Ask the MLA

FAQ

Yes.

To cite the electronic portion of a textbook, follow the MLA format template. Begin with the title of the material or a description of it. Then provide the name of the Web site where you accessed the material as the title of the container. Then list the name of the publisher of the Web site (if different from the site’s title), the date the material was posted (or if the post date is not given, the copyright date of the Web site), and the URL. If you wish to 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:

Pitch package. LaunchPad, Macmillan, 2017, macmillanhighered.com/smh. Material accompanying The St. Martin’s Handbook.

No. You should provide the publication facts of the version of the work you consulted and do not need to detail the work’s publication history.

To cite a photograph in a personal collection, follow the MLA format template. List the author of the photograph, if known. Then provide a description of the photograph in place of a title. List the date the photograph was taken, if known. In the optional-element slot at the end of the entry, indicate that the photograph is in a personal collection:

Fanatic, Jane. Photograph of Jane Austen’s House Museum. 2 Sept. 2017. Author’s personal collection.

The names of journal editors are generally only included in works-cited-list entries for special issues of journals:

Charney, Michael W. “Literary Culture on the Burma-Manipur Frontier in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries.” Literary Cultures at the Frontiers: Literature and Identity in the Early Modern World, special issue of The Medieval History Journal, edited by Sumit Guha, vol. 14, no. 2, 2011, pp. 159-81.

Appiah, Kwame Anthony, and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., editors. Identities. Special issue of Critical Inquiry, vol. 18, no. 4, 1992.  

Although it is not conventional to include the name of a journal editor for citations of articles in regular issues of journals and we do not recommend doing so, if you elect to include one, place it in the “Other contributors” slot:

McCarthy, Anne C. “Reading the Red Bull Sublime.” PMLA, edited by Wai Chee Dimock, vol. 132, no. 3, May 2017, pp. 543-57.

Google search results are not a reliable source of dictionary definitions. When you need to cite a dictionary definition, use an established print or electronic dictionary.