Mla Format Cited Page Example | Skip Common Errors

A clean Works Cited page shows where your borrowed ideas came from and gives your paper a polished finish. When the page is off by a small mark, the whole draft can feel sloppy. A solid model fixes that fast.

MLA format gets easier once you see the pattern. The page starts on its own sheet. The title reads Works Cited. Entries stay double-spaced. Each one begins at the left margin, and each extra line uses a hanging indent.

What a correct Works Cited page looks like

The page should look plain and tidy. The title sits centered at the top with no bold, italics, or quotation marks. Each entry starts right under that title area in the same font and spacing used in the paper.

Most papers follow this setup:

• Start the list on a new page at the end of the paper.
• Keep the same one-inch margins and page header used in the paper.
• Use double spacing for the whole page.
• Alphabetize entries by the first word in each entry.
• Indent every line after the first line of each entry by 0.5 inch.
• Leave out bullets, numbering, text boxes, and decorative lines.

That alphabetizing rule catches a lot of people. If a source starts with an author, sort by the author’s last name. If there is no author, sort by the title, but skip opening articles such as “A,” “An,” and “The.”

MLA works cited page format rules that trip people up

Most MLA entries use the same core elements: author, title of source, title of container, other contributors, version, number, publisher, date, and location. Not every source needs every piece. A book may stop after the publisher and date. A journal article may add volume, issue, page range, and a DOI or URL.

You do not need hundreds of separate templates in your head. Once you can spot the source title and the container title, the order gets easier. The MLA Style Center’s Works Cited guide shows the core elements. Purdue OWL’s basic format page shows the layout, and Purdue OWL’s in-text citation basics shows how the first word in the paper should line up with the first word of the entry.

There is also a punctuation rhythm to MLA. Authors end with a period. Short works sit in quotation marks. Longer works and containers appear in italics. Publishers and dates are split by commas. The entry ends with a period.

Sample entries by source type

The table below gives you model entries with sample details so you can see the order and punctuation at a glance.

Source type	Model MLA entry	What to watch
Book	Patel, Mira. Reading Cities. North River Press, 2024.	Book title in italics; publisher and year follow.
Book chapter	Reed, Jonah. “Margins and Meaning.” Writing Across Screens, edited by Dana Cole, Lakeview Academic, 2022, pp. 44-61.	Chapter title in quotes; book title in italics.
Journal article	Kim, Haejin. “Why Titles Matter in Citation Systems.” Journal of Academic Writing, vol. 18, no. 2, 2023, pp. 117-34.	Use volume, issue, year, then page range.
Newspaper article	Lopez, Ana. “Campus Archives Get a New Home.” The Boston Globe, 14 Sept. 2025, p. B3.	Use day-month-year order in MLA style.
Website article	Grant, Elise. “How Local Papers Digitize Old Issues.” Newsroom Lab, 8 Jan. 2026, www.newsroomlab.org/digitize-old-issues.	Website title is the container; include the URL.
YouTube video	“How Archives Store Fragile Letters.” YouTube, uploaded by City Museum, 3 Mar. 2025, www.youtube.com/watch?v=abc123xyz.	Use the uploader after the container when needed.
Podcast episode	Ng, Clara. “Editing for Sound.” Draft Room, episode 42, Blue Harbor Audio, 12 Nov. 2024, www.draftroom.fm/42.	Episode number can sit before publisher and date.
Film	Moonlit Station. Directed by Rina Vale, Silver Thread Pictures, 2021.	Start with the title if no author is named first.

You do not need to memorize every row. Short works sit inside longer works, so article titles and episode titles go in quotation marks, while journals, books, websites, and podcasts often become containers in italics. Online sources often end with a URL. Print sources often end with page numbers.

How the Works Cited page connects to your paper

Your reader should be able to move from a sentence in your paper to a full entry with no guesswork. If your in-text citation says (Patel 76), the Works Cited page should begin that entry with Patel. If your source has no author and your paper uses a short title such as (“Campus Archives” B3), the Works Cited entry should begin with that title.

Many papers slip here. Students build a good Works Cited page, then use a different first word in the parenthetical citation. Or they cite a source in the paper and forget to add it to the final list. Read your draft once just for that one-to-one match.

Mla Format Cited Page Example In Full

Here is a short model you can follow. In Word or Google Docs, the hanging indent should be set in paragraph formatting. In plain HTML, the visual effect below shows the shape.

This sample stays plain and easy to scan. The title is centered. The list is alphabetical. Each entry starts flush left, and each second line drops inward. That shape lets readers find names or titles fast.

Common errors and the clean fix

Most MLA mistakes are small layout slips: extra spaces, missing italics, the wrong title at the top, or entries that do not match the paper. Use this cleanup list before you turn the draft in.

Error	What goes wrong	Clean fix
Wrong page title	Students write “Bibliography” or “References.”	Use Works Cited unless your instructor asks for another label.
Single-spaced entries	The page looks cramped and does not match MLA layout.	Double-space the full page, title included.
No hanging indent	Long entries become hard to scan.	Indent every line after the first by 0.5 inch.
Wrong alphabetizing	Entries get sorted by first name or by “The.”	Sort by the first main word in the entry.
Missing container	An article citation stops after the article title.	Add the journal, website, or book title in italics.
No match with in-text citation	The reader cannot find the cited source.	Make the first word in the entry match the signal word in the paper.

A short check before you submit

Use this last pass before handing in the paper:

1. Put the page on its own sheet and title it Works Cited.
2. Scan for double spacing from the title to the last entry.
3. Make sure every long entry has a hanging indent.
4. Read the list in order to catch alphabetizing slips.
5. Match each in-text citation to the first word of a Works Cited entry.
6. Check italics, quotation marks, dates, page ranges, URLs, and periods.

Once those six points are in place, your page will read cleanly and hold together with the rest of the paper. A reader can move from your sentence to your source with zero confusion.