FreeCitation
MLA 9th edition (2021)

Free MLA citation generator, 9th edition

Paste a URL, book title, ISBN or DOI and get a works cited entry in correct MLA 9th edition format. Free, instant, and there is nothing to sign up for.

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Paste a URL — e.g. https://bbc.com/article

Here is how it works
1
Pick your source type
Choose from the left. Website, book, journal, YouTube. It changes what we look for and how we format it.
2
Paste and cite
Drop in a URL, ISBN, DOI or title. Hit Cite. We check academic databases first, then AI fills in the rest.
3
Switch styles freely
APA, MLA, Chicago and more. Switch any time and your citation regenerates automatically in the new format.

When you use MLA 9th edition

MLA is the style of the Modern Language Association and it dominates English, literature, languages and most of the humanities. The current 9th edition came out in 2021, and it kept the container system that the 8th edition introduced, so anything you learned then still holds.

The container idea is the key to the whole style. Every source is described by the same list of core elements in the same order: author, title of source, title of container, contributors, version, number, publisher, date, location. A poem sits inside an anthology, an article sits inside a journal, a video sits inside YouTube. You fill in the elements that exist and skip the ones that do not.

That system is flexible, which is great once you know it and confusing the first ten times. The generator above applies the element order for you, so the fastest way to learn the pattern is honestly to run a few of your own sources through it and read what comes out.

The formats, with real examples

Paste your source into the tool above and it fills these in for you. If you would rather see the pattern, here is exactly what each one looks like.

Website or web page
Author Last, First. "Title of Page." Site Name, Day Month Year, URL.
EXAMPLESmith, Jane. "How Climate Change Affects Oceans." National Geographic, 14 Mar. 2023, www.nationalgeographic.com/oceans.
Book
Author Last, First. Title of Book. Publisher, Year.
EXAMPLEBrown, Charles. The History of Everything. Oxford University Press, 2021.
Journal article
Author Last, First. "Title of Article." Journal Name, vol. X, no. X, Year, pp. xx-xx.
EXAMPLEGarcia, Maria. "Rewriting the Gothic." Studies in the Novel, vol. 54, no. 2, 2022, pp. 145-63.
YouTube video
"Title of Video." YouTube, uploaded by Channel Name, Day Month Year, URL.
EXAMPLE"The Truth about Citation Styles." YouTube, uploaded by CrashCourse, 2 Feb. 2023, www.youtube.com/watch?v=example.

In-text citations

Parenthetical: (Smith 24) with no comma and no p. before the page number.
Narrative: Smith argues that the coastline was already changing (24).

Two authors: (Smith and Lee 24). Three or more: (Smith et al. 24). No page numbers, as on most web pages: just (Smith). No author: a shortened title in quotation marks, like ("Climate Change").

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Mistakes people make in MLA 9th edition

COMMON SLIP
Writing (Smith, 24) with a comma, the way APA does it.
WHAT TO DO
MLA in-text citations have no comma between author and page: (Smith 24). The comma habit usually comes from switching between classes that use different styles.
COMMON SLIP
Putting article titles in sentence case because APA does.
WHAT TO DO
MLA capitalizes the main words of every title. Article and page titles go in quotation marks, and book, journal and site names go in italics.
COMMON SLIP
Pasting the full address with https:// at the front of every URL.
WHAT TO DO
MLA prefers the URL without the protocol, so www.example.com/page rather than https://www.example.com/page, unless your instructor wants clickable links or the address needs the protocol to work.
COMMON SLIP
Adding an access date to every single web source.
WHAT TO DO
In MLA 9 an access date is a fallback, not a requirement. Use Accessed 14 Aug. 2026 at the end only when the source has no publication date or is likely to change.

Questions students actually ask

How do I cite a website in MLA 9th edition?
Author Last, First. "Title of Page." Site Name, Day Month Year, URL. Month names longer than four letters get abbreviated, so 14 Mar. 2023 rather than 14 March 2023. If there is no author, start with the title. If there is no date, add an access date at the end instead.
What is a container in MLA?
The larger whole that holds your source. For a journal article the journal is the container. For an episode the series is the container. For a video the platform, like YouTube, is the container. Container titles go in italics, and a source can sit inside two containers, like an article in a journal that you read inside the JSTOR database.
How do I handle a source with no page numbers in text?
Cite just the author, like (Smith). Do not count paragraphs or invent numbers. If the source itself labels sections or paragraphs, you can use those labels, like (Smith, par. 8), but only when the numbering is in the source.
What is the difference between a works cited page and a bibliography?
A works cited page lists only the sources you actually cite in the paper, and it is what MLA asks for. A bibliography, called works consulted in MLA, can also include background reading. Unless your instructor says otherwise, hand in works cited.
Is this MLA generator free with no login?
Yes. No account, no daily limit, no trial that expires. Ads keep it running, which beats the subscription most of the big citation sites moved to.

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