MLA 9th edition
How to cite a thesis or dissertation in MLA 9th edition
A thesis needs its degree level and awarding institution, and the format changes depending on whether you read it in a repository or as an unpublished manuscript.
THE FORMAT
A thesis or dissertation in MLA, at a glance
Author Last, First. Title of the Thesis. Year, Institution Name, PhD dissertation.
Delgado, Mateo P. Feedback Literacy in First-Year Engineering Writing. 2021, Northfield State U, PhD dissertation.
(Delgado 74)
In prose: Delgado followed sixty-two first-year students through a full year of feedback cycles (74).
Delgado, Mateo P. Feedback Literacy in First-Year Engineering Writing. 2021, Northfield State U, PhD dissertation. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global, www.proquest.com/docview/2534891077.
In text: (Delgado 74)
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 thesis or dissertation
Elements to collect
- Author
- Year the degree was awarded
- Title of the thesis
- Degree level — doctoral dissertation or master’s thesis
- Name of the awarding institution
- Repository or database name, plus URL, when it is published online
Rules specific to this entry
- MLA treats a dissertation as a standalone work, so the title is italicized rather than placed in quotation marks.
- The year of completion, the awarding institution and the degree description close the entry. Write the description in lowercase except for proper nouns and degree abbreviations: PhD dissertation, MA thesis.
- Abbreviate University to U and University Press to UP inside institution names — Northfield State U — as you would for a publisher.
- MLA makes no formal distinction between published and unpublished theses. If you read it in a repository, add that repository as a second container in italics with its URL.
Building the entry, step by step
Collect the details
Before you format anything, gather every element MLA needs for a thesis or dissertation: Author; Year the degree was awarded; Title of the thesis; Degree level — doctoral dissertation or master’s thesis.
Build the works cited entry
Arrange those details in the MLA order: Author Last, First. Title of the Thesis. Year, Institution Name, PhD dissertation.
Add the in-text citation
In the body of your paper, cite it as (Delgado 74) — or work the same reference into your sentence as Delgado followed sixty-two first-year students through a full year of feedback cycles (74)..
Check it against the exceptions
MLA treats a dissertation as a standalone work, so the title is italicized rather than placed in quotation marks.
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 thesis or dissertation in another style
Switching styles late in a draft is normal. Here is the same source formatted five other ways.
Questions about MLA and theses and dissertations
What if the thesis or dissertation 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 thesis or dissertation?
Author, Year the degree was awarded, Title of the thesis, and the rest of the elements listed above. A thesis needs its degree level and awarding institution, and the format changes depending on whether you read it in a repository or as an unpublished manuscript.
Is there anything unusual about a thesis or dissertation in MLA?
MLA treats a dissertation as a standalone work, so the title is italicized rather than placed in quotation marks.
What else catches people out here?
The year of completion, the awarding institution and the degree description close the entry. Write the description in lowercase except for proper nouns and degree abbreviations: PhD dissertation, MA thesis.
Can I reformat this thesis or dissertation 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.
