MLA Format Works Cited: Page Setup, Hanging Indent, and Source Examples

The MLA format Works Cited page is the alphabetized list of sources that appears at the end of an MLA 9 paper, with one entry for every source the writer cited in the body of the document. The page uses a centered "Works Cited" heading, a hanging indent on every entry, double spacing, and the nine-element container model the Modern Language Association introduced in MLA 8 and refined in MLA 9 (2021). EssayFount writing experts build Works Cited pages from the source itself rather than from database export shortcuts, which is what produces correct MLA 9 entries for the source types databases handle poorly.

Written by Henry Whitfield, Lead Writing Expert (Humanities and Languages). Reviewed by Naomi Alvarez, Lead Writing Expert (STEM and Engineering). Last reviewed 2026-04-24.

What the Works Cited Page Does

The Works Cited page is the back end of MLA citation: every parenthetical citation in the body of the paper points to a Works Cited entry, and every Works Cited entry must have at least one matching in-text citation. The page lets the reader move from any moment in the writer's prose to the full reference for the source that supplied the borrowed material.

Three rules govern the relationship between body citations and the Works Cited list. First, the first word of each Works Cited entry must match the first word of the corresponding parenthetical citation, so the reader can locate the entry alphabetically. Second, every source cited in the body has exactly one Works Cited entry; multiple citations of the same source produce one entry, not many. Third, sources consulted but not cited do not appear; that is the function of an annotated bibliography or "Works Consulted" page, included only when the assignment specifies.

The page is required in nearly every MLA-formatted assignment from late high school through graduate work in literature, languages, and most humanities disciplines. APA, Chicago, and Harvard each have their own equivalent (References, Bibliography, Reference List); confirm the required style before formatting.

Page Setup for the Works Cited List

Where the Page Begins

The Works Cited list always begins on its own page, immediately after the body of the paper. Insert a page break after the final paragraph rather than relying on natural pagination: a Works Cited list that starts on the same page as the conclusion's last sentence is non-compliant in nearly every rubric.

Margins and Page Numbers

• Margins: 1 inch on all four sides (top, bottom, left, right). Match the body of the paper.
• Page numbers: Continue from the body of the paper. The page number sits in the upper right corner, in the same author-name-and-page-number header used throughout the document.
• Header: Author's last name + page number (e.g., "Whitfield 12"), right-aligned, half an inch from the top of the page.

The Heading

Center the heading "Works Cited" at the top of the page, on the first line below the page-number header. The heading is plain text:

• Not bold.
• Not italicized.
• Not underlined.
• Not in quotation marks.
• Not in all capitals.

The heading uses headline case (Works Cited), with both words capitalized. Below the heading, leave one double-spaced line and begin the first entry flush left.

Spacing and Font

• Double-space the entire page, including within entries and between entries. Do not add extra blank lines between entries.
• Use the same font and font size as the body of the paper. MLA 9 accepts Times New Roman 12 pt, Arial 11 pt, Calibri 11 pt, Georgia 11 pt, and Lucida Sans Unicode 10 pt.
• Do not justify the right margin. Use left alignment so each line ends naturally.

Hanging Indent

Every entry uses a hanging indent: the first line is flush left, and every subsequent line is indented one half inch from the left margin. This produces a visually scannable list where the alphabetizing first word is always at the left edge.

Apply the hanging indent at the paragraph level rather than with manual tabs. In Microsoft Word, select all entries, open Format > Paragraph (or right-click > Paragraph), set Special to "Hanging," and set By to 0.5". In Google Docs, select all entries, open Format > Align & indent > Indentation options, set Special indent to Hanging, and set 0.5". Manual tab indents break when fonts or margins change and produce non-compliant output.

Alphabetizing Entries

Sort entries alphabetically by the first word of the entry. Most entries begin with the author's last name, so the list is effectively alphabetized by author. The rules:

• One author: sort by last name. Whitfield, Henry comes before Yeats, William.
• Multiple works by the same author: sort by title alphabetically. For the second and subsequent entries, replace the author's name with three em dashes followed by a period (---.).
• No author: sort by the first significant word of the title. Ignore "A," "An," and "The" at the start of titles when alphabetizing, but keep them in the title itself.
• Group author: sort by the group name. American Psychological Association comes before Whitfield, Henry.
• Numbers in titles: sort as if the number were spelled out (12 Years a Slave sorts as if it began with "Twelve").

Multiple Works by the Same Author

Whitfield, Henry. Reading Faulkner. Oxford University Press, 2019.

---. Reading Joyce. Oxford University Press, 2022.

---. Reading Modernism. Oxford University Press, 2024.

The three em dashes replace the author's name in entries 2 and 3. The titles are then alphabetized: Faulkner, Joyce, Modernism.

The Nine-Element Container Model

MLA 9 builds every entry from a single template of nine "core elements." The elements appear in this fixed order; skip any element that does not apply.

1. Author.
2. Title of source.
3. Title of container,
4. Other contributors,
5. Version,
6. Number,
7. Publisher,
8. Publication date,
9. Location.

The first two elements (Author and Title of source) describe the source itself. The next seven elements describe the container in which the source sits. When a source sits inside two containers (an article inside a journal inside a database), the entry has two container blocks, each containing elements 3 through 9 as needed.

Punctuation Inside an Entry

• A period follows the author and the title of the source.
• Commas separate elements within a single container.
• A period closes each container.
• Italicize titles of stand-alone works (books, journals, websites, films).
• Place titles of works that are part of a larger work (articles, chapters, episodes, songs) in quotation marks.

Headline Case for Titles

MLA uses headline case for titles of both sources and containers. Capitalize all major words. Lowercase articles (a, an, the), prepositions (in, on, of), coordinating conjunctions (and, but, or), and the "to" in infinitives, unless they are the first or last word of the title or appear after a colon.

Works Cited Examples by Source Type

Book by One Author

Whitfield, Henry. Reading Modernism: A Practical Guide.
        Oxford University Press, 2022.

Book by Two Authors

Whitfield, Henry, and Clara Bennett. Argument and Evidence.
        Routledge, 2023.

The first author's name is reversed (last, first); the second author's name is in normal order, preceded by "and."

Book by Three or More Authors

Whitfield, Henry, et al. Methods in Literary Studies.
        Oxford University Press, 2024.

Edited Book

Bennett, Clara, editor. Approaches to Modernism.
        Cambridge University Press, 2022.

Translated Book

Borges, Jorge Luis. Labyrinths. Translated by Donald A. Yates
        and James E. Irby, New Directions, 2007.

Chapter or Essay in an Edited Volume

Mehta, Rohan. "Health Humanities Pedagogy in the Clinical Year."
        Approaches to Medical Humanities, edited by Clara Bennett,
        Routledge, 2023, pp. 117-148.

Journal Article (Print)

Alvarez, Naomi. "Computational Stylometry and the Authorship Question."
        Modern Philology, vol. 121, no. 2, 2023, pp. 245-271.

Journal Article from a Database (Two Containers)

Alvarez, Naomi. "Computational Stylometry and the Authorship Question."
        Modern Philology, vol. 121, no. 2, 2023, pp. 245-271.
        JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/725144.

Note the two container blocks: the journal (Modern Philology) and the database (JSTOR). Each ends with a period.

Magazine Article

Bennett, Clara. "How Workplaces Decide What to Read." The Atlantic,
        12 Mar. 2024, pp. 44-51.

Newspaper Article

Whitfield, Henry. "What MLA 9 Changed About Citing Websites."
        The Guardian, 8 Sept. 2023, p. A4.

News or Magazine Article on a Website

Whitfield, Henry. "What MLA 9 Changed About Citing Websites."
        The Guardian, 8 Sept. 2023,
        www.theguardian.com/books/2023/sep/08/mla-9-changes.

Webpage on a Website

"Hanging Indents in Word." Microsoft Support, Microsoft, 2024,
        support.microsoft.com/en-us/word/hanging-indent.

Entire Website

Modern Language Association. MLA, 2024, www.mla.org.

YouTube Video

"How to Format Works Cited in MLA 9." YouTube, uploaded by EssayFount,
        14 Feb. 2024, www.youtube.com/watch?v=example.

Podcast Episode

"Episode 12: Reading Beckett Aloud." The Modernism Podcast,
        hosted by Clara Bennett, Acast, 22 Jan. 2024,
        www.acast.com/themodernismpodcast/episode-12.

Film or Streaming Movie

Past Lives. Directed by Celine Song, A24, 2023.

When the writer is analyzing the director's work specifically, the director can be moved to the author position:

Song, Celine, director. Past Lives. A24, 2023.

Television Episode (Streaming)

"Pine Barrens." The Sopranos, season 3, episode 11, written by
        Terence Winter and Tim Van Patten, HBO, 6 May 2001. Max,
        www.max.com/shows/the-sopranos.

Tweet, Post, or Social Media Update

@MLAstyle. "Quick reminder: MLA 9 dropped 'web' as a medium descriptor."
        Twitter, 18 Mar. 2023, twitter.com/MLAstyle/status/example.

Government Publication

United States, Department of Education. Digest of Education
        Statistics, 2023. National Center for Education Statistics,
        2024, nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d23.

Image in a Museum or Online

Cassatt, Mary. The Boating Party. 1893-1894, oil on canvas,
        National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.,
        www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.61356.html.

Personal Interview

Mehta, Rohan. Personal interview. 22 Mar. 2024.

Lecture or Conference Paper

Whitfield, Henry. "Modernism After 2020." Modern Language Association
        Convention, 6 Jan. 2024, Philadelphia Marriott, Philadelphia.
        Lecture.

Dissertation or Thesis

Bennett, Clara. Workplace Reading and Decision Quality. 2018.
        London School of Economics, PhD dissertation.

E-Book

Whitfield, Henry. Reading Modernism: A Practical Guide. 2nd ed.,
        e-book, Oxford University Press, 2023.

Audiobook

Whitfield, Henry. Reading Modernism: A Practical Guide. Narrated
        by Henry Whitfield, audiobook ed., Oxford University Press, 2022.

Source Quoted in Another Source (Indirect)

The Works Cited entry is for the source the writer actually consulted, not for the original. The body of the paper uses "qtd. in" to signal the indirect citation.

Source with No Author

"Climate Adaptation Spending Reaches Record High." The Economist,
        14 Apr. 2024, p. 22.

Sort the entry alphabetically by the first significant word of the title (here, "Climate"), ignoring any leading "A," "An," or "The."

Source with No Date

Whitfield, Henry. "On Memorial Practice." Memorial Studies Network,
        n.d., www.memorialstudies.net/whitfield-essay.

Use "n.d." (no date) when no publication date is available. Sources with no date are weaker evidence; consider whether a dated alternative would serve the argument better.

Source from Multiple Authors with the Same Last Name

Distinguish them in the in-text citation with first initials: (H. Whitfield 142) and (J. Whitfield 88). The Works Cited entries are alphabetized by full last name, then by first name.

Common Works Cited Mistakes

• Manual tab indent instead of hanging indent. Apply hanging indent at the paragraph level. Manual tabs break when fonts, margins, or page sizes change.
• Bold or italicized "Works Cited" heading. The heading is plain text, centered, without formatting.
• "Web." as a medium descriptor. MLA 9 dropped the medium descriptor that MLA 7 required. Do not add "Web." or "Print." to entries.
• "Retrieved from" before URLs. APA uses "Retrieved from"; MLA does not. Place the URL as the final element of the entry without a label.
• "https://" in URLs. MLA 9 drops the protocol prefix. Begin URLs with the domain (www.theguardian.com/...).
• Title-case article titles. Wait, this one is tricky. MLA uses headline case for both source titles and container titles. APA, by contrast, uses sentence case for article titles. Confirm which style you are using.
• Italicizing the wrong elements. Italicize stand-alone works (books, journals, websites, films). Use quotation marks for parts of larger works (articles, chapters, episodes).
• Wrong date format. MLA 9 uses day-month-year with abbreviated months (12 Mar. 2024). MLA does not use the U.S. month-day-year format inside entries.
• Including sources you did not cite. Works Cited contains only sources cited in the body. Sources consulted but not cited belong in a Works Consulted page, included only when the assignment requires it.
• Skipping the second container. Articles in journals in databases need two container blocks. Skipping the journal and going straight to the database hides where the article actually lives.
• Single-spaced entries. The entire page is double-spaced, including within entries and between entries.
• Wrong alphabetical order. Sort by the first word of the entry, ignoring "A," "An," and "The" at the start of titles. Multiple works by the same author sort by title.
• Three em dashes formatted as a single long line. Use three discrete em dashes (---) followed by a period. Some word processors auto-merge them into a single horizontal line; check the rendered character.
• Headline-case titles in non-English languages. Headline-case rules vary by language. For French, German, Spanish, and most other languages, follow the capitalization conventions of that language rather than English headline case.

How to Build a Works Cited Entry From Scratch

1. Identify the source type. Stand-alone work or part of a larger work? Books, journals, websites, and films are stand-alone; articles, chapters, episodes, and webpages are parts of larger works.
2. Identify the author. Personal author, group author, or no author? Multiple authors require specific format choices.
3. Format the title. Italicize stand-alone works; place parts of larger works in quotation marks. Use headline case.
4. Identify the container. The larger work that holds the source: journal, anthology, website, streaming service.
5. Add elements 4 through 9. Other contributors, version, number, publisher, publication date, location.
6. Add a second container if applicable. Article in journal in database, episode in series on streaming platform.
7. Apply punctuation. Period after author and title of source; commas inside containers; period after each container.
8. Slot into the alphabetized list. Apply hanging indent and place the entry in alphabetical order.

How EssayFount Writers Build Works Cited Pages

EssayFount produces Works Cited pages as a structured workflow rather than as a database export. Stage one is a citation inventory: every parenthetical citation in the body of the paper is logged, with the corresponding source identified and the source type confirmed. Stage two is entry assembly: each source is built from the nine-element template using the source itself rather than database export shortcuts (database tools frequently produce MLA 7 output or omit elements MLA 9 requires). Stage three is reconciliation: every Works Cited entry must have at least one in-text citation, and every in-text citation must have a matching Works Cited entry; mismatches are resolved before the document is delivered.

For complex source types (translated works, multi-volume editions, archival manuscripts, social media posts, audio interviews, AI-generated text) EssayFount writers apply the container model rather than searching for a pre-built template. The container model scales to any source, including the ones MLA could not have anticipated when MLA 9 was published; pre-built templates do not.