mla format title of book in essay

How to Write a Book Title in MLA Formatting

by Joe Bunting | 2 comments

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You're writing a paper for school and suddenly you stop in the middle of the sentence. You have to write a book title, but you don't how to format it. How do you format a book title in MLA style? Good news: you're in the write place (sorry, I had to).

In this post, we'll talk about MLA style and formatting, whether it's appropriate for your project, and most importantly, how to write a book title in MLA style.

What Is MLA?

MLA stands for Modern Language Association, a society primarily based in the United States but with international standing, that has a mission to “strengthen the study and teaching of language and literature”. Founded in the late 1800s by an American novelist and professor, MLA publishes a set of resources used by students and teachers, including the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers .

The MLA handbook is one of the main style manuals for students and scholars in the world, especially for anyone studying literature, film, or theater.

Should You Format Based on MLA Style?

If you're writing a paper for a class in literature, theater, or film, absolutely use MLA style. Outside of that, it depends. Here are the most frequent style guides associated with various disciplines:

• Literature, Film, Theater:   MLA
• Psychology:   APA
• Science (Physics, Biology, Chemistry): CSE or APA
• Journalism:   AP
• Mathematics:   AMA
• Publishing:   Chicago

You can find a full list of international style guides here .

Now that you know if you should be using MLA style, how do you format a book title with it?

How to Format a Book Title in MLA Style: Example

In MLA style, book titles are italicized, as so:

Henry Thorough argues in Walden  that the best life is lived in deliberate simplicity so as to discover what life truly is about.

In fact, most style guides, including MLA and   Chicago style, require book titles to be italicized , not underlined.

If the book title has a subtitle, the subtitle should be italicized as well and separated by a colon to be formatted correctly for MLA style, as in:

Natural History of the Intellect: the last lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson

Should You Underline Book Titles in MLA Style?

If you are using MLA style, you should not underline book titles. Instead, italicize the titles.

However, AP style, the guide used by journalists, suggests putting titles in quotation marks, not italicization.

Still, I wouldn't recommend underlining a book's title. In fact, I couldn't find a single style guide that requires book titles to be underlined, but if you know of one that does, let me know in the comments!

Which style guide do you use most? MLA? Chicago? APA? AP? Or do you just write based on your own rules?!  Let me know in the comments .

Let's cement this formatting lesson in our minds by putting it to use right away with the following writing exercise .

What are your favorite books of all time? Write about what you love about them and why they are your favorites for fifteen minutes . Make sure to use the correct formatting for each title!

When your time is up, post your practice in the comments section . And if you post, please be sure to read a few practices by other writers and share your feedback with them.

Happy writing!

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Joe Bunting

Joe Bunting is an author and the leader of The Write Practice community. He is also the author of the new book Crowdsourcing Paris , a real life adventure story set in France. It was a #1 New Release on Amazon. Follow him on Instagram (@jhbunting).

Want best-seller coaching? Book Joe here.

how do you format the title if you’re writing on paper and can’t italicize?

When writing by hand, you can underline book titles.

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How to Write Book Titles in MLA

Last Updated: April 1, 2024 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Annaliese Dunne and by wikiHow staff writer, Jennifer Mueller, JD . Annaliese Dunne is a Middle School English Teacher. With over 10 years of teaching experience, her areas of expertise include writing and grammar instruction, as well as teaching reading comprehension. She is also an experienced freelance writer. She received her Bachelor's degree in English. There are 8 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 48,100 times.

If you're writing a research paper, you may want to include the title of a book in the text of your paper. The handbook for the Modern Language Association (MLA) provides specific rules for how to set off the title of a book from the rest of your text. Generally, titles of books are set apart from the rest of the text following particular formatting, capitalization, and punctuation rules.

Formatting Titles

• Music album titles and film titles are also italicized.
• In earlier editions, the MLA Handbook also permitted titles to be underlined. The 8th edition confirms that underlining is no longer appropriate.

Exception : Religious texts, such as the Bible or the Quran, are not italicized.

• For example, you might write: "In The Great Gatsby in the Classroom: Searching for the American Dream , David Dowling promotes the use of art and film to improve literacy."

• For example, if you were talking about the Nancy Drew series, you would not italicize "Nancy Drew" because the name does not appear in the titles of any of the individual books. In contrast, Harry Potter would be italicized, because the name appears at the beginning of the title of every book in the series.

• For example, if you were writing a paper on The Great Gatsby , you would need to include the full title in your text at least once. If you mentioned the novel more than once, you could use Gatsby as a shortened title.
• How you shorten the title generally depends on your own judgment. Use a word or words that evoke the title easily in the mind of the reader, without any ambiguity.

Capitalizing Titles

• For example, you might write: "Comedian Steve Martin takes on the art world in his novel An Object of Beauty . Note that the word "an" is capitalized because it is the first word. Otherwise, it would be in lowercase.
• If the book also has a subtitle, capitalize the first word of the subtitle just as you did the first word of the title.

• Articles include words such as "a," "an," and "the." Words such as "against," "in," and "to." Note that these words remain in lowercase regardless of their length.

• Coordinating conjunctions include words such as "and," "but," "for," and "nor."
• Subordinating conjunctions include words such as "after," "although," because," "unless," and "until."

• Example: Storytelling and Mythmaking: Images from Film and Literature

Tip: If you have doubts about the parts of speech of the words in a title, you can check your capitalization using free capitalization checkers available online.

• Capitalize all words that would be capitalized in the language the title is written in. For example, since all nouns are capitalized in German, you would capitalize all nouns in a German book title.

Punctuating Titles

• For example, if a title ends in an exclamation point or a question mark, you would include that punctuation mark at the end of the title. The punctuation mark should be italicized so that your readers understand that it's part of the title, not part of your punctuation.
• If the book title ends in a question mark or an exclamation point, it's typically not a good idea to use that title at the end of a sentence, because then the punctuation mark at the end of the book title effectively becomes the punctuation mark for the end of your sentence. Recast your sentence so that the book title doesn't fall at the end of the sentence.

• There is an exception if the book title includes another book title, and the included book title ends in a question mark or exclamation point. Since that punctuation mark belongs to the included book title, you would follow that punctuation mark with a colon. For example: Moby Dick and Absalom, Absalom! : Two American Masterpieces Note that the colon is italicized.

• For example, you might write: "In the 1980s sitcom When Harry Met Sally. . . , the characters examined whether heterosexual cisgender men and women could be friends without ever becoming romantically or sexually involved."
• Note that you'll have to form your sentence so that either a comma or a period is appropriate following the ellipsis or a dash.

Tip: Although it might be difficult for the average person to tell whether a punctuation mark such as a comma or period is italicized, technically any punctuation added to the end of the title should not be italicized.

• For example: England's Monitor; or, The History of Separation . Note that the "or" and all punctuation are also italicized.
• Generally, list the original or oldest title first, followed by any later title.

• For example, since the book Everything Is Nothing: The Poetry of the Great War, Revolution and the Transformation of Europe was published in London, the serial comma would not be added. However, if the book were published in the US, you would add a comma after the word "Revolution."

Expert Q&A

You might also like.

Expert Interview

Thanks for reading our article! If you’d like to learn more about writing, check out our in-depth interview with Annaliese Dunne .

• ↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/subject_specific_writing/writing_in_literature/writing_about_literature/formatting.html
• ↑ https://style.mla.org/punctuation-with-titles/
• ↑ https://style.mla.org/trilogy-titles/
• ↑ https://style.mla.org/full-names-titles-in-each-chapter/
• ↑ https://secondary.oslis.org/cite-sources/mla/how-to-capitalize-and-punctuate-titles
• ↑ https://style.mla.org/capitalization-of-titles/
• ↑ https://irsc.libguides.com/c.php?g=483085&p=3303403
• ↑ https://morningside.libguides.com/MLA8/title

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MLA Style Guide Eighth Edition

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Title of Source. The title is usually taken from an authoritative location in the source such as the title page. It is the name of the source you are using. Capitalize the following parts of speech in a title: nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, subordinating conjunctions (although, because, unless, after, until, when, where, while, etc.). Do not capitalize articles, prepositions, coordinating conjunctions, the "to" in infinitives if they appear in the middle of the title. A colon separates the title from the subtitle unless it ends in a question mark or exclamation. Titles should be italicized or enclosed in quotation marks. Titles that are independent and self-contained (e.g., books) and titles of containers (e.g., anthologies) should be italicized. Titles that are contained in larger works (e.g., short stories) should be in quotation s. Exceptions to the above rule are: 1) Scripture (Genesis, Bible, Gospels, Upanishads, Old Testament, Talmud, etc.) Titles of individualized scripture writings, however, should be italicized and treated like any other published work.(e.g. The Interlinear Bible) 2) Names of laws, acts and political documents (Bill of Rights, Declaration of Independence, Magna Carta, Treaty of Marseilles, etc.) 3) Musical compositions identified by form, number, and key (Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 in A, op. 92) 4) Series titles (Critical American Studies, Bollingen Series, etc.) 5) Conferences, seminars, workshops, and courses (MLA Annual Convention, English 110)

The title of the work follows the author and ends with a period . Mitchell, Margaret. Gone With the Wind . New York: Macmillan, 1961.

A sub-title is included after the main title . Joyce, Michael. Othermindedness: The Emergence of Network Culture. U of Michigan P, 2000. Baron, Sabrina Alcorn et al., editors. Agent of Change: Print Culture Studies after Elizabeth L. Eisenstein. U of               Massachusetts P /Center for the Book, Library of Congress, 2007.

The title of a story, poem or essay in a collection, as part of a larger whole, is placed in quotation marks . Dewar, James A., and Peng Hwa Ang. "The Cultural Consequences of Printing and the Internet." Agent of Change: Print             Culture Studies after Elizabeth L. Eisenstein. U of Massachusetts P /Center for the Book, Library of Congress,             2007, pp. 365-77. 

Independent work in a collection When a work that is normally independent (such as a novel or play) appears in a collection, the work's title remains in italics. Euripides. The Trojan Women . Ten Plays, translated by Paul Roche, New American Library, 1998, pp. 457-512.

The title of a periodical (journal, magazine, or newspaper) is in italics and the title of the article is in quotation marks. Goldman, Anne. "Questions of Transport: Reading Primo Levi Reading Dante." The Georgia Review, vol. 64, no. 1, 2010           pp. 69-88. Note: This rule applies to all media forms such as the title of a television series, an episode in a television series, a song or piece of music in an album, a posting or article on a web page. See examples below. Television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer . Created by Joss Whedon, performance by Sarah Michelle Gellar, Mutant Enemy, 1997-2003. Episode in a television series "Hush." Buffy the Vampire Slayer , created by Joss Whedon, performance by Sarah           Michelle Gellar, season 4, episode 10, Mutant Enemy, 1997-2003. Web site Hollmichel, Stefanie. So Many Books . 2003-13, somanybooksbkog.com Note: When giving a URL, omit http and https. Posting of an article on a web site Hollmichel, Stefanie. "The Reading Brain: Differences Between Digital and Print."           So Many Books, 25 April 2013, somanybooksblog.com/2013/04/25/the-reading-brain-differences-between-digital-           and-print/. A song or piece of music in an album Beyonce. "Pretty Hurts." Beyonce , Parkwood Entertainment, 2013,           www.beyonce.com/album/beyonce/?media_view=songs.

Untitled Source In the place of the title, provide a generic description of the source without italics or quotation marks. Capitalize the first word in the title and any proper nouns in it. Mackintosh, Charles Rennie. Chair of Stained Oak. 1897-1900, Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

Comment or review of a title in an online forum Jeane. Comment on "The Reading Brain: Differences Between Digital and Print." So Many Books, 25 Apr. 2013,            10:30 p.m., somanybooksblog.com/2013/04/25/the-reading-brain-differences-between-digital-and-            print/#comment-83030

Review of a title in an online forum Mackin, Joseph. Review of The Pleasures of Reading of an age of Distraction , by Alan Jacobs. New York Journal of Books, 2 June 2011, www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book-review/            pleasures-reading-age-distraction.

Tweet Reproduce the full text without changing anything and enclose within quotation marks. @persiankiwi."We have report of large street battles in east and west of Tehran now. - #Iranelection." Twitter ,            23 June 2009, 11:15 a.m., twitter.com/persianwiki/status/2298106072.

E-mail message Use subject as the title. Subject is enclosed in quotation marks. Boyle, Anthony T. "Re: Utopia." Received by Daniel J. Cayhill, 21 June 1997.

Introduction, Preface, Foreword, or Afterword Capitalize the term in the works cited list but do not italicize or enclose in quotation marks. The term need not be capitalized in in-text discussion. Felstiner, John. Preface. Selected Poems and Prose of Paul Celan , by Paul Celan, translated by Felstiner              W.W. Norton, 2001, pp.xix-xxxvi.

Translations of Titles Place translations of titles for foreign works in square brackets in the works cited list. The translation appears next to the title.

Shortened titles The first time a title is mentioned in your work, it should appear in full. If the title is repeated in the work, it can be shortened to a familiar one (e.g., Skylark for Ode to a Skylark).

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How Do You Write the Title of a Book in MLA Style?

Have you read “ Italics and Underlining: Titles of Books ,” an article we published on TheWordCounter.com in May? 

Take a look at the previous sentence. In it, we’ve made use of the Modern Language Association’s guidelines for writing titles. Because the article is a part of a whole, meaning it’s a small part of a larger website , its title should be put in quotation marks. The larger work, the website, must be italicized. 

To take a step back, it’s important to understand that many different style guides exist, and they all give advice about how to format your writing, address grammar concerns, and provide information about the source material you use. Within the context of academic writing, often a teacher will give an assignment and specify which style guide you should use. Similarly—if you’re planning to publish your writing—journals, publishing companies, and editors may have strong preferences about formatting. At other times, you may be able to select a style guide based on your own preferences. 

For the purpose of this article, let’s assume that you’ve been assigned (or have chosen to write) a short essay in MLA format. If that’s the case, what do you need to know about writing titles?

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Works Cited

To begin, you’ll need to include a Works Cited section for your essay, as long as you have source material that you’re planning to quote or paraphrase. Let’s begin by looking at a standard citation for a book in MLA format. 

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

Notice that the title of the book is italicized. 

You would also use italics for other forms of media cited in their entirety: 

• News publications
• Anthologies

When you write the title, remember that the rules for capitalizing can be tricky. For MLA, title case requires that you capitalize the first word of the title and any subtitles, capitalize all principal words (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and pronouns), and capitalize all the words that contain four letters or more. If you use a hyphenated word, be sure to capitalize the second part that comes after the hyphen. When the title has a subtitle, be sure to include a colon and a space between the main title and the subtitle. 

To review, here are a few fictional titles, along with the proper title case for MLA style:

• New York in the Spring: A Guide to Snacking
• Hot-Headedness and Anger From a Toddler’s Perspective
• The Unofficial Grammar Bible

In-Text Citations

For an in-text citation, you would simply follow your quotation or paraphrase with a parenthetical notation. Provide the reader with the author’s last name and the page number. This way, if the reader wants to review the source material that you used, he or she can find the book in the Works Cited section of your essay, and then look at the referenced page directly. 

When you use a parenthetical citation in this manner, you do not necessarily need to write the title of the book in your prose. That said, it is common to include the title of the book in your research paper or essay, especially the first time you refer to the book, in order to provide additional context for the quotation or paraphrase. If you include the author’s name in your prose, there is no need to repeat it in the in-text citation. 

Here are examples of both styles of in-text citation. 

• As Rick Hawthorne explains in Coordinating Conjunctions for Fun , “Grammar can be amazing” (75).
• According to a prominent linguistics professor, “Grammar can be amazing” (Hawthorne 75). 

In the examples above, you can see that including the title of the book may add context, but it is not necessary when you provide the in-text citation. If you choose to include the title, you should use the same title case and formatting that you use in the Works Cited section of your paper. 

What Titles Need Quotation Marks?

As a general rule, the titles that require quotation marks involve a partial work. For example, a chapter in a book only makes up part of a larger work. 

Based on the MLA handbook, we’ve created a list of media that fits into the “part of a whole” classification. Next to those titles, we’ve listed examples of the complete works, written in all capital letters. 

• Book chapters | BOOK TITLE
• Web pages | WEBSITE NAME
• News, magazine, and journal articles | NEWSPAPER, MAGAZINE, or JOURNAL TITLE
• TV episodes | TV SHOW TITLE
• Songs | ALBUM TITLE
• Short stories | ANTHOLOGY TITLE
• Poems | ANTHOLOGY TITLE
• Online videos | WEBSITE NAME

Of the items in the list above, the first set of titles should be written within a pair of quotation marks. The capitalized set of titles should be written with italics. 

Special Circumstances

There are a few situations that necessitate special rules. 

• When a work has no author, the title should be used in the place of the author’s last name for the in-text citation. Do not include subtitles in the in-text citation. If the full title is long, you may abbreviate it by dropping articles and prepositions, but you must maintain the first word as it’s alphabetized in your Works Cited. 
• When you quote or paraphrase from a chapter in an anthology or reference book, be sure to include the chapter title in your Works Cited list, between the author’s name and the name of the full work. 
• Add the English translation of a foreign-language title in brackets in your Works Cited, and add it in parentheses in your prose.
•  Although the following words and phrases describe parts of a work, they should not be confused with unique titles: preface, introduction, works cited, appendix, scene, stanza, chapter, bibliography, act, index. Since they are not titles, section names do not need to be put in quotations. 
• Musical compositions, laws, and religious scripture do not receive the same treatment as other titles. When in doubt, refer to the Modern Language Association for special exceptions. 
• When you come across a title within a title, use quotation marks or italics as normal. Quotes within quotes employ single quotes, and italics within italics revert back to non-italicized text. For example, if you have the title of a poem that appears within the title of a chapter, you would use single quotation marks within double quotation marks: “Understanding Whitman’s ‘Song of Myself'”. 
• For a title that ends in a question mark, there’s no need to add a colon before the subtitle. 
• According to the 8th edition of the MLA guidelines, you no longer need to include the city of publication for books published after 1900. For an older book, your citation should include that information.
• https://irsc.libguides.com/mla/intextexamples#
• https://www.scribbr.com/mla/titles/
• https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/mla_style/mla_formatting_and_style_guide/mla_general_format.html
• https://www.mla.org/MLA-Style
• ​ https://libguides.css.edu/c.php?g=41682&p=265033

Kari Lisa Johnson

I’m an award-winning playwright with a penchant for wordplay. After earning a perfect score on the Writing SAT, I worked my way through Brown University by moonlighting as a Kaplan Test Prep tutor. I received a BA with honors in Literary Arts (Playwriting)—which gave me the opportunity to study under Pulitzer Prize-winner Paula Vogel. In my previous roles as new media producer with Rosetta Stone, director of marketing for global ventures with The Juilliard School, and vice president of digital strategy with Up & Coming Media, I helped develop the voice for international brands. From my home office in Maui, Hawaii, I currently work on freelance and ghostwriting projects.

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If a book title within an essay title is not italicized in the source, should I italicize it in my works-cited-list entry?

Note: This post relates to content in the eighth edition of the MLA Handbook . For up-to-date guidance, see the ninth edition of the MLA Handbook .

Yes. A title within a title should be styled according to the guidelines in section 1.2.4 of the  MLA Handbook , regardless of how a title within a title is styled in the source.

For example, the title of an essay about Gone with the Wind  is styled in EBSCOHost  as follows: 

“Painfully Southern”: “Gone with the Wind,” the Agrarians, and the Battle for the New South

Since Gone with the Wind is the title of a novel, if you were to include this essay in your works-cited list, you would set it in italics instead of enclosing it in quotation marks:

Adams, Amanda. “‘Painfully Southern’: Gone with the Wind , the Agrarians, and the Battle for the New South.”  Southern Literary Journal , vol. 40, no. 1, Fall 2007, p. 58.  EBSCOHost Connection , connection.ebscohost.com/c/literary-criticism/28439869/painfully-southern-gone-wind-agrarians-battle-new-south.

How to Write a Book Title in an Essay (MLA, APA etc.)

Formatting your essay correctly ensures that you get full recognition for the hard work you put into it. Wondering what to do? There are two scenarios that lead you to the question of "how to write a book title in an essay":

• You have not been required to use a particular style guide, in which case consistency remains important.
• You have been instructed to use a particular style guide. You now simply need to ensure that you are familiar with its rules.

Regardless of which of these scenarios holds true for you, this guide is here to help.

How to Write a Book Title in an Essay

Many style manuals call on writers use title case and italics to format a book title. Title case rules vary slightly from one style guide to the next, but generally capitalize all important words — nouns, pronouns, verbs, and adverbs. Conjunctions and prepositions are not capitalized unless they are very long (generally more than four letters) or they appear at the beginning or end of a book title.

Writers who are not required to work with a specific style manual can't go wrong if they stick to this style. Some examples would be:

• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
• The Gift of Fear and Other Survival Signals That Protect us From Violence by Gavin de Becker
• The Cat With a Feathery Tail and Other Stories by Enid Blyton

If, on the other hand, you're required to use a style guide, it will likely be one of these:

• MLA, commonly used in disciplines relating to literature and social sciences.
• APA, commonly used in psychology and other sciences.
• Chicago, often used in the publishing industry.
• Harvard style, commonly used in philosophy and social sciences.

These are certainly not the only "big players" in the style guide world, but they're ones it's good to be familiar with. There is overlap between these styles, but there are also major differences — so knowing one definitely does not mean you know the others, too.

Guidelines for Writing a Book Title in an Essay

Looking for a short and sharp answer, so you can get on with the rest of your essay? This is it.

This quick guide will help you reference the book title of your choosing in the body of your essay, but what about your Works Cited pages? Each style guide offers different rules, and we'll use the same book as an example to illustrate the differences.

• MLA uses the following format: Author Last Name, First Name. Title of Book . City of Publication, Publisher, Publication Year. Example: Card, Orson Scott. Ender's Game. Tor Books, 1985. (You only have to detail the city of publication if the book was published before 1900, the publisher has offices in many localities, or the publisher is not known in the US.)
• APA uses the following format: Author Last Name, First Name. (Year of Publication). Title of book. Example: Card, Orson Scott. (1985). Ender's game.
• Chicago style uses the following format: Author Last Name, First Name. Book Title: Subtitle . Place of publication: Publisher, Year. Example: Card, Orson Scott. Ender's Game . Tor Books, 1985.
• Harvard uses the following format: Author Last Name, First Initial. (Publication Year). Title . ed. City: Publisher. Example: Card, O. (1985). Ender's Game. Tor Books.

If, after researching, you cannot find relevant information about publication years, publishers, or the city in which a book was published, you may omit it. For a full guide, it is always best to have a physical copy of the latest edition of the style manual you are using. You can, however, get by without this if you need to.

Should you still not know what to do, it will be helpful for you to know that you can "generate" citations for a particular style manual with the help of online tools like Cite Me . These are not always accurate, so if you decide to use one, always check the citation manually.

Why Is Proper Formatting Important?

All of the well-known style manuals ultimately serve the very same set of purposes, although they were each developed for a particular niche. The goals of these style manuals are both explicit and implicit:

• Following a style guide ensures consistency throughout a document, in this case an essay.
• Consistency ensures that reader's understand precisely what the writer is talking about, without exerting any effort on figuring that out. Clarity is especially important in academic writing.
• By using a style guide within a certain discipline, you show that you understand the rules within that discipline. This adds credibility to your voice as a writer. You have done your homework, have ideally bought the style manual, and are part of the "in group".
• Sticking to a certain style guide makes it easier for relevant parties to check your references, which they can then use to perform further research.

Students are increasingly asked to refer to style guides at all levels, including in high school. In this case, formatting your essay correctly, in accordance with the right style manual, serves two additional purposes:

• You'll lose points if you don't do it right, offering you an additional reason to do your research.
• Getting used to these formats prepares you for further education. If you are in high school, it prepares you for college-level writing. If you are an undergraduate student, it prepares you for academic work at the graduate and post-graduate levels.

Can you start an essay with a book title?

Yes, you can start an essay with a book title. This is a valid stylistic choice, but you will always want to consider your introduction carefully.

How do you write a book title in handwriting?

Students sometimes ask whether it is acceptable to underline book titles instead of italicizing them. This practice indeed stems from a time in which most students wrote their essays by hand. Although it has largely fallen out of practice now, you can still underline a book title if you are handwriting your essay.

How do you write a book title and chapter in an essay?

You should mention the chapter title first: "Rat" from Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. Consult the relevant style manual to ensure you get the formatting right.

Can you shorten a book title in an essay?

Yes, you can. Reference the full title the first time you mention it (for example: Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things ). The next time you mention the book, you may simply refer to Furiously Happy .

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Home / Guides / Citation Guides / MLA Format / How to Cite an Essay in MLA

How to Cite an Essay in MLA

The guidelines for citing an essay in MLA format are similar to those for citing a chapter in a book. Include the author of the essay, the title of the essay, the name of the collection if the essay belongs to one, the editor of the collection or other contributors, the publication information, and the page number(s).

Citing an Essay

Mla essay citation structure.

Last, First M. “Essay Title.” Collection Title, edited by First M. Last, Publisher, year published, page numbers. Website Title , URL (if applicable).

MLA Essay Citation Example

Gupta, Sanjay. “Balancing and Checking.” Essays on Modern Democracy, edited by Bob Towsky, Brook Stone Publishers, 1996, pp. 36-48. Essay Database, www . databaseforessays.org/modern/modern-democracy.

MLA Essay In-text Citation Structure

(Last Name Page #)

MLA Essay In-text Citation Example

Click here to cite an essay via an EasyBib citation form.

MLA Formatting Guide

MLA Formatting

• Annotated Bibliography
• Bibliography
• Block Quotes
• et al Usage
• In-text Citations
• Paraphrasing
• Page Numbers
• Sample Paper
• Works Cited
• MLA 8 Updates
• MLA 9 Updates
• View MLA Guide

Citation Examples

• Book Chapter
• Journal Article
• Magazine Article
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• Website (no author)
• View all MLA Examples

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To cite your sources in an essay in MLA style, you need to have basic information including the author’s name(s), chapter title, book title, editor(s), publication year, publisher, and page numbers. The templates for in-text citations and a works-cited-list entry for essay sources and some examples are given below:

In-text citation template and example:

For citations in prose, use the first name and surname of the author on the first occurrence. For subsequent citations, use only the surname(s). In parenthetical citations, always use only the surname of the author(s).

Citation in prose:

First mention: Annette Wheeler Cafarelli

Subsequent occurrences: Wheeler Cafarelli

Parenthetical:

….(Wheeler Cafarelli).

Works-cited-list entry template and example:

The title of the chapter is enclosed in double quotation marks and uses title case. The book or collection title is given in italics and uses title case.

Surname, First Name. “Title of the Chapter.” Title of the Book , edited by Editor(s) Name, Publisher, Publication Year, page range.

Cafarelli, Annette Wheeler. “Rousseau and British Romanticism: Women and British Romanticism.” Cultural Interactions in the Romantic Age: Critical Essays in Comparative Literature , edited by Gregory Maertz. State U of New York P, 1998, pp. 125–56.

To cite an essay in MLA style, you need to have basic information including the author(s), the essay title, the book title, editor(s), publication year, publisher, and page numbers. The templates for citations in prose, parenthetical citations, and works-cited-list entries for an essay by multiple authors, and some examples, are given below:

For citations in prose, use the first name and surname of the author (e.g., Mary Strine).

For sources with two authors, use both full author names in prose (e.g., Mary Strine and Beth Radick).

For sources with three or more authors, use the first name and surname of the first author followed by “and others” or “and colleagues” (e.g., Mary Strine and others). In subsequent citations, use only the surname of the first author followed by “and others” or “and colleagues” (e.g., Strine and others).

In parenthetical citations, use only the author’s surname. For sources with two authors, use two surnames (e.g., Strine and Radick). For sources with three or more author names, use the first author’s surname followed by “et al.”

First mention: Mary Strine…

Subsequent mention: Strine…

First mention: Mary Strine and Beth Radick…

Subsequent mention: Strine and Radick…

First mention: Mary Strine and colleagues …. or Mary Strine and others

Subsequent occurrences: Strine and colleagues …. or Strine and others

…. (Strine).

….(Strine and Radick).

….(Strine et al.).

The title of the essay is enclosed in double quotation marks and uses title case. The book or collection title is given in italics and uses title case.

Surname, First Name, et al. “Title of the Essay.” Title of the Book , edited by Editor(s) Name, Publisher, Publication Year, page range.

Strine, Mary M., et al. “Research in Interpretation and Performance Studies: Trends, Issues, Priorities.” Speech Communication: Essays to Commemorate the 75th Anniversary of the Speech Communication Association , edited by Gerald M. Phillips and Julia T. Wood, Southern Illinois UP, 1990, pp. 181–204.

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5.2: Titles and Authors

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• Rachel Bell, Jim Bowsher, Eric Brenner, Serena Chu-Mraz, Liza Erpelo, Kathleen Feinblum, Nina Floro, Gwen Fuller, Chris Gibson, Katharine Harer, Cheryl Hertig, Lucia Lachmayr, Eve Lerman, Nancy Kaplan-Beigel, Nathan Jones, Garry Nicol, Janice Sapigao, Leigh Anne Shaw, Paula Silva, Jessica Silver-Sharp, Mine Suer, Mike Urquidez, Rob Williams, Karen Wong, Susan Zoughbie, Leigh Anne Shaw, Paula Silva, Jessica Silver-Sharp, Mine Suer, Mike Urquidez, Rob Williams, Karen Wong, and Susan Zoughbie
• Skyline College

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• The student’s essay title is centered above the introductory paragraph and is appropriate, creative and draws in reader interest.
• The names of the texts are properly formatted (names of longer works are italicized or underlined, and titles of shorter works are in quotes)
• For titles, only put them in quotes, underline OR italicize them—NEVER a combination of styles. WRONG: Gene’s favorite book is “Geek Love.”
• All words in titles are capitalized except the following (when they aren’t the first word in the title): articles (a, an), prepositions (in, of), conjunctions (and, but, so), and the “to” in infinitives (How to Sing)
• In reading-based writing, introduce the text(s) and author(s) being written about in the introductory paragraph.
• When first introducing a text, provide the full name of the author and afterwards, refer to the author by last name (never by first name)
• Don’t confuse characters in stories/poems and authors as being the same person as often they are not.

Practice: Find Formatting Errors

Find the TEN FORMATTING ERRORS in the first page of the following essay: Lachmayr 1

Rachel Bell Professor Lucia Lachmayr 21 May 2013

Revision of Essay #1

In the novel “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, ” it is revealed how this long and brutal control of human beings was partly accomplished through control over literacy. The control and limitations over reading and writing during slavery sought to make slaves like Fred ignorant, powerless, and therefore more easily controlled, and this control over literacy and education is still happening in the world today.

In his narrative, Fredd exposes how being denied education was one of the main tactics used to keep so many blacks trapped within generations of enslavement. Freddie lived in Baltimore for 7 years as a house slave and was forbidden by his masters Mr. and Mrs. Hugh to read or write.

TEN FORMATTING ERRORS:

• The font is too large
• The font is unconventional
• In essay information in the top left, the class title is left out
• The page numbering in the top right has the professor’s last name, not the student’s
• The title “Revision of Essay #1” is generic, not creative and does not draw in reader interest
• When the novel is introduced, it needs to also list the author
• The title of the novel is in quotes when it should be italicized
• The main character is referred to by different informal nicknames not used in the text and one is misspelled. Always be accurate and consistent with character and author names and be sure they are spelled correctly.
• There is an extra space after the first paragraph.
• Both paragraphs need to be indented.

FORMATTING ERRORS CORRECTED IN VERSION BELOW: Bell 1

Rachel Bell Professor Lucia Lachmayr English 100 21 May 2013

Education Denied: a Recipe to Control Human Beings

In Frederick Douglass’s novel Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Douglass reveals how this long and brutal control of human beings was partly accomplished through control over literacy. The control and limitations over reading and writing during slavery sought to make slaves like Douglass ignorant, powerless, and therefore more easily controlled, and this control over literacy and education is still happening in the world today.

In his narrative, Douglass exposes how being denied education was one of the main tactics used to keep so many blacks trapped within generations of enslavement. Douglass lived in Baltimore for 7 years as a house slave and was forbidden by his masters Mr. and Mrs. Hugh to read or write.

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