How to Cite a Book in MLA Format

While most people do the majority of their research online these days, books continue to be and will remain one of the best resources for any academic paper. As a result, it is safe to say that any student who wants to turn in high-quality research papers that conform to MLA style manual standards needs to be familiar with those standards.

In this tutorial, we will look at how to cite a book in MLA style. This guide will not only teach you the basics of MLA citation style, but also cover the different challenges you might encounter while attempting to cite books in MLA style.

General Rules

If you have multiple works by the same author in your works cited, it is not necessary to state the author’s name for each citation. List the works alphabetically and cite the author’s name as indicated for the first entry. For subsequent entries by that author, use “—.” in lieu of the author’s name. For example:

Shakespeare, William. Othello.

—. Romeo and Juliet.

Noteworthy Changes for MLA 8

The changes between MLA 7 and MLA 8 reflect an increasing use of electronic sources in research, including the use of electronic books. There are a few changes that even the most seasoned paper-writer needs to know to ensure that he or she is MLA compliant:

1. Instead of listing the date or n.d. use the accessed date;
2. Use DOIs instead of URLs when DOIs are available;
3. You do not have to designate the book format (print, web, etc.);
4. Use commas instead of periods between publisher, publication date, and page range; and
5. If containers are used, include the containers as part of the format. Containers refer to ways to find the book and can include websites, databases, and other similar large data collections.

General Book MLA Citation

Author. Title. Title of container, Editors or Translators, Version or edition, Volume, Number,

Publisher, Publication Date, Location (pages/ paragraphs/ URL or DOI). Title of Second

Container, Contributors, Version, Numbers, Publisher, Publication date, Location, Date

of Access.

What if Information is Missing?

One of the most common questions we get from students is how they can cite something in MLA format if a necessary piece of information is unavailable. This is a particularly valid question, especially for books. A print book is going to be missing most of that information because they are self-contained, meaning that there will be no second container. However, if you find a book on-line, you may not be able to find all of the information that you are supposed to provide according to the general book format. You can only include information that you have actually found; it is neither expected nor accepted for you to guess at information. Therefore, include the information that you have and omit the information you do not have. The goal is to create a practical citation that helps your reader find the resource in the even that additional research is needed. Our examples will look at a variety of different book citation types, but if you have any specific questions about how to deal with missing information, please feel free to post the question in our Student Questions forum.

Page Numbers/ Paragraph Numbers

The movement towards electronic sources can make it very difficult to designate page numbers for sources, including electronic books. This is problematic because MLA citation format usually requires indicating page numbers, when available, if citing to anything less than the entire book. This becomes critical when you transform the resources in your works cited page to in-text citations in your actual paper. For many online sources, there are no page numbers available; when page numbers are unavailable, include references to paragraphs, instead. To differentiate the use of paragraphs from the use of pages, designate paragraphs with the abbreviation par. or pars.

Do I include a URL?

Sometimes. MLA has been inconsistent about whether students should include URLs in their citations, but MLA 8 seems to clear up any lingering confusion. MLA 8 requires the inclusion of a URL in citations for web-based sources unless a DOI is available for the resource. When a DOI is available, it should always be used in place of a URL. There is also an important change in how URLs are used in MLA 8. In the past, URLs were introduced with their hypertext transfer protocol, which was either a http: or https: before the actual web address. In MLA 8, the need for the http(s) is removed, and you are only expected to include the root language of the URL.

Google Books

For the examples in this tutorial, we used books available on Google Books. We did this so that you could further explore any resources if you had any questions. For the purposes of the tutorial, we will show you how to format the citation as if you had the print book in front of you and then how to format the citation to the Google Book location where we found the resource. For the purposes of your own research and citations, if you find a book on Google Books, you will need to provide the correct container information for the resource.

Simple Book Format

The most basic format is a single-author book found in a paper format:

Last Name, First Name. Title of Book. Publisher, Publication Date.

We are starting by looking at Dracula by Bram Stoker. You will note that we chose a version actually published when Dracula was first written. That is because modern versions might have editors or other contributors and we wanted to start with the single author example.

Author: Bram Stoker

Title: Dracula: A Mystery Story

Publisher: W.R. Caldwell & CO.

City of Publication: New York

Copyright: 1897

Taking the information provided we can write the following citation:

Stoker, Bram. Dracula: A Mystery Story. W.R. Caldwell & Co., 1897.

To indicate that we found the reference on Google Books, we would cite it as:

Stoker, Bram. Dracula: A Mystery Story. W.R. Caldwell & Co., 1897, Google Books, Google, https://books.google.com/books?id=k39vHp5VeMC&printsec=frontcover&dq=dracula&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjK1tya54TUAhXMTSYKHQLkDM0Q6AEIMzAC#v=onepage&q=dracula&f=false, Accessed 22 May 2017.

Book with Multiple Authors

If a book has multiple authors, then the format is similar to the single author book, except both authors are mentioned, in the order that they are listed on the book:

Last Name, First Name and First Name Last Name. Title. Publisher, Year of Publication.

Authors: Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

Because Pratchett is mentioned first on the book’s cover, the citation will begin with Pratchett’s name.

Title: Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

This publication information tells us whether or not this book has been previously published. For the purposes of this first example, we are going to ignore this information, but will revisit it in a later example.

Publisher: Harpertorch

Copyright: 2006.

Putting it together, you get the following citation:

Pratchett, Terry and Neil Gaiman. Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes

Nutter, Witch. Harpertorch, 2006.

To show that we found it on Google Books, then we cite it like this:

Pratchett, Terry and Neil Gaiman. Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch. Harpertorch, 2006. Google Books, Google, https://books.google.com/books?id=7erEbfDOcgkC&printsec=frontcover&dq=pratchett+and+gaiman&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwim2KC76oTUAhVESyYKHVf8AwYQ6AEILjAB# v=onepage&q=pratchett%20and%20gaiman&f=false, Accessed 22 May 2017.

Republished Books

We are going to stick with Good Omens for a moment. If you remember, we had some publication information that we were ignoring for the sake of creating a multiple author citation. If we go back to that information, we see that the book was originally published in 1990:

For republished books that are not new editions, you can still indicate that it is a subsequent publishing. The basic format for that is:

Last Name, First Name. Title. Year of First Publication. Publisher, Year of Publication.

Putting it together, you get the following citation:

Pratchett, Terry and Neil Gaiman. Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes

Nutter, Witch. 1990. Harpertorch, 2006.

To show that we found it on Google Books, then we cite it like this:

Pratchett, Terry and Neil Gaiman. Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes

Nutter, Witch. 1990. Harpertorch, 2006. Google Books, Google, https://books.google.com/books?id=7erEbfDOcgkC&printsec=frontcover&dq=pratchett+and+gaiman&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwim2KC76oTUAhVESyYKHVf8AwYQ6AEILjAB# v=onepage&q=pratchett%20and%20gaiman&f=false Accessed 22 May 2017.

Books by Corporate Authors or Organizations

Sometimes there is no individual author for a book. Instead, it is written by an organization, corporation, or other group author. You use the same format for them that you do for single author books:

Name of Organization. Title. Publisher, Year.

Frequently, organizations act as their own publishers. In this case, the author name and the Publisher will be the same. The correct format then becomes:

Title. Publisher, Year.

Translated or Edited Books

Translated or edited books can become a little challenging in your works cited. Usually, you want to focus on the author. However, there may be a reason that you want to focus on the translator or editor. In those instances, you will focus on the translator or editor first. Our example involves a translator:

Title: One Hundred Years of Solitude

Author: Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Translator: Gregory Rabassa

Publisher: Harper Collins

Publication Date: 2003; first published in 1970.

So, usually it would be:

Marquez, Gabriel Garcia. 100 Years of Solitude. Translated by Gregory Rabassa, 1970, Harper Collins, 2003.

To show it was taken from Google Books:

Marquez, Gabriel Garcia. 100 Years of Solitude. Translated by Gregory Rabassa, 1970, Harper

Collins, 2003. Google Books, Google,

https://books.google.com/books?id=pgPWOaOctq8C&printsec=frontcover&dq=100+yea rs+of+solitude&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiQxtSW8YTUAhXDXyYKHSlPBMsQ6AEIJzAA#v=onepage&q=100%20years%20of%20solitude&f=false. Accessed 22 May 2017.

To emphasize the translator, it would be:

Rabassa, Gregory, translator. 100 Years of Solitude. By Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 1970, Harper

Collins, 2003.

To show it was taken from Google Books:

Rabassa, Gregory, translator. 100 Years of Solitude. By Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 1970, Harper

Collins, 2003. Google Books, Google,

https://books.google.com/books?id=pgPWOaOctq8C&printsec=frontcover&dq=100+yea rs+of+solitude&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiQxtSW8YTUAhXDXyYKHSlPBMsQ6AEIJzAA#v=onepage&q=100%20years%20of%20solitude&f=false. Accessed 22 May 2017.

Book with No Author

Some books do not have any authors. Encyclopedias, dictionaries, and other reference books often fall into this category. If a book has no author, then the entry is very simple:

Title. Publisher, Year of Publication.

You may also want to reference a particular article in a reference book. To do that, you list the article:

“Article Name. Book Title. Edition. Publisher, Year of Publication.

Book Editions

Students are often very intimidated by editions of books. However, citing editions follows the normal book format, simply adds in edition information.

Last Name, First Name. Title. Edition, Publisher, Year.

Complicated Books

Some books have editors, authors, illustrators, and all other types of complications. It can leave a student feeling very puzzled about what all information needs to be included in the works cited page. For our example, we picked an edition of the popular William Golding book The Princess Bride. Look at the screenshots of the first few pages and see how many contributors you can spot:

Title: The Princess Bride: An Illustrated Edition of S. Morgenstern’s Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure

Author: William Golding

Abridger: William Golding

Illustrator: Michael Manomivibul

Edition: “The Good Parts” Version

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Publication date: 2013

You may wonder how much of this information is necessary, but because there are multiple editions of the book and this is not only an abridged version, but also an illustrated one, it really isn’t interchangeable with other versions.

We are going to treat the illustrator and the abridger like we treated translators.

Golding, William. The Princess Bride: An Illustrated Edition of S. Morgenstern’s Classic Tale

of True Love and High Adventure, “The Good Parts” Version. Illustrated by Michael

Manomivibul. Abridged by William Golding. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013.

Refer the reader back to the Google Books format:

Golding, William. The Princess Bride: An Illustrated Edition of S. Morgenstern’s Classic Tale

of True Love and High Adventure, “The Good Parts” Version. Illustrated by Michael

Manomivibul. Abridged by William Golding. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013

Google Books, Google,

https://books.google.com/books?id=5eAwAAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=the+pr

incess+bride&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjwn_X59ITUAhVJySYKHQNjB3YQ6AEI

LDAB#v=onepage&q=the%20princess%20bride&f=false. Accessed 22 May

2017.

Anthologies

Often works are collected together in anthologies. When referencing an entire anthology, the editor(s) of the anthology are listed first:

Editor Last, Editor First, editor. Title. Publisher, Year of Publication.

However, you will probably more frequently cite to an individual work in the anthology. In that case, you cite it as follows:

Author Last, Author First. “Title of Work.” Book Title, edited by Editor’s First and Last,

Publisher, Year of Publication, pp.xx-yy.

If an entry is only a single page, you would use p. instead of pp.

Multivolume Works

If you cite a volume in a multivolume work, then you want to indicate the volume number. It usually follows the title of the work, but, if there is an editor or translator, you would put it after the editor or translator’s name:

Last, First. Work Name, vol. x, Publisher, Year of Publication.

Last, First. Work Name. Translator or Editor if Applicable, vol. x, Publisher, Year of

Publication.

The Bible

The Bible is a very common source, but with several different versions. Therefore, your in-text citations to any Bible verses need to include the edition or version, in addition to the book, chapter, and verse. For your works cited, your entry needs to include:

The Bible. Version, Publisher, Year of Publication.

Electronic Books

It is always preferable to cite to a hard-copy of a book, if that is available. If the book has a doi, then use the doi in place of the URL. If it is not, then the citation format for an electronic book is:

Last, First. Title of Book. Publisher, Publication Date, URL or doi. Website, Publisher,

Publication date, Location, Date of Access.

Although Pride and Prejudice is available in print format, for the purposes of this example, we will assume that we could only access an electronic copy:

Author: Jane Austen

Title: Pride and Prejudice

URL: https://books.google.com/books?id=s1gVAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

Copyright Date: 1918

Publisher: Charles Scribner’s Sons

This is a fairly complicated citation because there are two publishers: Charles Scribner’s Sons and Google Books. The citation would look like:

Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1918,

https://books.google.com/books?id=s1gVAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gb

s_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. Google Books. Google. Accessed 19

May 2017.

Kindle and Other E-Reader Book Editions

Books accessed through Kindle or Nook are cited like books, but with the version (Kindle or Nook) shown in their citation:

Last, First. Title of Book. Version. Publisher, Publication Date

Kindle:

Last, First. Title of Book. Kindle Edition. Publisher, Publication Date.

Nook:

Last, First. Title of Book. Nook Edition. Publisher, Publication Date

Conclusion

While the internet provides a handy research venue for students, you will still find yourself using books as resources in your research papers. This tutorial covered the most commonly used book citation formats. If you have any questions about the proper MLA citation for a book type that was not covered in this tutorial, feel free to ask about it at our Student Questions forum.