Personal Interview MLA Citation | Works Cited Format

Personal interviews often contain details that never appear in books or articles, so learning the right way to format a personal interview mla citation can protect you from plagiarism problems and grading headaches. MLA 9 keeps the structure simple: treat the person you spoke with as the author and give readers just enough detail to trace the source.

Personal Interview MLA Citation Basics

When you conduct an interview yourself and use that material in a paper, MLA treats it as personal communication. The entry belongs in your works cited list, and the format changes slightly depending on the channel you used, such as in person, phone, video call, or email.

At a minimum, every entry for this kind of source in MLA 9 gives three pieces of information: who you interviewed, what kind of interview it was, and the date it happened. That pattern applies whether you are writing a short response essay or a long research project.

Interview Situation	Works Cited Template	In-Text Pattern
In-person conversation you arranged	Last Name, First Name. Personal interview. Day Month Year.	(Last Name)
Phone or video call	Last Name, First Name. Telephone interview. Day Month Year.	(Last Name)
Online voice or video chat saved only by you	Last Name, First Name. Online interview. Day Month Year.	(Last Name)
Email interview stored in your inbox	Last Name, First Name. Email interview. Day Month Year.	(Last Name)
Text message or direct message thread	Last Name, First Name. Text message interview. Day Month Year.	(Last Name)
Interview held over two or more consecutive days	Last Name, First Name. Interview. Conducted by Your Name, Day–Day Month Year.	(Last Name)
Interview spread over nonconsecutive days	Last Name, First Name. Interview. Conducted by Your Name, Day and Day Month Year.	(Last Name)

This table focuses on interviews you personally conducted and stored in a private way rather than interviews you found in a book, website, or video platform. Once an interview is part of a published source, MLA treats it like that kind of source and no longer as a personal interview.

When A Conversation Counts As A Personal Interview

Students often wonder whether quick chats, casual emails, or classroom conversations belong in the works cited list. MLA 9 uses a flexible template, yet the same core idea applies across situations. If the words or ideas came directly from a person you contacted and the material is not publicly archived in a stable source, then it functions as a personal interview.

You might talk with a local business owner, a coach, a librarian, a nurse, or another student. If you quote that person or paraphrase what they said, you should build a full works cited entry and an in-text citation. Treating these conversations as real sources respects the speaker and helps your reader see where your insight came from.

Personal Interview Versus Published Interview

With MLA, the line between a personal interview and a published interview rests on where readers can find the material. If you read a Q&A in a magazine, hear an author talk in a podcast episode that is available online, or watch a recorded interview on a news site, you cite the magazine article, podcast, or video as the container. The person answering questions still appears as the author, yet the format element changes.

By contrast, a conversation that exists only in your notes, a recording you made for class, or an email thread in your inbox counts as a personal interview. The Modern Language Association describes this kind of source as personal communication and recommends including a clear description such as “Personal interview” or “Email interview” in the works cited entry so readers understand the format.

Citing A Personal Interview In MLA Works Cited

MLA 9 asks you to follow the core template used for every source: author, title, container, contributors, version, number, publisher, publication date, and location. For a personal interview, many of these slots are not needed. You mainly supply the name of the person you interviewed, a description of the source, the person who conducted the interview if helpful, and the date.

Core Elements For A Personal Interview Entry

Start your works cited entry with the interviewee’s last name, followed by a comma and their first name. Next, give a simple description, such as Personal interview, Email interview, or Telephone interview, ending that phrase with a period. Finish with the day, month, and year of the conversation, written in MLA date style, such as 25 May 2024.

The generic word Interview is often used when the format is already clear from context or when you wish to add the interviewer’s name as a contributor. In that case, you might write “Interview. Conducted by Maria Lopez, 24–25 Oct. 2023.” This pattern appears in guidance from the MLA Style Center, which applies across editions of the handbook.

Sample Personal Interview Works Cited Entries

Here are several sample entries that align with MLA 9 conventions and show how small details change the format:

• Garcia, Elena. Personal interview. 25 May 2024.
• Chen, Victor. Email interview. 3 Mar. 2023.
• Okafor, Adaeze. Interview. Conducted by Liam Patel, 14 Apr. 2022.
• Singh, Priya. Telephone interview. 10 Jan. 2025.
• Cohen, Allan. Interview. Conducted by Christine Stevens, 24–25 May 2016.

Notice that the date in each entry marks when the interview occurred, not when you wrote about it. If your assignment mentions MLA 9 specifically, you should follow this structure even if older worksheets or handouts show slightly different punctuation or wording.

In-Text Citations For Personal Interviews

In-text citations for personal interviews look very similar to citations for any other source in MLA. You place the interviewee’s last name in parentheses at the end of the sentence or integrate it into the sentence itself and keep the parentheses empty.

If you mention the name in your signal phrase, you do not need a name in parentheses at the end. One sample sentence might read, “As Garcia explained, the program reached more students once staff visited classrooms directly.” If you pass on the same idea without using the name in your sentence, write the parenthetical citation as (Garcia).

Handling Different Personal Interview Formats

MLA allows you to adapt the wording in your works cited entry so it clearly reflects the form of the interview. The overall pattern remains the same, but your description can signal whether the conversation happened in person, over the phone, on a video chat, or through text.

In-Person And Phone Interviews

For in-person conversations, many writers simply use the phrase Personal interview after the interviewee’s name. Phone and video calls often use the description Telephone interview, and you can also choose a slightly different phrase, such as Phone interview, if your instructor prefers that wording.

Suppose you conducted a phone interview with a local historian named Jordan Blake on 20 June 2023. Your works cited entry might read, “Blake, Jordan. Telephone interview. 20 June 2023.” An in-text citation drawn from that conversation would appear as (Blake).

Email And Text-Based Interviews

For written exchanges over email, MLA supports the description Email interview. Some college libraries and writing centers also accept Personal interview, Email interview in a single entry when you want to stress both the personal nature of the source and the channel used.

Text messages and direct messages through apps can be cited in a similar way. You identify the person you messaged, describe the source as a text message interview or direct message interview, and then include the date. Because readers cannot access your inbox, clarity in the description becomes very useful.

When You Are Both Interviewer And Author

In most student papers, you are the interviewer as well as the author of the essay. MLA does not require you to name yourself in the works cited entry for a standard one-on-one interview that you conducted. The entry focuses on the interviewee.

For more complex projects, such as group interviews or ongoing research where multiple people conducted conversations with the same subject, your instructor may ask you to add a contributor phrase. That phrase often reads “Interview. Conducted by” followed by one or more names, written after the description of the source.

Formatting Tips For MLA Personal Interview Entries

Once you understand the basic template, you still need to fit personal interviews into a full works cited page that uses hanging indents, double spacing, and alphabetical order. These layout details keep your reference list tidy and help readers scan for names quickly.

Most colleges provide an MLA handout that demonstrates spacing, margins, and font choices. The Purdue OWL page on “MLA Works Cited: Other Common Sources” gives visual samples of interview entries and matches current handbook rules, so it works as a handy cross-check while you build your own citations.

Common Issue	Why It Causes Trouble	Better MLA Choice
Leaving a personal interview out of the works cited list	Readers cannot see where quoted material came from.	Add a full entry with name, description, and date.
Listing the interviewer as the author	The entry hides the person whose words you used.	Treat the interviewee as the author in MLA.
Using only a first name in the entry	Readers may struggle to match the entry to in-text citations.	Write last name first, then first name.
Writing the full date in numeric format	The style no longer matches MLA date rules.	Use day, abbreviated month, and year when your instructor prefers it.
Mixing personal and published interview formats	The works cited page becomes inconsistent.	Follow the template for each separate type of source.
Adding page numbers to personal interview entries	Personal interviews do not have page ranges.	Skip the location element unless the interview appears in a larger work.
Relying on outdated MLA worksheets	Older handouts may follow pre-MLA 9 rules.	Check recent guidance from your library or the MLA site.

Before you submit a paper, line up your in-text citations with the entries in your works cited list. Every time you quote or paraphrase an interview, you should see a matching last name in the reference list, written with the same spelling and accents.

Spending time on accurate interview citations may feel tedious in the moment, yet it pays off in several ways. You build academic honesty, keep your reader oriented, and show that you understand how MLA handles sources that exist outside books and articles. With a clear personal interview mla citation, your writing looks polished and ready for close reading.