How do I cite unpublished audio transcripts that I created?
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.
If you are quoting from unpublished audio transcripts, you should cite the audio recording itself. If it is important to note that you are working from unpublished transcripts that you made, you could say that in an endnote the first time you quote from the recording. The following are examples of works-cited-list entries for audio recordings, the first published and the second unpublished:
Kennedy, John F. “City upon a Hill Speech.” 9 Jan. 1961. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/historic-speeches/the-city-upon-a-hill-speech. Audio recording.
Menchú, Rigoberta. Interview. Conducted by Elisabeth Burgos-Debray. Elisabeth Burgos-Debray papers, Hoover Institution archives, Stanford, CA, 7 Jan. 1982, 2001C89.197, cassette 1.1
See our related posts on citing speeches and on citing sound recordings.
Note
1. This entry is adapted from Tom McEnaney’s “‘Rigoberta’s Listener’: The Significance of Sound in Testimonio,” PMLA, vol. 135, no. 2, Mar. 2020, p. 400.