How to cite quotes from websites in mla

Use the following template or our MLA Citation Generator to cite a website. For help with other source types, like books, PDFs, or websites, check out our other guides. To have your reference list or bibliography automatically made for you, try our free citation generator.

Reference list

Place this part in your bibliography or reference list at the end of your assignment.

Template:

Author Surname, Author Forename (if available). Website Title. Publisher, Date published or updated, URL.

Example:

The Museum of the World. The British Museum, Feb. 2020, britishmuseum.withgoogle.com/.

In-text citation

Place this part right after the quote or reference to the source in your assignment.

Template:

(Author Surname or Website Title)

Example:

The virtual museum experience allows visitors to explore cultural objects from different continents (The Museum of the World).

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Note: This post relates to content in the eighth edition of the MLA Handbook. For up-to-date guidance, see the ninth edition of the MLA Handbook.

Quotations on compilation websites may contain errors or even be misattributed, so it’s best to track down the source of the quotation. If doing so isn’t possible, then in your works-cited-list entry list the author of the web page (if one is identified), the title of the page, the name of the website, the publication date (if available), and the URL, following the MLA format template. Key your in-text citation to the first element of the entry.

According to C. S. Lewis, “Failures, repeated failures, are finger posts on the road to achievement. One fails forward toward success” (qtd. in “C. S. Lewis Quotes”).

Work Cited

“C. S. Lewis Quotes.” BrainyQuote, 2001-20, www.brainyquote.com/
authors/c-s-lewis-quotes.

Note that the page “C. S. Lewis Quotes” has no clear author, so the works-cited-list entry skips the Author element and begins with the title of the page.

Note also that “qtd. in” in the citation indicates that this is an indirect source, following section 3.4 of the eighth edition of the MLA Handbook. If your discussion makes clear that the quotation is from an indirect source, then the abbreviation “qtd. in” isn’t needed:

C. S. Lewis quotations like this one can be found all over the Internet: “Failures, repeated failures, are finger posts on the road to achievement. One fails forward toward success” (“C. S. Lewis Quotes”).

If your quotation is longer than four lines, it is a considered a long quotation. This can also be referred to as a block quotation.

Rules for Long Quotations

There are 4 rules that apply to long quotations that are different from regular quotations:

1. Place a colon at the end of the line that you write to introduce your long quotation.
2. Indent the long quotation 0.5 inches from the rest of the text, so it looks like a block of text.
3. Do not put quotation marks around the quotation.
4. Place the period at the end of the quotation before your in-text citation instead of after, as with regular quotations.

Example of a Long Quotation

Vivian Gornick describes the process of maturing as a reader as a reckoning with human limitations:

Suddenly, literature, politics, and analysis came together, and I began to think more inclusively about the emotional

imprisonment of mind and spirit to which all human beings are heir. In the course of analytic time, it became apparent

that—with or without the burden of social justice—the effort required to attain any semblance of inner freedom was

extraordinary. Great literature, I then realized, is a record not of the achievement, but of the effort. 

With this insight as my guiding light, I began to interpret the lives and work of women and men alike who had

It can sometimes be difficult to find out who the author of a website is. Remember that an author can be a corporation or group, not only a specific person. Author information can sometimes be found under an "About" section on a website.

If there is no known author, start the citation with the title of the website instead.

Title

Capitalize the first letter of every important word in the title. You do not need to capitalize words such as: in, of, or an. Do not use all-caps (except for words like USA where each letter stands for something), even if the words appear that way on the article.

If there is a colon (:) in the title, include what comes after the colon (also known as the subtitle).

Publisher

The publisher or sponsoring organization can often be found in a copyright notice at the bottom of the home page or on a page that gives information about the site. When the page is authored and published by the same corporation/group/organization, begin your citation with the section title. 

According to p. 42 of the MLA Handbook, publisher information may be omitted for:

• periodicals (journals, magazines, newspapers)
• works published by an author or editor
• web sites whose title is the same as the name of the publisher
• a web site not involved in producing the work it makes (e.g. user-generated content sites like YouTube)

Date

The best date to use for a website is the date that the content was last updated. Otherwise look for a copyright or original publication date. Unfortunately this information may not be provided or may be hard to find. Often date information is located on the bottom of the pages of a website.

If you do not know the complete date, put as much information as you can find. For example, you may have a year but no month or day.

Access Date

Date of access is optional in MLA 9th edition. If no publication date is included, we recommend including the date you last accessed the site.

How do you cite a quote from a website example?

Author last name, First name. “Page Title.” Website Name. Month Day, Year. URL.

How do you cite a quote from a website with no author MLA?

If no author is listed, use a shortened title of the work. Put the title in quotation marks if it's a short work (such as an article) or italicize it if it's a longer work (such as books or entire websites), and include page numbers (if there are any).