Basic Rules for Creating a Works Cited Page:

1. Start your Works Cited page as its own page at the end of your research paper.  (If the text of your paper ends on page 3, begin your Works Cited on page 4.)

2. Title it Works Cited, and center the words at the top of the page.  Do not do anything else to the words, such as make them bold face or italicized.  

3. Keep the citations double spaced.  Do not skip any extra lines between the individual citations.  

4. Alphabetize the sources by the name, title, or description that starts the entry.

FAQs

What is a “Works Cited” Page? 

A “Works Cited” page, sometimes called a bibliography, is a listing of all of the information sources (books, ebooks, websites, articles etc.) you use to write a paper or create a project.  

What is MLA Style? 

The Modern Language Association (MLA) developed a style guide for academic writing.  Part of the style guide deals with standardized ways to document the writer’s source materials.   MLA provides guidelines for the creation of a bibliography (called a “Works Cited” page) and the corresponding parenthetical (within the text) citation.

Why is it important that I cite sources? 

As a student, it is your responsibility to give proper credit to your sources. If you fail to give proper credit to a source, you have committed plagiarism.

What is plagiarism? 

If you have not given proper credit to your sources, you have committed plagiarism.  Essentially, it is like you are lying to your reader.  You have used someone else’s ideas without telling your reader where you took it from.  Whether you have intentionally tried to pass off someone else’s ideas as your own or, through careless research, you unintentionally “forgot” to cite a source, the charge is plagiarism. 

Do I need to cite AI?  If so, when? 

The MLA requires you to cite any generative AI tools you utilize to paraphrase, quote directly, or include any content (text, images, data, or other) in your work that the AI tool makes.    

You must acknowledge any uses of the AI, including editing or translating. It is also your responsibility to verify information to be sure it is accurate.

Example of MLA 9 citations:

Book in Print

Author's Last Name, First Name. Title of Book. Publisher, Publication Date.

Example of book citation:

Boughton, Simon. The Wild River and the Great Dam : The Construction of Hoover Dam and the Vanishing Colorado River. Little, Brown and Co., 2024.

Website

Author’s Last name, First name. “Title of the Article or Individual Page.” Title of the website, Name of the publisher, Date of publication, URL.

Example of website citation:

Sharockman, Aaron. "Let's Fight Back Against Fake News." Politifact, Tampa Bay Times, 16 Nov. 2016, www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/blog/2016/nov/16/lets-fight-back-against-fake-news/. Accessed 17 Jan. 2017.

Newspaper Article

Author’s Last name, First name. “Title of the article.” Title of the newspaper, First name Last name of any other contributors, Version, Numbers, Date of publication, Location.

Example of newspaper article citation:

Tumola, Cristabelle. “NYC Developers Seek to Justify High Prices with New Amenities.” Metro [New York City], 9 Aug. 2016, p. 4.

Adapted from the Purdue OWL website: 

Artificial Intelligence:

MLA format: “Text of prompt” prompt. ChatGPT, Day Month version, OpenAI, Day Month Year, chat.openai.com.

MLA Works Cited entry: “Explain antibiotics” prompt. ChatGPT, 13 Feb. version, OpenAI, 16 Feb. 2023, chat.openai.com.

MLA in-text citation: ("Explain antibiotics")

Another option is to use a sentence along with your final writing or project.  It is called a disclosure statement.

MLA Format: “Created by (your name) with (revision/editing/image creation/research) assistance from (AI used).”

Disclosure Statement:  Created by Sarah Malgioglio with revision and editing assistance from Magic School.

Created by Kelsey Cohen with image creation assistance from Canva.