MLA: New in MLA 8

Please note: If you are ever unsure of an abbreviation, it is always best to spell it out.

Abbreviations

- Common terms like editor, edited by, translator, and review are no longer abbreviated.
- Volume and Number are abbreviated vol. and no. (ex. vol. 8, no. 2) instead of listing the two with a dot between them (ex. x.cc).
- Publishers' names are given in full, except business words like Company (Co.) are dropped and, for academic presses, the abbreviations U (University), P (Press), and UP (University Press) are used.

Authors

- When a source has three or more authors, only the first one shown in the source is given. It is then followed by et al. This is true in works-cited entries and in in-text citations.

Books and Other Printed Works

- Page numbers in the works-cited list (not in the in-text citations) are preceded by p. (for a single page) or pp. (for multiple pages).
- For books, the city of publication is no longer given.
- Do not give the medium (print, electronic book, etc.) in citations.

Journals

- If an issue of a journal is dated with a month or a season, the month or season is now always cited along with the year.

Online Works

- The URL (without http:// or https://) is always given for a web source. A permalink, if available, is preferred to a URL.
- The citing of DOIs, or the Digital Object Identifier, are encouraged.
- Citing the date of access is optional.
- Use the date of access for Web sources that do not list a publication date.
- No longer use placeholders for unknown information like n.d. ("no date"). If facts missing from a work are available in a trustworthy external resource, they are cited in square brackets. Otherwise, they are omitted entirely.

Publishers

- A forward slash (/) separates the names of copublishers.
- If the publisher name is the same as the Web site title, omit the publisher name.

Formatting

- Indentations for long quotations in text is now 1/2 inch.