MLA 9th edition
How to cite a clinical trial registry in MLA 9th edition
Trial registrations require official registry identifiers (NCT, EudraCT) and registration dates rather than standard publication volumes.
THE FORMAT
A clinical trial registry in MLA, at a glance
Sponsor Name. “Title of Clinical Trial.” ClinicalTrials.gov, Registry No. NCTxxxxxx, Year, https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCTxxxxxx.
Mayo Clinic. “Behavioral Therapy Interventions for Post-Traumatic Stress in Veterans.” ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT05891234, 2023, clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT05891234.
(Mayo Clinic)
In prose: Mayo Clinic registered the behavioral trial protocol.
Copyeditor formats APA, MLA, Chicago and IEEE automatically — cite a source once and the works cited builds itself. See how citations work .
BEFORE YOU FORMAT
What MLA needs from a clinical trial registry
Elements to collect
- Sponsor or principal investigator name
- Registration year
- Title of the clinical trial
- Registry name (ClinicalTrials.gov, EU Clinical Trials)
- Registry identifier number (e.g., NCT04368728)
- URL of the trial record
Rules specific to this entry
- Treat the clinical trial registry as the primary container title.
Building the entry, step by step
Collect the details
Before you format anything, gather every element MLA needs for a clinical trial registry: Sponsor or principal investigator name; Registration year; Title of the clinical trial; Registry name (ClinicalTrials.gov, EU Clinical Trials).
Build the works cited entry
Arrange those details in the MLA order: Sponsor Name. “Title of Clinical Trial.” ClinicalTrials.gov, Registry No. NCTxxxxxx, Year, https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCTxxxxxx.
Add the in-text citation
In the body of your paper, cite it as (Mayo Clinic) — or work the same reference into your sentence as Mayo Clinic registered the behavioral trial protocol..
Check it against the exceptions
Treat the clinical trial registry as the primary container title.
MLA RULES
The conventions behind every MLA entry
MLA Handbook (9th ed.) is the authority. Where a journal or department publishes its own house rules, those win — check your submission guidelines before the works cited is final.
The rules that apply across every source — author order, capitalization, how the works cited is sorted, and where MLA entries most often go wrong — are collected on the MLA 9th edition guide.
The same clinical trial registry in another style
Switching styles late in a draft is normal. Here is the same source formatted five other ways.
Questions about MLA and clinical trial registries
What if the clinical trial registry has no author?
Move the title into the author position and alphabetize by the first significant word of that title — ignoring an initial “A”, “An” or “The”. In the text, use a shortened form of the title where the author name would go.
What do I need before I can cite a clinical trial registry?
Sponsor or principal investigator name, Registration year, Title of the clinical trial, and the rest of the elements listed above. Trial registrations require official registry identifiers (NCT, EudraCT) and registration dates rather than standard publication volumes.
Is there anything unusual about a clinical trial registry in MLA?
Treat the clinical trial registry as the primary container title.
Can I reformat this clinical trial registry in another style later?
By hand, you would retype the entry — the element order, punctuation and italics all differ between styles. In Copyeditor, sources are stored as structured data, so switching between APA, MLA, Chicago and IEEE reformats every citation and the whole reference list at once.
Cite it once
and never reformat it again
Copyeditor keeps sources as structured data, so switching between APA, MLA, Chicago and IEEE reformats every citation and the whole works cited at once.
Deterministic Verification in Modern Academic Writing
Copyeditor eliminates fragmented tab-switching by unifying structured drafting, multi-style citation generation, academic tone refinement, and cryptographic process verification in one workspace.
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