How to cite a book in MLA (with examples)

Books are the easiest sources to cite in MLA, because nearly everything you need is printed on two pages: the title page and the copyright page behind it. This guide covers the basic book entry and the variations students meet most often: two or more authors, editors, chapters in collections, translations, editions, e-books and audiobooks. All examples follow MLA 9 and use invented books.

The basic MLA book format

• Author: last name, comma, first name (plus a middle name or initial if the book shows one), then a period.
• Title: italicized and in title case, with a colon before any subtitle, then a period. If the title ends with a question mark, the question mark replaces the period.
• Publisher: the name on the title page, followed by a comma.
• Year: the year of publication from the copyright page, followed by a period.

Where to find the information

Use the title page inside the book, not the cover, which may show a shortened title or a marketing slogan. The copyright page, usually on the back of the title page, gives the publisher and the year. If it lists several years, use the year of the edition you are holding, which is usually the latest copyright year, not the year of a later printing. You do not need the city of publication. MLA 9 leaves it out except in rare cases, such as books published before 1900, where the city may stand in for the publisher.

How to write the publisher's name

• Drop business words such as Inc., Company, Co., Corporation and Ltd.: Harrow Lane Books, not Harrow Lane Books, Inc.
• Keep words such as Press and Books when they are part of the name.
• Write University Press as UP: Saltmarsh UP. If University and Press are separated in the name, use U and P: U of Eastvale P.
• If the title page names two publishers equally, separate them with a slash: Copperleaf Press / Tidewater Books.

Books with two or more authors

With two authors, reverse only the first name; the second follows in normal order after a comma and and. Keep the authors in the order the title page shows, even if it is not alphabetical, because the order often reflects who did the most work. With three or more authors, give the first one followed by et al., short for the Latin "and others."

Edited books and chapters in a collection

If you use one essay from a collection, start with the essay's author and title in quotation marks, then give the book as the container, the editor after edited by, the publisher, the year and the essay's page range. If you use several essays from the same book, cite each one in its own entry. Put the editor first only when you discuss the collection as a whole. When a book has both an author and an editor, as with collected letters, the author comes first and the editor follows the title.

Translations, editions and volumes

Write edition numbers as ordinal numerals followed by ed.: 2nd ed., 3rd ed. The first edition needs no label. Capitalize Translated, Edited and Vol. when they come right after a period, as in the examples. If your paper focuses on the translation itself, such as the translator's word choices, you may start the entry with the translator: Okafor, Sam, translator.

E-books, audiobooks and books online

Add E-book ed. when you read a downloaded e-book on a device; it tells readers your page numbers may not match the print version. A book read on a website or in a library database is cited like a print book, with the site or database added as a second container and its URL or DOI at the end. For an audiobook, name the narrator after narrated by and note the audiobook edition.

Introductions, prefaces and forewords

Generic labels such as Introduction, Preface, Foreword and Afterword are capitalized but not italicized or put in quotation marks. If the part has its own title, use that title in quotation marks instead of the label. The book's author follows the book title after by, and the page range uses the book's own numbering, even when it is in Roman numerals.

In-text citations for books

In your paper, cite the author's last name and the page number: (Rivera 45). With two authors, write (Sato and Reyes 30); with three or more, write (Mensah et al. 77). For an essay in a collection, cite the essay's author, not the editor: (Cho 41). For an e-book without fixed page numbers, cite a chapter instead: (Saleh, ch. 4). More cases are on the MLA in-text citations page, and the full list goes on your Works Cited page.

Common mistakes

• Copying the title from the cover instead of the title page.
• Adding the city of publication, such as Boston: Copperleaf Press. MLA 9 drops it.
• Putting the book title in quotation marks or underlining it. Book titles are italic.
• Reversing the second author's name, as in Sato, Hana, and Reyes, Daniel.
• Starting with the editor when you used only one essay from a collection.
• Leaving out the page range for a chapter in a collection.
• Giving the year of a reprint instead of the edition's publication year.
• Using an e-reader's location numbers as page numbers.

The same book in APA and Chicago

APA uses the author's initials, puts the year right after the name and writes the title in sentence case. Chicago's bibliography entry looks almost the same as MLA's, though Chicago papers also use footnotes. See the APA reference page and Chicago style citation guides for the details.