Bibliography

How to make a Works Cited page

A Works Cited page follows four rules. See them applied step by step, then build yours with the generator.

Cite it now

Smart detection works out the source type from what you paste.

Source details
Source type
Authors (or an organisation)
Publication date (leave blank if none)

Works Cited entry · MLA 9th edition

Your citation appears here as you type, set exactly as it will look in your paper.

In-text citation

Fill in the author and date to see the in-text version.

The four rules, applied

Cherry, Kendra. “What Is the Zeigarnik Effect?” Verywell Mind, 4 Mar. 2025, www.verywellmind.com/zeigarnik-effect-memory-overview-4175150.

Kahneman, Daniel. Thinking, Fast and Slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011.

Zimmer, Carl. “The Secret Life of a Coronavirus.” The New York Times, 26 Feb. 2021, www.nytimes.com/2021/02/26/opinion/sunday/coronavirus-alive-dead.html.

Mueller, Pam A., and Daniel M. Oppenheimer. “The Pen Is Mightier than the Keyboard: Advantages of Longhand over Laptop Note Taking.” Psychological Science, vol. 25, no. 6, Apr. 2014, pp. 1159-1168, https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797614524581.

Kimmerer, Robin Wall. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants. Milkweed Editions, 2013.

Tap each rule to apply it.

Step by step

  1. Start a new page after your paper ends. Keep the header (surname and page number).
  2. Centre the title Works Cited at the top: plain text, no bold, italics or quotation marks. Use “Work Cited” for one source.
  3. List every source you quoted, paraphrased or summarised, sorted by the first word of each entry (usually the author’s surname). Skip “A”, “An” and “The” when sorting titles.
  4. Double-space the whole page, with no extra space between entries.
  5. Apply a 0.5-inch hanging indent. In Google Docs: Format → Align & indent → Indentation options → Hanging.

Two works by the same author? Give the name in the first entry only, then three hyphens and a full stop (---.) in the next, sorted by title.

Questions students ask

What’s the difference between Works Cited and a bibliography?

Works Cited lists only sources you cited in the paper. A bibliography (in MLA, “Works Consulted”) can also include sources you read but didn’t cite.

Do I number the entries?

No. MLA Works Cited entries are alphabetised, not numbered or bulleted.