How should I cite digital materials that accompany a print textbook?

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.

Treat CD, DVD, online, and other digital materials that accompany a print textbook as you would any other work in MLA style: follow the MLA format template and start your entry with the author and title of the materials or a description in place of a title.

You will need to determine whether to treat the digital material as a work contained in the textbook. If, for example, you listen to a CD of songs packaged with a print textbook, treat the CD as an independent work contained in the textbook:

Lessons, Readings, and Songs to Accompany An Introduction to Old Occitan. Lessons and readings by William D. Paden, songs performed by Elizabeth Aubrey. An Introduction to Old Occitan, by Paden, Modern Language Association of America, 1998. Audio CD.

(The example above includes the performers’ names in the optional-element slot after the title and the medium of publication in the final optional-element slot at the end of the entry. Read more about the use of optional elements in MLA style.)

If the material is published on a website, treat the website as the container:

“Lessons, Readings, and Songs to Accompany An Introduction to Old Occitan.” Lessons and readings by William D. Paden, songs performed by Elizabeth Aubrey. Modern Language Association, 1998, www.mla.org/Publications/Bookstore/Supporting-Materials/Lessons-Readings-and-Songs-to-Accompany-An-Introduction-to-Old-Occitan.

If the entry does not clearly indicate that the work is a companion to the textbook, you can use the optional-element slot at the end of the entry to specify this fact:

“Lesson 1.” Read by Gloria Santiago. Online Language Lab, Language Lab Publishers, 2017, www.oll.org/spanish1. Audio lesson accompanying Spanish for the Future textbook.