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MLA 9th ed. Style Guide

Examples for Citing Books

Print Books 

General format: 

Author(s) (last name, first name). Title of Book. Publisher, Publication Date. 

*All citations must be double spaced with a hanging indent (the second line of citations should be indented by .5 inches)*
 
Book with one author   

Books with one author follow the general format above. 

Duthie, Enid Lowry. The Themes of Elizabeth Gaskell. Rowman and Littlefield, 1980.

Book with two authors

Books with two authors follow the same format as one author; however, the second author is listed as "first name last name".

Copeland, Edward, and Juliet McMaster, editors. The Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen. 1st ed., Cambridge University Press, 1997.

Book with three or more authors

Books with three or more authors are listed with the first author's name last name, first name; then "et al." is put to indicate that there is more than three authors.  

Grabher, Gudrun, et al. The Emily Dickinson Handbook. U of Massachusetts P, 1998.

 

Electronic Books

Electronic books follow the same format as print books, but the word 'eBook' is included in the citation usually listed as the version.  

General format:

Author(s) (last name, first name). Title of Book. Version (e-book), Publisher, Date. 

Hughes, Langston, and Susan Duffy. The Political Plays of Langston Hughes. 3rd ed. eBook. Southern Illinois UP, 2000.