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How to Cite an Editorial Using MLA Style

When you are working on a term paper or a long-term research project, you will likely need to use source materials outside of the traditional textbooks and scholarly journal articles. One of the best ways to indicate the atmosphere of a specific time period and to illustrate how people in a certain geographic area felt about public figures or events during that period is to use newspaper clippings. While any newspaper article will have some tone that indicates how the author views the subject, often the best type of article for this purpose will be an editorial or opinion piece. These types of sources should be cited just as all your other sources are referenced on your Works Cited page. MLA is a good type of citation style to use in cases like this because it has a simple, standard format that is easy to use for both reader and writer of the paper.

Editorial author
Editorial title
Title of publication
Date of publication
Page number(s)

Instructions

How to Cite an Editorial Using MLA Style
- 1
  Begin with the author's name. If you are using an editorial in a newspaper or magazine, this information will generally be found in the byline. The author's name should be listed in the order "last name, first name, middle initial." If you have more information than this or less, work within the confines of this format to list the author's name. For example, if the editorial was written by Dr. Jason Pendergrad Lipton, then your citation should begin:Lipton, Jason P.
- 2
  Close the title of the editorial in quotation marks and follow it with a period. You can use double or single quotes, but you must be consistent throughout your paper. If the title of the editorial is "Enough is Enough: I've Had My Fill of Landfills," then your citation should read, up to this point:Lipton, Jason P. "Enough is Enough: I've Had My Fill of Landfills."
- 3
  Follow the title with a classification of the type of editorial and another period.You may have a letter to the editor, which can be identified simply as "Letter," or you may have used an editorial piece, which receives the classification "Editorial." If you used an editorial column, for example, then your citation will now read:Lipton, Jason P. "Enough is Enough: I've Had My Fill of Landfills." Editorial.
- 4
  List the name of the publication and the date that it was published. The title should be underlined, but if your word processor will not support this type of font formatting then use underscore symbols to indicate which words should be underlined. The date should be written "day month year" and the month can be abbreviated using the first three letters. For example, if your editorial was printed in "The Sarasota Sunbeam" on July 1, 2003, then your citation should now read:Lipton, Jason P. "Enough is Enough: I've Had My Fill of Landfills." Editorial. _The Sarasota Sunbeam_ 1 Jul 2003:
- 5
  Finish with the page number or numbers of the editorial and a period. If the piece appeared on page 5G, then your finished citation should look like this:Lipton, Jason P. "Enough is Enough: I've Had My Fill of Landfills." Editorial. _The Sarasota Sunbeam_ 1 Jul 2003: 5G.

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