Parts of a Citation – Labeled Example and Quiz

All 8 elements on the diagram

Show the list

In every entry 3

Author The entry starts with the author's last name. A comma and the name's remainder follow. The element ends with a period.
Title of the source It follows the author's name. A book's title is in italics; the title of an article or a web page is in quotation marks.
Publication date A book gives the year. An article or a web page may give a fuller date.

On the book 1

Publisher The publisher produces the source or distributes it to the public. It comes before the date.

On the article and the web page 4

Title of the container A container is the larger whole that holds the source. One example is the journal an article is in. Its title is usually in italics and followed by a comma.
Volume and issue number A journal comes out in numbered volumes and issues. Both numbers go in the entry.
Page numbers A journal article gives the pages it runs from and to. So does an essay in a book.
URL Where an online work is found. The http or https at the front is left off.

How this list was compiled: Every element name checked on 2026-09-30 against sources read that day: (1) Purdue Online Writing Lab, MLA Citations: Overview and MLA Works Cited Page: Basic Format, https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/mla_style/mla_formatting_and_style_guide/mla_formatting_and_style_guide.html; (2) Duke University Libraries, Citing Sources, https://library.duke.edu/research/citing; (3) MIT Libraries, Citing sources: Overview, https://libguides.mit.edu/citing. Each name on the page is used by at least two of them. The three sources cited in the drawing are invented. Hints and detail lines are in our own words. Licence: own work

The drawing: Drawn for this site on 2026-09-30. Own original layout with invented sources; nothing copied. Licence: own work

How it works

A works-cited list with three made-up entries: a book, a journal article and a web page. Each piece of an entry is called an element. Find each one; the same element in another entry counts too.

Read the full guide

Read an entry from left to right

Numbers 1 and 2 start every entry: the author, last name first, then the title of the source. Numbers 3 and 4, the publisher and the publication date, finish the book. Numbers 5 to 7 are on the article: the title of the container, here the journal, then its volume and issue number and its page numbers. Number 8 is the web page's URL.

A title in italics is a whole work: a book, a journal, a website. A title in quotation marks is one piece inside it.
Citation styles share these elements. What changes from style to style is their order and punctuation.

Questions and answers

What are the parts of a citation?

The author, the title of the source, the title of the container it sits in (a journal or a website), the publisher, the publication date, any volume and issue number, and where to find it: page numbers, or a URL for a source online.

What is a container in a citation?

The larger whole that holds the source. A journal is the container of an article, and a website is the container of one of its pages. The container's title is usually in italics.

What is a hanging indent?

The first line of each entry starts at the left margin and every line after it is indented half an inch. A works-cited list is set this way.

Do all citation styles have the same parts?

Nearly. Styles such as MLA and APA use the same elements, but in a different order and with different punctuation. The entries on this page follow MLA order.