Elements of a Full Citation | 2 min

There are nine potential elements in a full citation in MLA. While most citations have several of these parts, most citations do not have all of them.

1. Author.
2. Title of source.
3. Title of container,
4. Other contributors (translators or editors),
5. Version (edition),
6. Number (vol. and/or no.),
7. Publisher,
8. Publication date,
9. Location (pages, URL, or DOI).

For element #3, the "container" in MLA Style is the item that holds the source you used. For example, an article would be your source, and the journal it came from is the container.

Elements #3-9 represent all additional publication information. Notice that all the details included in elements #3-9 are separated by commas, not periods. The period is not included until after the last detail.

We will look at these elements in more detail in the following slides.

Example

1. Author is Anderson-Lopez, Kristen, and Robert Lopez.
2. Title of source is "Let It Go."
3. Title of container is Frozen,
4. Other contributor is Idina Menzel,
5. Version is not present
6. Number is not present
7. Publisher is Walt Disney Records,
8. Publication date is 2013.
9. Location is not present

Note in this example that not every element in the "more details" is present (5, 6, and 9 are not included because they do not apply to this particular source).

Second Containers

Sometimes you might have a second container. For example, if you are citing a journal article, the article is the source, the journal is the container, and the database is the second container. In this case, you repeat elements #3-9 for the second container (if they are present).

Author. Title. Title of container (if applicable), Other contributors (translators or editors), Version (edition), Number (vol. and/or no.), Publisher, Publication Date, Location (pages, paragraphs URL or DOI). 2nd container’s title, Other contributors, Version, Number, Publisher, Publication date, Location, Date of Access (if applicable).