MLA Citation Guide (MLA 9th Edition): When Information Is Missing

If no author is provided, start the citation with the title of the source you are citing. Note that an author can also be an organization or corporation (e.g., Health Canada). If and only if an item is signed as being created by Anonymous, use "Anonymous" where you'd normally put the author's name.

Examples:

"Get on Board for Train safety." Toronto Star, 17 June 2012, A14-15.

Introduction to Food Science. ABC Press, 2019.

Examples:

("Get on Board" A15)

(Introduction to Food Science 20)

If no publication date is provided, you may exclude the date element from your Works Cited List citation.

MLA recommends including an access date at the end of your citation if your source does not have a publication date. 

Example:

Ribecca, Severino. The Data Visualisation Catalogue. datavizcatalogue.com. Accessed 3 May 2021.

Follow recommended in-text citation format for your source.

Depending on the format of your source, the citation template may require page numbers (e.g., newspaper articles, magazine articles). If your source doesn't have page numbers, you may exclude the page element from your Works Cited List citation.

When citing a work in text without page numbers, you may leave out the page element in your in-text citation. You may also consider using an alternative to help your reader locate the paraphrase or quote in your source (e.g., chapter number, slide number, time stamp). 

Examples:

(Illowsky et al. ch. 5)

(Lim slide 2)

If your source is untitled, include a description of the source in place of a title in your citation. 

Example:

Potato chips - personally ate in the past 6 months for all respondents 14+ in Ontario. Vividata, 2018.

Use the following format for your in-text citation: (Description of Information). If the description is long, you may shorten it in your in-text citation by using the first word/phrase of the description.

Example: (Potato chips)

If you find an article or eBook using the library website's main search make sure to click through to read the full article. Once you view the article or eBook, the database name is often displayed at the top of the page.

If it is ambiguous or says something like "searching 12 databases" and you can't tell which one database it is from, enter the name of the database provider (e.g., Proquest, EBSCO, etc.) as the database.