MLA (8th ed.) Citation Style Guide: Title of Source

After the author, the next element in the citation is the title.  Enter the title as it is given in the source, capitalizing each major word.

"When you copy an English title or subtitle, capitalize the first word, the last word, and all principal words, including those that follow hyphens in compound terms." (MLA Handbook, 8th ed., p. 67)

 

The way a title is formatted helps the reader understand the type of source easily.  If the source is self-contained and independent (and not part of a larger container), the title is italicized.  If the title is part of a larger work, such as an article in a journal, chapter in a book, or a web page on a website, the title is placed within quotation marks.

 

This element ends with a period.

 

 

The title of a book should be in italics:

Villoldo, Alberto. Illumination: The Shaman's Way of Healing. Hay House, 2010.

 

Title of a web page from a website should be in quotation marks:

"Drugged Driving by the Numbers." MADD, 2015, www.madd.org/

drugged-driving/drugged-driving-by-the.html. Accessed 18 June 2016.

 

The title of article from a journal/magazine/newspaper should be in quotation marks:

Conatser, Phillip, and Martin Block. "Aquatic Instructors' Beliefs Toward Inclusion."

Therapeutic Recreation Journal, vol. 35, no. 2, 2001, pp. 170-184.

 

The title of an essay/chapter/short story etc from an anthology should be in italics:

Brant, Beth. “Coyote Learns a New Trick.” An Anthology of Canadian Native 

Literature in English, edited by Daniel David Moses and Terry Goldie,

Oxford UP, 1992, pp. 148-150.

 

For more information, refer to pages 25-29 of the MLA Handbook, 8th ed.

 

Capitalization

"When you copy an English title or subtitle, capitalize the first word, the last word, and all the principal words, including those that follow hyphens in compound terms.  Therefore, capitalize the following parts of speech:

• Nouns (e.g., flowers, as in The Flowers of Europe)
• Pronouns (e.g., our, as in Save Our Children; it as in Some Like It Hot)
• Verbs (e.g., watches, as in America Watches Television; is, as in What Is Literature?)
• Adjectives (e.g., ugly, as in The Ugly Duckling)
• Adverbs (e.g., slightly, as in Only Slightly Corrupt; down, as in Go Down, Moses)
• Subordinating conjunctions (e.g., after, although, as if, as soon as, because, before, if, that, unless, until, when, where, while, as in One If by Land)

Do not capitalize the following parts of speech when they fall in the middle of a title:

• Articles (a, an, the, as in Under the Bamboo Tree)
• Prepositions (e.g., against, as, between, in, of, to, as in The Merchant of Venice and "A Dialogue between the Soul and the Body")
• Coordinating conjunctions (and, but, for, nor, or, so, yet, as in Romeo and Juliet)
• The to in infinitives (as in How to Play Chess)

 

For more information, refer to pages 67 of the MLA Handbook, 8th ed.