How to Cite a Journal Article in MLA
The MLA journal article citation follows a strict container logic introduced in MLA 9th edition: the article sits inside a container (the journal), and you document both in a single Works Cited entry. Get the eight core elements in the right order and the formatting details right, and you produce a citation that accurately leads any reader to your source. Miss the container structure or misplace the italics, and the entry fails the style guide even if every word is present.
This walkthrough builds one complete MLA journal article citation from scratch, then shows correctly formatted examples for the standard case and four common edge cases: database access, multiple authors, missing page numbers, and online-only articles. All examples follow the MLA Style Center at style.mla.org, the authoritative free resource for MLA 9th edition.
The MLA 9th Edition Works Cited Format
The MLA citation format for a journal article arranges eight core elements across two containers: the article itself, and the journal that publishes it. The full template reads:
Last, First. “Article Title.” Journal Name, vol. X, no. Y, Month Year, pp. X-X, https://doi.org/xxxxx.
The Eight Core Elements in Order
MLA 9th edition organises every source around the same eight core elements, applied in a fixed sequence. For a journal article Works Cited entry, all eight apply:
| Element | What it captures | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Author | Creator of the article | Okonkwo, Adaeze. |
| Title of source | Article title in quotation marks | "Memory Consolidation During Sleep." |
| Title of container | Journal name in italics | Nature Reviews Neuroscience, |
| Version | Edition or version (omit if absent) | (omit for standard journals) |
| Number | Volume and issue | vol. 24, no. 3, |
| Publisher | Publishing body (omit when identical to container) | (usually omit for academic journals) |
| Publication date | Month and year or year alone | Mar. 2023, |
| Location | Page range or DOI/URL | pp. 145-162, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41583-022-00659-7 |
The eight MLA core elements applied to a journal article. Omit any element the source does not provide rather than writing 'n.p.' or 'n.d.' in most cases.
Two elements often get omitted for journal articles: version (rarely relevant) and publisher (only add when it differs from the journal name, which almost never happens with academic journals). Every other element should appear unless the source genuinely lacks it.
Italics, Capitalisation, and Punctuation Rules
Italicise the container (journal name) but not the source (article title). The article title goes inside double quotation marks with title-case capitalisation, meaning every major word is capitalised. A period ends the article title and sits inside the closing quotation mark. The journal name ends with a comma. Volume, issue, date, and pages each end with a comma except the final element, which ends with a period.
How to Handle the DOI or URL in MLA
MLA 9th edition treats the DOI or URL as the location element, which provides readers with a stable path to the source. The guidance at the MLA Style Center specifies that a DOI, when available, should always be preferred over a general URL and formatted as a full hyperlink.
When a DOI Is Available
Format the DOI as a complete URL beginning with https://doi.org/ followed by the DOI string. Do not use the older “doi:” prefix. The full hyperlink format reads: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41583-022-00659-7. Place it at the end of the entry, after the page range, and close the whole entry with a period.
If you have the article but not the DOI, search at doi.org or CrossRef (crossref.org) using the article title. Most peer-reviewed journal articles published since 2000 carry a DOI. If you find one, always prefer it over a database URL, since DOIs stay stable when databases change their link structures.
When There Is No DOI
If the article has no DOI, use the direct URL for the article on the journal's website. For articles behind a paywall that you accessed through a library, use the stable permalink the database provides rather than the session URL from your browser's address bar. Session URLs expire; stable permalinks do not.
If no URL is available either, as with print-only journals, omit the location element. MLA 9th edition prefers accurate information over forced placeholders like “Print.”
Adding a Database as a Second Container
When you access a journal article through a research database such as JSTOR, EBSCOhost, or ProQuest, MLA 9th edition instructs you to add the database as a second container after the journal information. The second container adds the database name (italicised) and the URL or stable link.
The pattern looks like this:
Last, First. “Article Title.” Journal Name, vol. X, no. Y, Month Year, pp. X-X. Database Name, https://www.database-url.com/stable/permalink.
Note: the first container ends with a period (not a comma) before the second container begins.
How to Write the MLA In-Text Citation
The MLA in-text citationpairs with the Works Cited entry by sharing the first element of the entry (almost always the author's last name). If a reader sees (Okonkwo 147) in the text, they find the full entry under “O” in the Works Cited list. The system depends on that exact match.
Author and Page Number Format
Place the author's last name and the page number inside parentheses with no comma between them and no “p.” or “pg.” prefix. The citation sits before the sentence's closing punctuation:
| Situation | In-text format | Example |
|---|---|---|
| One author, with page number | (Last Page) | (Okonkwo 147) |
| One author, no page number | (Last) | (Okonkwo) |
| Two authors | (Last and Last Page) | (Okonkwo and Patel 34) |
| Three or more authors | (Last et al. Page) | (Okonkwo et al. 22) |
| Author named in signal phrase | Name ... (Page) | Okonkwo argues that sleep cycles affect recall (147). |
MLA in-text citation formats for journal articles. No comma appears between the author name and page number.
Signal Phrases and Narrative Citations
A signal phrase names the author in the sentence and moves their name outside the parentheses. This is a narrative citation in MLA terminology. Use signal phrases when you want to introduce the author or when citing the same source multiple times in a paragraph, which keeps the text readable without stacking identical parenthetical citations.
Signal phrase verbs for introducing research findings include: argues, contends, demonstrates, finds, notes, observes, reports, shows, and writes. Choose a verb that accurately describes what the source does, not just a filler such as “says.” “Okonkwo demonstrates that slow-wave sleep drives consolidation (147)” states more than “Okonkwo says that sleep matters (147).”
Worked Examples: Standard and Edge Cases
The examples below are correctly formatted MLA Works Cited entries followed by their matching in-text citations. Each entry uses fictitious but realistic article data to show the structure without citing a real paper out of context. Format details follow MLA Style Center guidance on journal articles.
Standard Article With DOI
A single-authored article in a print journal accessed via the journal's own website, with a DOI:
Okonkwo, Adaeze. “Memory Consolidation and Slow-Wave Sleep.” Nature Reviews Neuroscience, vol. 24, no. 3, Mar. 2023, pp. 145-162, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41583-000-00001-0.
In-text citation: (Okonkwo 147) or, with a signal phrase: Okonkwo demonstrates that slow-wave sleep drives consolidation (147).
Article Accessed via Database
The same article accessed through the JSTOR database adds a second container. The first container (journal details) ends with a period, and the second container (database) follows:
Okonkwo, Adaeze. “Memory Consolidation and Slow-Wave Sleep.” Nature Reviews Neuroscience, vol. 24, no. 3, Mar. 2023, pp. 145-162. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/00000000.
The in-text citation does not change: (Okonkwo 147). Only the Works Cited entry gains the second container block.
Article With Multiple Authors
For two authors, list both in the Works Cited entry, the first in inverted order (Last, First) and the second in normal order (First Last), joined by “and.” For three or more authors, list only the first author followed by “et al.”:
| Author count | Works Cited author field | In-text citation |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Okonkwo, Adaeze. | (Okonkwo 147) |
| 2 | Okonkwo, Adaeze, and Priya Patel. | (Okonkwo and Patel 147) |
| 3+ | Okonkwo, Adaeze, et al. | (Okonkwo et al. 147) |
MLA author field formatting by author count. The et al. abbreviation applies to three or more authors in both the entry and the in-text citation.
A full two-author example:
Okonkwo, Adaeze, and Priya Patel. “Hippocampal Replay in Memory Formation.” Journal of Neuroscience, vol. 41, no. 12, Nov. 2022, pp. 2890-2904, https://doi.org/10.1523/jneurosci.0000-21.2022.
Article Without Page Numbers
Online-only journals and open-access articles often carry no page numbers. Omit the location element (pages) and end the entry with the DOI or URL. The in-text citation uses only the author name with no number:
Patel, Priya. “Open-Access Trends in Psychology Journals.” Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 13, 2022, https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.000001.
In-text citation: (Patel). If the article uses article numbers or paragraph numbers instead of page numbers, substitute the relevant abbreviation: (Patel, art. 3) or (Patel, par. 12).
What Are the Most Common MLA Journal Citation Mistakes?
Building an MLA reference journal article entry is straightforward once you know the eight core elements, but four errors appear so reliably in student work that they deserve their own section.
Correct MLA Format
- •Article title in "double quotation marks"
- •Journal name in italics as the container
- •Volume as vol. X, issue as no. Y with commas
- •DOI as full https://doi.org/ URL
- •Hanging indent on all Works Cited entries
Common Mistakes
- •Italicising the article title instead of the journal
- •Omitting the issue number (no. Y)
- •Using the old doi: prefix instead of https://doi.org/
- •Listing all authors when three or more exist
- •Forgetting to add the database as a second container
The most frequent error: italicising the article title and putting the journal name in quotation marks. Remember the container rule. The article is the source (quotation marks). The journal is the container (italics). Apply this distinction and the formatting resolves itself.
MLA 9th edition, following the MLA Style Center, no longer accepts the old “doi:10.xxxx” format. Every DOI in a Works Cited entry must appear as a full hyperlink URL beginning with https://doi.org/. This change aligns MLA with APA 7th edition's DOI format, so if you cite sources in both styles, the DOI format is the same in both.
The citations hub at Classeva has a generator for MLA 9th edition that builds Works Cited entries from your source details. For related MLA formats, the MLA website citation guide and the MLA book chapter guide cover two sources students commonly mix up with journal articles.
Try the generator for your own sources:
MLA Citation Generator
Build a correctly formatted MLA 9th edition Works Cited entry for a journal article or other source type. Fill in your source details and copy the finished citation.
Key Takeaways
- The MLA 9th edition journal article format follows eight core elements: author, article title in quotation marks, journal name in italics, volume, issue, date, page range, and DOI or URL as a full https://doi.org/ link.
- The article title gets quotation marks; the journal name gets italics. This container logic is the single rule that prevents the most common formatting errors.
- Volume appears as “vol. X” and issue as “no. Y,” separated by a comma. MLA 9th edition always includes the issue number, unlike older editions that sometimes omitted it.
- The MLA in-text citation uses author last name and page number with no comma: (Smith 45). With a signal phrase, only the page number goes in parentheses.
- For three or more authors, both the Works Cited entry and the in-text citation use only the first author's last name followed by “et al.”
- Articles accessed through a database add a second container block after the journal details: the database name in italics followed by the stable permalink URL.
- The citations hub at Classeva generates formatted MLA, APA, Harvard, and Chicago entries. For APA comparisons, the APA government report guide and the no-author APA guide cover the parallel edge cases in that style.
MLA citations reward precision. Every comma, every set of quotation marks, every italicised container name sends a signal to your reader and your examiner that you understand the structure rather than copying a rough template. The MLA Style Center at style.mla.org publishes free guidance for every source type and updates it when the handbook changes; it is the only source you need to verify an edge case.
If you want guided practice formatting citations and checking your understanding of referencing rules:
