MLA: Websites and Videos

Citing websites in MLA format

By now you may have noticed commonalities across all the types of citations you can produce in MLA.  With website citation there is one significant new element.  While articles and books have set versions and publication dates, websites can change over time without any history of edits or revisions.  Because of this, you are highly encouraged to include the date you accessed the website when you create the citation (especially in those cases where no other dates are listed on the website.)

Here is the ordering of elements in a generic MLA website citation:

Author's last name, author's first name. Title of the Website, the Organization producing the website, Date, URL. Accessed date.

So for example, if we wanted to cite the "Coronavirus Self-Checker" page on the website the federal government maintains for Coronavirus information (https://www.coronavirus.gov/), we would first look for an author.  Because an individual author isn't included, we will instead use an organizational author.  The organization that produced the webpage in this case is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  Because that organization is also the publisher of the information, we can skip "author" and jump right to the title of the webpage:

“Coronavirus Self-Checker.” COVID-19, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2 July 2021, www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/symptoms-testing/coronavirus-self-checker.html. Accessed 5 July 2021.

Finally, note that the URL in the above citation has been stripped of the "https://" at the beginning.  

Citing videos and other multimedia

Videos will follow this ordering of elements:

Author last name, author first name. "Title of the Video." The Hosting Website, uploaded by Username, Day Month Year of Publication, URL of video. Accessed date.

As with webpage, if an author or creator isn't included, look for an organizational author.  Here's an example of a YouTube video along with its citation.  In this video Linda Raynier talks about answering the interview question "tell me about yourself," and the video is located here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kayOhGRcNt4.  Now let's plug each element of the video into the citation.

Raynier, Linda. "Tell Me About Yourself: A Good Answer to This Interview Question." YouTube, uploaded by Linda Raynier, 14 December 2016, www.youtube.com/watch?v=kayOhGRcNt4. Accessed 3 June 2021.

Other multimedia follows a similar format.  Here is an example of a podcast recording hosted by SoundCloud.  In this podcast Jo Overstreet talks about collecting "COVID-19" stories from members of the ECU community.  The podcast hosts are Walter Lanham and Andrew Grace.  As podcast hosts are considered the authors, we would set the citation up beginning with the hosts.  We would also note the special role the hosts play by including "hosts" after their names.  Finally, podcasts can feature season and episode numbers, and we include those when they are available.

Lanham, Walter, and Andrew Grace, hosts. "Collecting COVID-19 Stories with Jo Overstreet." Pirates in the Library, Episode 5, SoundCloud, 5 July 2021, soundcloud.com/piratesinthelibrary/collecting-covid-19-stories-with-jo-overstreet/. Accessed 14 July 2021.