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MLA Citation Style 9th Edition: Title of Container

Title of Container (Works Cited)

Title of container is the third core element (Note: Some works, such as a print novel, are without  container.) (MLA 5.31)
Containers are either

1) complete works which contain smaller works, like a book containing essays, a book containing short stories, an academic journal containing articles, a CD or album containing songs, an art exhibit containing artworks, or a television series containing episodes, etc.,

or
2) larger containers holding smaller containers, like a database containing academic journals or a website containing Web pages. 

  • The title of the container is italicized and followed by a comma.
  • It is possible for a source to have more than one container, for example an article [title of source] from a journal [title of first container] accessed from an online database [title of second container].
  • When the title of a periodical (journal, magazine, newspaper) begins with an article (A, An, The), the article is now treated as part of the title: the article is italicized and its first letter capitalized. For example: The New York Time.

Collection of essays, stories, poems, etc.

Poe, Edgar Allan. "The Black Cat". Literature: Reading Fiction, Poetry, and Drama, edited by Robert DiYanni, 6th ed., McGraw Hill, 2007, pp. 137-43.

Print journal, magazine, or newspaper article: 

Dukes, Charlene. "Recognizing our Camelot Moment." Community College Journal, vol. 86, no. 5, Apr./May 2016, p. 1. 

Journal, magazine, or newspaper article from an online database:

Tucker, Virginia M., et al. “Learning Portals: Analyzing Threshold Concept Theory for LIS Education.” Journal of Education for Library and Information Science, vol. 55, no. 2, Apr. 2014, pp. 150-65. ERIC, www.eric.ed.gov/contentdelivery/servlet/ERICServlet?accno=EJ1074326.

Television series episode:

"Something Nice Back Home." Lost, directed by Stephen Williams, performance by Matthew Fox , season 4, episode 10, Bad Robot, 2008.

Web page:

Meade, Rita. "It's Not Too Late to Advocate." Screwy Decimal, 1 June 2016, www.screwydecimal.com/2016/06/its-not-too-late-to-advocate.html.

Comic book:

Byrne, John and Jim Lee. "The Resurrection and the Flesh." X-Men, vol. 2, no. 4, Marvel Comics, Jan. 1992.

 

The information above is mostly adapted from IRSC Libraries.

Examples of Containers (from MLA.org)

When is a Website a Container? (from MLA.org)