MLA Style Guide, 8th & 9th Editions: Title of source

This LibGuide reflects the changes to MLA style as directed by the MLA Handbook, Eighth & Ninth Editions.

• About MLA
• Works Cited entries: What to Include
• Works Cited Core ElementsToggle Dropdown
  • Author
  • Title of source
  • Title of container
  • Contributors
  • Version
  • Number
  • Publisher
  • Publication date
  • Location
  • Supplemental Elements
  • Book with Personal Author(s)
  • Book with Organization as Author
  • Book with Editor(s)
  • Parts of Books
  • Government Publication
  • Journal Article
  • Magazine Article
  • Media
  • Multivolume Works
  • Newspaper Article
  • Other Formats
  • Poetry
  • Websites, Social Media, and Email
  • About In-text Citations
  • In-text Examples
  • How to Paraphrase and Quote
  • Citing Poetry

  Title of source (Works Cited)

  The title of source is the second core element in the Works Cited entry. In general, the title of a work is taken from the title page of the publication.

  • List the full title as it is written on the source. Exceptions to this rule are for standardization of capitalization and subtitle punctuation.
    • Capitalize all principal words (nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc.). Do not capitalize articles, prepositions, or conjunctions when they fall in the middle of a title.
    • Separate a subtitle with a colon and a space.
    • If the title mentioned is usually indicated by italics, use italics for the title within the title. Examples of these titles are films, novels, entire books, journals, and entire websites.
      • Example of a journal article title which includes the title of a book: "Unbearable Weight of Authenticity: Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God and Theory of 'Touristic Reading'."
      • Example of a journal article title which includes the title of a short story: "Individualism in O'Connor's 'A Good Man is Hard to Find'."

      Danticat, Edwidge. Brother, I'm Dying. Knopf , 2007.

      Chapter title in a book or anthology :

      Howard, Rebecca Moore. “Avoiding Sentence Fragments.” Writing Matters: A Handbook for Writing and Research, 2nd ed., McGraw Hill, 2014, pp. 600-10.

      Journals, Magazines, and Newspapers:

      Houtman, Eveline. “Mind-Blowing: Fostering Self-Regulated Learning in Information Literacy Instruction.” Communications in Information Literacy, vol. 9, no. 1, 2015, pp. 6-18. www.comminfolit.org/index.php?journal=cil&page=article&op=view&path%5B%5D=v9i1p6&path%5B%5D=203​.

      Web page:

      Meade, Rita. "It's Not Too Late to Advocate." S crewy Decimal, 1 June 2016, www.screwydecimal.com/2016/06/its-not-too-late-to-advocate.html.

      Entire Website: