Last updated on March 2, 2024
First, Permission, a Warning, and Some Advice
- Permission. Online citation generators can be pretty good, and you can make use of them.
- Warning. You need to check their work. These citation bots get some stuff right, but they also often miss or overcomplicate things—and that includes the bots that generate citations for some of the academic databases. It’s really obvious when you don’t check the work of the citation bots. The MLA’s basic guide (linked below) could help with that. So could my handout (also linked below).
- Advice. If you get your head around the basic rules, you’ll be able to write out a works cited entry on your own just as quickly as you might provide info to a citation generator. Maybe more quickly. And, then, you’ll be in control, not the citation bots.
Short Video about Setting Up the Heading
The MLA‘s Own Resources
- A Guide to Setting Up Your Paper
- A Basic Online Guide to Works Cited Entries
- At this time, the whole current edition (9th) of their handbook online: Here.
- And this link takes you directly to the handbook’s useful set of “works cited” models.
The Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL)
- The OWL has its own guide, including a citation generator.
And a Useful, Portable Handout
Below, I’ve linked to a printable 8-page guide of my own. This guide makes pretty quick work of both in-text citation rules and works cited entry rules; it doesn’t say everything about MLA, but it condenses the basics pretty well. You can use what’s in it to check the work of any citation generating bot you might have used to get yourself started.