MLA 9th edition
How to cite a YouTube video in MLA 9th edition
The person who uploaded a video is often not the person who made it, and styles disagree about whether the channel name, the real name, or both belong in the entry.
THE FORMAT
A YouTube video in MLA, at a glance
“Title of the Video.” YouTube, uploaded by Channel Name, Day Month Year, www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxxxxxxxxxx.
“How to Structure a Literature Review in Four Passes.” YouTube, uploaded by Writing Lab Weekly, 12 Oct. 2023, www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fQ2sM1kYcA.
(“How to Structure” 00:04:12)
In prose: The Writing Lab Weekly walkthrough treats the first pass as pure sorting (00:04:12).
Kwan, Rosalind. “How to Structure a Literature Review in Four Passes.” YouTube, uploaded by Writing Lab Weekly, 12 Oct. 2023, www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fQ2sM1kYcA.
In text: (Kwan 00:04:12)
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 YouTube video
Elements to collect
- Uploader — the channel name, plus the creator’s real name when it is known
- Full date the video was posted
- Title of the video, exactly as it appears
- Platform name
- URL of the specific video
Rules specific to this entry
- The video is a part and YouTube is the container, so the title goes in quotation marks and <em>YouTube</em> is italicized. The account that posted it sits in the other-contributors slot as “uploaded by”.
- Start the entry with a person only when that person is the reason you are citing the video — a director, a lecturer, a performer. Otherwise the title leads and the uploader stays a contributor.
- Cite a moment with a timestamp in hours:minutes:seconds, and give a range when you quote across several seconds: (00:04:12–00:04:38).
- Copy the title exactly as posted, then apply MLA title case. Keep unusual spellings and punctuation that are part of the title itself.
Building the entry, step by step
Collect the details
Before you format anything, gather every element MLA needs for a YouTube video: Uploader — the channel name, plus the creator’s real name when it is known; Full date the video was posted; Title of the video, exactly as it appears; Platform name.
Build the works cited entry
Arrange those details in the MLA order: “Title of the Video.” YouTube, uploaded by Channel Name, Day Month Year, www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxxxxxxxxxx.
Add the in-text citation
In the body of your paper, cite it as (“How to Structure” 00:04:12) — or work the same reference into your sentence as The Writing Lab Weekly walkthrough treats the first pass as pure sorting (00:04:12)..
Check it against the exceptions
The video is a part and YouTube is the container, so the title goes in quotation marks and <em>YouTube</em> is italicized. The account that posted it sits in the other-contributors slot as “uploaded 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 YouTube video in another style
Switching styles late in a draft is normal. Here is the same source formatted five other ways.
Questions about MLA and online videos
What if the YouTube video 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 YouTube video?
Uploader — the channel name, plus the creator’s real name when it is known, Full date the video was posted, Title of the video, exactly as it appears, and the rest of the elements listed above. The person who uploaded a video is often not the person who made it, and styles disagree about whether the channel name, the real name, or both belong in the entry.
Is there anything unusual about a YouTube video in MLA?
The video is a part and YouTube is the container, so the title goes in quotation marks and <em>YouTube</em> is italicized. The account that posted it sits in the other-contributors slot as “uploaded by”.
What else catches people out here?
Start the entry with a person only when that person is the reason you are citing the video — a director, a lecturer, a performer. Otherwise the title leads and the uploader stays a contributor.
Can I reformat this YouTube video 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.
