MLA Citation Guide (MLA 7th Edition): When Information Is Missing

If no author or creator is provided, start the citation with the title/name of the item you are citing instead.

Note: an author/creator won't necessarily be a person's name. It may be an organization or corporation, for example Health Canada or a username on a site such a YouTube.

Anonymous

If and only if an item is signed as being created by Anonymous, use "Anonymous" where you'd normally put the author's name.

Alphabetical Order in References List

When putting works in alphabetical order, ignore initial articles such as "the", "a", or "an". For example the title The Best of Canada would be alphabetized as if it started with the word Best instead of the word The.

If the title begins with a number, alphabetize it as if the number was spelled out. For example the title 5 Ways to Succeed in Business would be alphabetized under F as if it had started with the word Five .

Examples:

If no date is provided, use the initials n.d. where you would normally put the date.

Page numbers may not be provided for some items, such as online materials. If this is the case:

Works Cited List:

If no page numbers are provided, use the initials n.pag. where you would normally put the page numbers.

In-Text Citation:

When quoting directly in the text of your paper, you would normally include page numbers if they were given. If there are no page numbers given, the in-text citation will be only the author's name, e.g. (Smith).

If you find an article using Library Search make sure to click through to read the full article. Once you are looking at the full article it usually says the database name at the top of the screen.

If it is ambiguous or says something like "searching 12 databases" and you can't tell which one database it is from, enter the name of the database provider (e.g. Proquest, EBSCO, etc.) as the database.