. |
| Title of Source. | Academic Ableism: Disability and Higher Education. |
| Publisher, | U of Michigan P, |
| Publication Date. | 2017. |
| Container, | JSTOR, |
| Location. | https://jstor.org/stable/j.ctvr33d50. |
In an edited book, each chapter is written by a different author, and one or more editors is responsible for the book as a whole. If you are citing an entire edited book, the citation should start with the editor name(s).
Froggatt, Katherine, et al., editors. Understanding Care Homes: A Research and Development Perspective. Kingsley, 2009.
The example above includes these citation elements:
| Citation Element | Example |
|---|---|
| Authors. | Froggatt, Katherine, et al., editors. |
| Title of Source. | Understanding Care Homes: A Research and Development Perspective. |
| Publisher, | Kingsley, |
| Publication Date. | 2009. |
Citing book chapters
Sometimes you might want to cite one chapter or section of a book. Click through the slides below to learn about each element of a book chapter citation.
The following example shows a print book chapter citation, followed by a list of its elements.
Charters, Ann. “Beat Poetry and the San Francisco Poetry Renaissance.” The Columbia History of American Poetry, edited by Jay Parini and Brett C. Millier, Columbia UP, 1993, pp. 581-604.
The example above includes these citation elements:
| Citation Element | Example |
|---|---|
| Author. | Charters, Ann. |
| Title of Source. | “Beat Poetry and the San Francisco Poetry Renaissance.” |
| Container, | The Columbia History of American Poetry, |
| Contributors, | edited by Jay Parini and Brett C. Millier, |
| Publisher, | Columbia UP, |
| Publication Date, | 1993, |
| Location. | pp. 581-604. |
MLA Style Citation Tutorial, 9th ed. by Sarah Bailey; Kara Blizzard; and Doris Wagner, CC BY-SA 4.0