MLA 9th edition
How to cite a interview in MLA 9th edition
Interviews you conducted yourself are usually personal communication — cited in the text but absent from the reference list — while published interviews are cited like any other recorded source.
THE FORMAT
A interview in MLA, at a glance
Interviewee Last, First. “Title of the Interview.” Interview by First Last. Publication Name, Day Month Year, url.example.org/interview.
Erimo, Nadia. “Nadia Erimo on the Ethics of the Archive.” Interview by Rosa Sandoval. Fieldnotes Magazine, 14 Sept. 2023, fieldnotesmag.org/erimo-interview.
(Erimo)
In prose: Erimo argues that a closed collection serves its custodians first.
Erimo, Nadia. Personal interview. 4 Mar. 2024.
In text: (Erimo)
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 interview
Elements to collect
- Name of the person interviewed
- Name of the interviewer, for a published interview
- Full date of the interview
- Where it was published or broadcast, when it was
- Format — transcript, audio recording, personal communication
Rules specific to this entry
- MLA puts the person interviewed in the author slot, because that is whose words you are quoting, and credits the interviewer straight after the title as “Interview by”.
- Unlike APA, MLA does list an interview you conducted yourself in the Works Cited: the interviewee as author, the description “Personal interview”, and the date.
- When a published interview has no title of its own, use the description “Interview by Rosa Sandoval” in the title slot, unitalicized and without quotation marks.
- A broadcast or recorded interview takes whatever carried it as its container — a podcast series, a program, a video platform — with the usual date and location elements.
Building the entry, step by step
Collect the details
Before you format anything, gather every element MLA needs for a interview: Name of the person interviewed; Name of the interviewer, for a published interview; Full date of the interview; Where it was published or broadcast, when it was.
Build the works cited entry
Arrange those details in the MLA order: Interviewee Last, First. “Title of the Interview.” Interview by First Last. Publication Name, Day Month Year, url.example.org/interview.
Add the in-text citation
In the body of your paper, cite it as (Erimo) — or work the same reference into your sentence as Erimo argues that a closed collection serves its custodians first..
Check it against the exceptions
MLA puts the person interviewed in the author slot, because that is whose words you are quoting, and credits the interviewer straight after the title as “Interview by”.
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 interview in another style
Switching styles late in a draft is normal. Here is the same source formatted five other ways.
Questions about MLA and interviews
What if the interview 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 interview?
Name of the person interviewed, Name of the interviewer, for a published interview, Full date of the interview, and the rest of the elements listed above. Interviews you conducted yourself are usually personal communication — cited in the text but absent from the reference list — while published interviews are cited like any other recorded source.
Is there anything unusual about a interview in MLA?
MLA puts the person interviewed in the author slot, because that is whose words you are quoting, and credits the interviewer straight after the title as “Interview by”.
What else catches people out here?
Unlike APA, MLA does list an interview you conducted yourself in the Works Cited: the interviewee as author, the description “Personal interview”, and the date.
Can I reformat this interview 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.
