Master MLA: Cite YouTube Videos Easily – Language Tutor

Understanding MLA Citation

Modern Languages Association (MLA) citation is a styled guide used mainly in humanities and liberal arts. It helps to credit others’ work, avoid plagiarism, and make it easier for readers to track the sources of your information. In the age of digital learning and content, learning how to properly cite videos, especially from platforms like YouTube, is essential. This guide will teach you how to do MLA YouTube citation.

MLA Citation for YouTube Videos

Citing YouTube videos in MLA format might appear to be overwhelming. However, it’s quite simple once you understand the procedure. For your citation to be accurate, it should entail the following details:

• Name of the original poster
• Video’s title
• Website’s name
• Video’s upload date
• Video’s URL

Here’s An MLA YouTube Citation Example

In alphabetical order, an MLA YouTube citation will look like this:

Gabby's Toy World. "Our Best Summer Vacation." YouTube, 12 June 2022, youtube.com/watch?v=ABCDEFGHI

In this example, “Gabby’s Toy World” is the original poster’s name, “Our Best Summer Vacation” is the video title, “YouTube” is the website’s name, video was posted on “12 June 2022” and “youtube.com/watch?v=ABCDEFGHI” is the URL of the video.

In-Text Citation for YouTube Video

In-text citations act as a quick reference point to direct your reader to the full citation at the end of your work. When citing a YouTube video in-text, you use the author’s name or the first few words of the title if the author’s name is not available.

Here’s An Example of In-Text Citation

According to Gabby’s Toy World, the vacation was the best they ever had (“Our Best Summer Vacation”).
In this example, we cited using the author’s name and shortened video title.

Tips for Citing YouTube Videos in MLA

1. Always capitalize each keyword in the video’s title.
2. If the original poster is an individual, you should use their last name, first name format.
3. If you don’t know the video’s upload date, use the abbreviation “n.d.” for no date.
4. In your URL, remove the hyperlink.

Wrapping Up

Understanding how to cite YouTube videos in MLA format is crucial for academic writings. We hope this guide has been helpful and enriched your citing knowledge. Happy citing!