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Citing and Writing MLA 9: EXAMPLE CITATIONS

Information on style guides, specifically MLA (9th edition), example citations, and other resources for citing and writing.

Example MLA Citations

Here are some example citations, but always check your citations against the MLA 9 Handbook or the Ask the MLA website to be sure:

 

Book:

Tamaki, Jillian. Boundless. Drawn & Quarterly, 2017.
 

eBook:

Gateward, Frances. The Blacker the Ink : Constructions of Black Identity in Comics and
Sequential Art. Rutgers University Press, 2015. EBSCOhost Academic eBook Collection (North America), doi:10.2307/j.ctt1hd186b.

Note: For eBooks found through library databases, italicise BOTH the title of the eBook AND the title of the container/database name.   

Magazine/journal article found in print:

Greenwell, Camilla. “Disappearing Acts.” Crafts, no. 269, Nov/Dec 2017, pp. 56-63.
 

Magazine/journal article found on a magazine website:

Pallasvuo, Jaakko. “Impractical Cats.” Bomb, no. 150, Winter 2020, pp. 132–135. https://bombmagazine.org/articles/impractical-cats/. Accessed 18 Nov 2020.

Note: MLA 8th edition does NOT require you to add the date that you accessed online work, however, you may include it as an optional element if you think it would be useful to record or you want your reader to know.
 

Magazine/journal article found in Primo:

McKeen, David. "A Hole in the Sea." Canadian Art, vol. 36, no. 4, Winter, 2020, pp. 31. ProQuest, https://www-proquest-com.ezproxy.acsaa.talonline.ca/docview/2356620244?accountid=8153. Accessed 18 Nov 2020.

Note: since the McKeen article is from a library database, the citation has TWO title containers, the journal Canadian Art AND the database Proquest.
 

Website examples:

Cummings, Phoebe. Phoebe Cummings. http://www.phoebecummings.com/.
 

Vartanian, Hrag, editor-in-chief. Hyperallergic. www.hyperallergic.com.


National Art Gallery of Canada.
www.gallery.ca. Accessed 17 Nov. 2020.

Note: Author/compiler/editor names are often NOT available for websites, but it is good to get into the habit of looking for these names. For the 8th edition, date of access is OPTIONAL.


Page on a website:

Di Liscia, Valentina. “New York’s Own ‘Pizza Rat’ on Making Performance Art Accessible.” Hyperallergic, https://hyperallergic.com/602315/new-yorks-own-pizza-rat-on-making-performance-art-accessible/.

 

Comment on website or blog:

Skier Bob. “Pocaterra hut…and more.” SkierBob, www.skierbob.ca.

 

Exhibition catalogue:

Monkman, Kent. Revision and Resistance: Mistikôsiwak (Wooden Boat People) at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Art Canada Institute, 2013.

 

Exhibition catalogue (online):

Waldman, Diane. Jenny Holzer. Guggenheim Museum, 1989. The Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/jennyholzer00wald/page/n17/mode/2up.

 

Exhibition catalogue essay:

Halberstam, Judith. “The Art of Gender: Bathrooms, Butches, and the Aesthetics of Female Masculinity.” Rrise us a rrise us a rrose: gender performance in photography, 1997, Guggenheim Museum, New York. The Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/rroseisr00bles/page/n5/mode/2up.

 

Work of art that you saw in person:

Ohe, Katie. Zipper. 1975, Esker Foundation, Calgary.

 

Work of art that you saw on the gallery’s website:

Ohe, Katie. Zipper. 1975. Esker Foundation, https://eskerfoundation.com/press-release/2020-winter/#gallery-18.

 

Exhibition that you saw in person:

Katie Ohe. 25 Jan. 2020–6 Sep. 2020, Esker Foundation, Calgary.

Porchraits: Calgary Families in Isolation During COVID-19. 5 Sep. 2020–3 Jan. 2021, Glenbow Museum, Calgary.

 

A work of art reproduced on a website:

Peeters, Clara. Still Life with Cheeses, Almonds and Pretzels. c1615. Mauritshuis, Den Haag. Artstor, library-artstor-org.ezproxy.acsaa.talonline.ca/asset/AWSS35953_35953_30943972.

 

A work of art reproduced in an eBook:

Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW). Operation First Casualty. ca. May 2007, New York City. A People’s Art History of the United States: 250 Years of Activist Art and Artists Working in Social Justice Movements, by Nicolas Lampert, The New Press, 2013, p. 289. EBSCOhost Academic eBook Collection (North America), search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=e000xna&AN=683786&site=ehost-live.

 

Wall panel text next to artwork (examples from Ask the MLA):

Wall text for A Warrior’s Story, Honoring Grandpa Blue Bird, by Lauren Good Day Giago. Unbound: Narrative Art of the Plains, 12 Mar.-4 Dec. 2016, National Museum of the American Indian, New York.
 

Wall text for central Caribbean tripod vessel in the form of a spectacled owl. Céramica de los Ancestros: Central America’s Past Revealed, 18 Apr. 2015–Dec. 2017, National Museum of the American Indian, New York.
 

Wall text for jar with feathered serpent design. National Museum of the American Indian, New York.

Note: As always, in-text citations are based on the first element of the works-cited-list entry, so for the examples shown above, the parenthetical in-text citation would be, (Wall text). If you have more than one entry that begins this way, you would include more information, for example, (Wall text for jar).

Newspaper article:

Cavna, Michael. “For Creativity Research, She’s Drawn to Preschoolers.” The Washington Post, 25 Nov. 2019, p. D11. Canadian Reference Centre. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=rch&AN=wapo.98c88840-0fa8-11ea-bf62-eadd5d11f559&site=ehost-live.
 

Video lecture:

Suprani, Rayma. “Why art is essential to democracy.” TED: Ideas worth spreading, Dec. 2019, https://www.ted.com/talks/rayma_suprani_dictators_hate_political_cartoons_so_i_keep_drawing_them?referrer=playlist-why_art_is_important_to_democracy.

 

Slide presentations in Mosaic:

Ku, Fong. Introduction to Library Resources. Mosaic, uploaded by Fong Ku, 17 Nov 2020, https://mosaic.auarts.ca/course/view.php?id=2326.

 

Individual slide from presentation in Mosaic:

Ku, Fong. “Why do we cite?” Introduction to Citations. Mosaic, 17 Nov. 2020, https://mosaic.auarts.ca/course/view.php?id=2326.

 

Reading or handout that was uploaded to a Mosaic course:

Schmidt, Ursula. “Still lives in still life.” Mosaic, uploaded by Jane Smith, 17 Nov. 2020. https://mosaic.auarts.ca/course/view.php?id=2326.
 

“Picture yourself in a still life.” Mosaic, uploaded by Jane Smith, 17 Nov. 2020.


YouTube Video:

“I Can’t Draw – Lynda Barry”. YouTube, uploaded by The Badger Herald, 20 Nov. 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xbpb2cxKhaE.

 

Podcast:

Real, Sean. “In the Unlikely Event.” 99% Invisible, episode 422, 11 Nov. 2020, https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/in-the-unlikely-event/.
 

Ayed, Nahlah, host. “The Complexity of Cuteness.” Ideas with Nahlah Ayed, CBC, 23 Nov. 2020. CBC, https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23-ideas.

Note: If the podcast is contained within a larger website, in this case the CBC should be included as the second container.  

“That Time the World Imploded From the Sheer Awesomeness of Métis in Space.” A Tribe Called Geek, Mixcloud app.

            Tippet, Krista, host. “Naomi Shihab Nye - Your Life is a Poem.” On Being, iTunes app. 15 Mar. 2018.

Note: If you listened to the podcast on an app such as iTunes, include the name of the app and if available, a specific date.

 

Social media:

@thedailyheller. “Post MORE Bills. With a second shut down coming, let’s make plywood more than an advertisement for misery. Give the city some holiday cheer through great posters. Fill the Plywood with Art and Design.” Twitter, 16 Nov. 2020, 4:36 a.m., https://twitter.com/thedailyheller/status/1328300886326644736.

Cummings, Phoebe. Photo of unfired clay sculpture. Instagram, 23 Nov. 2020, https://www.instagram.com/p/CH7w3SxDsCS/.

 

National Geographic. Photo of Golmud Solar park in Qinghai, China. Instagram, photographed by George Steinmetz, 24 Nov. 2020, https://www.instagram.com/p/CH_SNEMg_Zu/.

Note: If there is a title available for Instagram photos, use it and enclose in quotations. If no title is available, as above, create a simple description and do NOT use quotation marks. 

 

Meme:

Abrams, Loney. "54 Art History Memes That Belong in the Effing MoMA." Artspace, 2 Jun. 2017, https://www.artspace.com/magazine/news_events/in_brief/54-art-history-memes-that-belong-in-the-effing-moma-54828.

Ephemera (from Ask the MLA):

Cigarette trading card depicting a French fifer. Kinney Brothers, 1888. The Met, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2018, www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/725138.