MLA Format for Magazine Titles in Text

About MLA Format

• University students have been using MLA guidelines for formatting their references since the first edition of the MLA guidelines was published in 1985. MLA formatting consists of in-text, parenthetical citations that include the last name of the magazine article's author, the page numbers where the article can be found, and a detailed works-cited entry that provides more information for the reader. This allows the curious reader to find out more about your topic and can prevent you from being accused of plagiarism.

The In-Text Citation

• When formatting a parenthetical citation, it is important to include the magazine article author's last name and the page number. For example, if you were formatting a parenthetical citation for an article from page 3 of Cosmopolitan magazine by a writer named Sarah Clark, your in-text citation would look like this:

  According to makeup artists around the country, black mascara is no longer in fashion (Clark 3).

The Works Cited

• At the end of your essay, you must include a complete, alphabetized list of your references. For your "works cited" secton, you will need the author's name, the name of the magazine article, the title of the magazine, the date the magazine was published and all of the page numbers you are referencing in your text. The entry should start with the author's last name, a comma, and then the author's first name and a period. Then, in quotation marks, list the name of the magazine and a period, the italicized or underlined name of the magazine, the date of publication, a colon and the page numbers:

  Clark, Sarah. "Hot New Makeup Looks for Fall." Cosmopolitan. June 2004: 3.

More Tips

• If you cannot locate the name of the author who wrote the magazine article, begin your works cited entry with the title of the article instead, and alphabetize the entry as if the first word of the article was the author's last name. When formatting a parenthetical citation for a magazine article without an author, follow the same instructions but replace the author's name with the abbreviated magazine article title inside quotation marks.