citation in thesis writing

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Dissertation or thesis available from a database service:

Author Surname, First Initial. Second Initial. (year of publication).  Title of dissertation or thesis (Doctoral dissertation or master’s thesis).  Retrieved from Name of database.  (Accession or Order No.)

For an unpublished dissertation or thesis:

Author Surname, First Initial. Second Initial. (year of creation).  Title of dissertation or thesis (Unpublished doctoral dissertation or master’s thesis).  Name of Institution, Location.

See Ch 7 pp. 207-208 APA Manual for more examples and formatting rules

Formatting:

• Italicize the title
• Identify whether source is doctoral dissertation or master’s thesis in parentheses after the title
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Citing Dissertations & Theses in APA Format

Dissertations & Theses

Dissertations and theses are formatted the same way in APA 7th edition. Theses are generally the culminating work for a master's or undergraduate degree and dissertations are often original research completed by doctoral students. Here are examples of a dissertation & a thesis, and how they would be formatted: 

Examples: 

Dissertation found in Proquest Dissertations and Theses Global: 

Reference:  

Banks, B. (2020). Addressing institutional racism in healthcare: A case study (Publication No. 28154307) [Doctoral dissertation, University of Minnesota]. Proquest Dissertations and Theses Global. 

In-Text Citation (Paraphrase):  

(Banks, 2020).

In-Text Citation (Direct Quote):

(Banks, 2020, p. 157).

Master's thesis from a University scholarship database: 

Sears, L. B. (2017). The public voice and sustainable food systems: Community engagement in food action plans [Unpublished master's thesis]. University of Kansas.  https://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/handle/1808/26899  

In-Text Citation (Paraphrase):

(Sears, 2017). 

(Sears, 2017, p. 24). 

Carrie Forbes, MLS

Pages Referenced

Citation information has been adapted from the APA Manual (7th Edition). Please refer to page 333 of the APA Manual (7th Edition) for more information.

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Home / Guides / Citation Guides / MLA Format / How to Cite a Thesis or Dissertation in MLA

How to Cite a Thesis or Dissertation in MLA

Citing a thesis or dissertation.

Thesis – A document submitted to earn a degree at a university.

Dissertation – A document submitted to earn an advanced degree, such as a doctorate, at a university.

The formatting for thesis and dissertation citations is largely the same. However, you should be sure to include the type of degree after the publication year as supplemental information. For instance, state if the source you are citing is an undergraduate thesis or a PhD dissertation.

MLA Thesis and Dissertation Citation Structure (print)

Last, First M.  Title of the Thesis/Dissertation. Year Published. Name of University, type of degree.

MLA Thesis and Dissertation Citation Structure (online)

Last, First M.  Title of the Thesis/Dissertation. Year Published. Name of University, type of degree.  Website Name , URL.

Wilson, Peggy Lynn. Pedagogical Practices in the Teaching of English Language in Secondary Public Schools in Parker County . 2011. University of Maryland, PhD dissertation.

In-text Citation Structure

(Author Last Name page #)

In-text Citation Example

(Wilson 14)

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How to cite a master's thesis in APA

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To cite a master's thesis in a reference entry in APA style 6th edition include the following elements:

• Author(s) of the thesis: Give the last name and initials (e. g. Watson, J. D.) of up to seven authors with the last name preceded by an ampersand (&). For eight or more authors include the first six names followed by an ellipsis (…) and add the last author's name.
• Year of publication: Give the year in brackets followed by a full stop.
• Title of the master's thesis: Only the first letter of the first word and proper nouns are capitalized.
• URL: Give the full URL where the document can be retrieved from.

Here is the basic format for a reference list entry of a master's thesis in APA style 6th edition:

Author(s) of the thesis . ( Year of publication ). Title of the master's thesis (Master's thesis). Retrieved from URL

If the thesis is available from a database, archive or any online platform use the following template:

• Author(s) of the thesis: Give the last name and initials (e. g. Watson, J. D.) of up to 20 authors with the last name preceded by an ampersand (&). For 21 or more authors include the first 19 names followed by an ellipsis (…) and add the last author's name.
• Title of the Master's thesis: Only the first letter of the first word and proper nouns are capitalized.
• Publication number: Give the identification number of the thesis, if available.
• Name of the degree awarding institution: Give the name of the institution.
• Name of Platform: Give the name of the database, archive or any platform that holds the thesis.
• URL: If the thesis was found on a database, omit this element.

Here is the basic format for a reference list entry of a master's thesis in APA style 7th edition:

Author(s) of the thesis . ( Year of publication ). Title of the Master's thesis ( Publication number ) [Master's thesis, Name of the degree awarding institution ]. Name of Platform . URL

If the thesis has not been published or is available from a database use the following template:

• Location: Give the location of the institution. If outside the United States also include the country name.

Author(s) of the thesis . ( Year of publication ). Title of the master's thesis (Unpublished master's thesis). Name of the degree awarding institution , Location .

If the thesis is not published, use the following template:

Author(s) of the thesis . ( Year of publication ). Title of the master's thesis [Unpublished master's thesis]. Name of the degree awarding institution .

APA reference list examples

Take a look at our reference list examples that demonstrate the APA style guidelines for a master's thesis citation in action:

A master's thesis found in an online platform

Bauger, L . ( 2011 ). Personality, passion, self-esteem and psychological well-being among junior elite athletes in Norway ( Master's Thesis ). Retrieved from https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/29a9/ef96c34e577211246b83b11813a2585033c5.pdf

Bauger, L . ( 2011 ). Personality, passion, self-esteem and psychological well-being among junior elite athletes in Norway [ Master's Thesis , University of Tromsø ]. Semantic Scholar . https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/29a9/ef96c34e577211246b83b11813a2585033c5.pdf

An unpublished master's thesis

Aube, K. E . ( 2019 ). A comparison of water main failure prediction models in San Luis Obispo, CA ( Unpublished master's thesis ). Cal Poly , San Luis Obispo, CA .

Aube, K. E . ( 2019 ). A comparison of water main failure prediction models in San Luis Obispo, CA [ Unpublished master's thesis ]. Cal Poly .

This citation style guide is based on the official Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association ( 6 th edition).

More useful guides

• APA Referencing: Theses
• Citation Help for APA: Master's Thesis or Project
• APA Thesis, dissertation or exegesis?

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Database search tip : Add the phrase "literature review" to your search to find published literature reviews.

While at the GSD, you may be asked to conduct a literature review for research courses or if you are writing a thesis or dissertation.

What is a literature review? 

It is a survey of relevant or foundational texts about a particular topic, theory, or research question.  A literature review

May provide the background for larger work, or it may stand on its own.  

Is more than a simple list of sources; an effective literature review analyzes and synthesizes information about key themes or issues. 

Contains a set of themes fundamental enough to be considered a reasonable mode of entry into the field along with the relevant, foundational texts of that field or sub-field.

 Coheres around a chronological, geographic, technical, and/or cultural structure.

Is thorough but not comprehensive; it is impossible to reach an exhaustive knowledge of a field, especially as a graduate student.

How do you conduct a literature review?  

 Gather Sources through preliminary research 

• This step allows you to discover what has been written about in the field 
• Focus your topic:  A literature review aims to cover all of the research on a given topic. If the topic is too large, there will be too much material to cover it adequately.   

The GSD’s guidelines for doctoral literature reviews offers helpful examples of feasible topics:

A research area usually covers a relatively broad field like the ‘history of architecture from 1800 to the present,’ the ‘theories of urbanization in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries,’ or ‘digital fabrication.’ More focused major fields are of course possible and could include studies of ‘Decorative Art, Design and the Object: History, Theory, and Debate: 1850-1930,’ ‘Modernity and Modernism in Latin America,’ or ‘Life Cycle Design.’ 

• Read with a purpose:  Although you will need to briefly summarize sources, a good literature review requires that you isolate key themes or issues related to your own research interests.  

 Evaluate Sources 

Conduct a critical appraisal to evaluate the literature and what has been done already to see the gaps in the field, thus what still needs to be done in one’s own research 

For each book or article consider: Is the author an expert? Does the evidence support the conclusion? Is the argument or evidence complete?  

Does all research arrive at the same conclusion or are there differing opinions?  What evidence or reasoning are the differences based on? What questions are raised by the literature? Are there any gaps or omissions? 

 Write an Introduction 

• The introduction should identify your topic, some discussion of the significance of that topic and a thesis statement that outlines what conclusion you will draw from your analysis and synthesis of the literature. If your literature review is part of a larger work, explain the importance of the review to your research question. 
• Focus on the organizing principles of your literature review. How have you organized your sources?  

Have you organized it by theme? This is the most common way to organize literature reviews as it relates each source back to the field.  

Have you organized it by methodology? This is often used when discussing interdisciplinary approaches to a topic or when discussing a number of studies with a different approach. 

Have you organized it by chronology? This method is helpful when historical changes are central to explaining the topic. 

Write the body  

• The body will be comprised of your findings from evaluating the sources. In the body, discuss and assess the research according to the specific organizational principles above.  
• Focus on the relationship of sources to each other: how do these sources constitute a field?  
• Return to your evaluations and critical appraisals of the texts. Include these appraisals in the body of your literature review.  
• Articulate the relevance of these sources to your research question.  
• Demonstrate that your research and source selection is sufficient to constitute a reasonable mode of entry into the particular field where you what to conduct subsequent research.  

Write the conclusion 

• This section is perhaps the most important: you should briefly outline all gaps in the field and assess what is lacking in the current field of literature. Thus, you establish the value of your research and where you will situate your research within the context that you have explored in the body. 
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While Sandel argues that pursuing perfection through genetic engineering would decrease our sense of humility, he claims that the sense of solidarity we would lose is also important.

This thesis summarizes several points in Sandel’s argument, but it does not make a claim about how we should understand his argument. A reader who read Sandel’s argument would not also need to read an essay based on this descriptive thesis.  

Broad thesis (arguable, but difficult to support with evidence) 

Michael Sandel’s arguments about genetic engineering do not take into consideration all the relevant issues.

This is an arguable claim because it would be possible to argue against it by saying that Michael Sandel’s arguments do take all of the relevant issues into consideration. But the claim is too broad. Because the thesis does not specify which “issues” it is focused on—or why it matters if they are considered—readers won’t know what the rest of the essay will argue, and the writer won’t know what to focus on. If there is a particular issue that Sandel does not address, then a more specific version of the thesis would include that issue—hand an explanation of why it is important.  

Arguable thesis with analytical claim 

While Sandel argues persuasively that our instinct to “remake” (54) ourselves into something ever more perfect is a problem, his belief that we can always draw a line between what is medically necessary and what makes us simply “better than well” (51) is less convincing.

This is an arguable analytical claim. To argue for this claim, the essay writer will need to show how evidence from the article itself points to this interpretation. It’s also a reasonable scope for a thesis because it can be supported with evidence available in the text and is neither too broad nor too narrow.  

Arguable thesis with normative claim 

Given Sandel’s argument against genetic enhancement, we should not allow parents to decide on using Human Growth Hormone for their children.

This thesis tells us what we should do about a particular issue discussed in Sandel’s article, but it does not tell us how we should understand Sandel’s argument.  

Questions to ask about your thesis 

• Is the thesis truly arguable? Does it speak to a genuine dilemma in the source, or would most readers automatically agree with it?  
• Is the thesis too obvious? Again, would most or all readers agree with it without needing to see your argument?  
• Is the thesis complex enough to require a whole essay's worth of argument?  
• Is the thesis supportable with evidence from the text rather than with generalizations or outside research?  
• Would anyone want to read a paper in which this thesis was developed? That is, can you explain what this paper is adding to our understanding of a problem, question, or topic?
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Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts

MLA Formatting and Style Guide

Welcome to the Purdue OWL

This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice.

Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.

The following overview should help you better understand how to cite sources using MLA  9 th edition, including how to format the Works Cited page and in-text citations.

Please use the example at the bottom of this page to cite the Purdue OWL in MLA. See also our MLA vidcast series on the Purdue OWL YouTube Channel .

Creating a Works Cited list using the ninth edition

MLA is a style of documentation that may be applied to many different types of writing. Since texts have become increasingly digital, and the same document may often be found in several different sources, following a set of rigid rules no longer suffices.

Thus, the current system is based on a few guiding principles, rather than an extensive list of specific rules. While the handbook still describes how to cite sources, it is organized according to the process of documentation, rather than by the sources themselves. This gives writers a flexible method that is near-universally applicable.

Once you are familiar with the method, you can use it to document any type of source, for any type of paper, in any field.

Here is an overview of the process:

When deciding how to cite your source, start by consulting the list of core elements. These are the general pieces of information that MLA suggests including in each Works Cited entry. In your citation, the elements should be listed in the following order:

• Title of source.
• Title of container,
• Other contributors,
• Publication date,

Each element should be followed by the corresponding punctuation mark shown above. Earlier editions of the handbook included the place of publication and required different punctuation (such as journal editions in parentheses and colons after issue numbers) depending on the type of source. In the current version, punctuation is simpler (only commas and periods separate the elements), and information about the source is kept to the basics.

Begin the entry with the author’s last name, followed by a comma and the rest of the name, as presented in the work. End this element with a period.

Bhabha, Homi K. The Location of Culture. Routledge, 1994.

Title of source

The title of the source should follow the author’s name. Depending upon the type of source, it should be listed in italics or quotation marks.

A book should be in italics:

Henley, Patricia. The Hummingbird House . MacMurray, 1999.

An individual webpage should be in quotation marks. The name of the parent website, which MLA treats as a "container," should follow in italics:

Lundman, Susan. "How to Make Vegetarian Chili." eHow, www.ehow.com/how_10727_make-vegetarian-chili.html.*

A periodical (journal, magazine, newspaper) article should be in quotation marks:

Bagchi, Alaknanda. "Conflicting Nationalisms: The Voice of the Subaltern in Mahasweta Devi's Bashai Tudu." Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature , vol. 15, no. 1, 1996, pp. 41-50.

A song or piece of music on an album should be in quotation marks. The name of the album should then follow in italics:

Beyoncé. "Pray You Catch Me." Lemonade, Parkwood Entertainment, 2016, www.beyonce.com/album/lemonade-visual-album/.

*The MLA handbook recommends including URLs when citing online sources. For more information, see the “Optional Elements” section below.

Title of container

The eighth edition of the MLA handbook introduced what are referred to as "containers," which are the larger wholes in which the source is located. For example, if you want to cite a poem that is listed in a collection of poems, the individual poem is the source, while the larger collection is the container. The title of the container is usually italicized and followed by a comma, since the information that follows next describes the container.

Kincaid, Jamaica. "Girl." The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Short Stories, edited by Tobias Wolff, Vintage, 1994, pp. 306-07.

The container may also be a television series, which is made up of episodes.

“94 Meetings.” Parks and Recreation, created by Greg Daniels and Michael Schur, performance by Amy Poehler, season 2, episode 21, Deedle-Dee Productions and Universal Media Studios, 2010.

The container may also be a website, which contains articles, postings, and other works.

Wise, DeWanda. “Why TV Shows Make Me Feel Less Alone.”  NAMI,  31 May 2019,  www.nami.org/Blogs/NAMI-Blog/May-2019/How-TV-Shows-Make-Me-Feel-Less-Alone . Accessed 3 June 2019.

In some cases, a container might be within a larger container. You might have read a book of short stories on Google Books , or watched a television series on Netflix . You might have found the electronic version of a journal on JSTOR. It is important to cite these containers within containers so that your readers can find the exact source that you used.

“94 Meetings.” Parks and Recreation , season 2, episode 21, NBC , 29 Apr. 2010. Netflix, www.netflix.com/watch/70152031?trackId=200256157&tctx=0%2C20%2C0974d361-27cd-44de-9c2a-2d9d868b9f64-12120962.

Langhamer, Claire. “Love and Courtship in Mid-Twentieth-Century England.” Historical Journal , vol. 50, no. 1, 2007, pp. 173-96. ProQuest, doi:10.1017/S0018246X06005966. Accessed 27 May 2009.

Other contributors

In addition to the author, there may be other contributors to the source who should be credited, such as editors, illustrators, translators, etc. If their contributions are relevant to your research, or necessary to identify the source, include their names in your documentation.

Foucault, Michel. Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason. Translated by Richard Howard , Vintage-Random House, 1988.

Woolf, Virginia. Jacob’s Room . Annotated and with an introduction by Vara Neverow, Harcourt, Inc., 2008.

If a source is listed as an edition or version of a work, include it in your citation.

The Bible . Authorized King James Version, Oxford UP, 1998.

Crowley, Sharon, and Debra Hawhee. Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students. 3rd ed., Pearson, 2004.

If a source is part of a numbered sequence, such as a multi-volume book or journal with both volume and issue numbers, those numbers must be listed in your citation.

Dolby, Nadine. “Research in Youth Culture and Policy: Current Conditions and Future Directions.” Social Work and Society: The International Online-Only Journal, vol. 6, no. 2, 2008, www.socwork.net/sws/article/view/60/362. Accessed 20 May 2009.

Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria. Translated by H. E. Butler, vol. 2, Loeb-Harvard UP, 1980.

The publisher produces or distributes the source to the public. If there is more than one publisher, and they are all are relevant to your research, list them in your citation, separated by a forward slash (/).

Klee, Paul. Twittering Machine. 1922. Museum of Modern Art, New York. The Artchive, www.artchive.com/artchive/K/klee/twittering_machine.jpg.html. Accessed May 2006.

Women's Health: Problems of the Digestive System . American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 2006.

Daniels, Greg and Michael Schur, creators. Parks and Recreation . Deedle-Dee Productions and Universal Media Studios, 2015.

Note : The publisher’s name need not be included in the following sources: periodicals, works published by their author or editor, websites whose titles are the same name as their publisher, websites that make works available but do not actually publish them (such as  YouTube ,  WordPress , or  JSTOR ).

Publication date

The same source may have been published on more than one date, such as an online version of an original source. For example, a television series might have aired on a broadcast network on one date, but released on  Netflix  on a different date. When the source has more than one date, it is sufficient to use the date that is most relevant to your writing. If you’re unsure about which date to use, go with the date of the source’s original publication.

In the following example, Mutant Enemy is the primary production company, and “Hush” was released in 1999. Below is a general citation for this television episode:

“Hush.” Buffy the Vampire Slayer , created by Joss Whedon, performance by Sarah Michelle Gellar, season 4, Mutant Enemy, 1999 .

However, if you are discussing, for example, the historical context in which the episode originally aired, you should cite the full date. Because you are specifying the date of airing, you would then use WB Television Network (rather than Mutant Enemy), because it was the network (rather than the production company) that aired the episode on the date you’re citing.

“Hush.” Buffy the Vampire Slayer, created by Joss Whedon, performance by Sarah Michelle Gellar, season 4, episode 10, WB Television Network, 14 Dec. 1999 .

You should be as specific as possible in identifying a work’s location.

An essay in a book or an article in a journal should include page numbers.

Adiche, Chimamanda Ngozi. “On Monday of Last Week.” The Thing around Your Neck, Alfred A. Knopf, 2009, pp. 74-94 .

The location of an online work should include a URL.  Remove any "http://" or "https://" tag from the beginning of the URL.

Wheelis, Mark. "Investigating Disease Outbreaks Under a Protocol to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention." Emerging Infectious Diseases , vol. 6, no. 6, 2000, pp. 595-600, wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/6/6/00-0607_article. Accessed 8 Feb. 2009.

When citing a physical object that you experienced firsthand, identify the place of location.

Matisse, Henri. The Swimming Pool. 1952, Museum of Modern Art, New York .

Optional elements

The ninth edition is designed to be as streamlined as possible. The author should include any information that helps readers easily identify the source, without including unnecessary information that may be distracting. The following is a list of optional elements that can be included in a documented source at the writer’s discretion.

Date of original publication:

If a source has been published on more than one date, the writer may want to include both dates if it will provide the reader with necessary or helpful information.

Erdrich, Louise. Love Medicine. 1984. Perennial-Harper, 1993.

City of publication:

The seventh edition handbook required the city in which a publisher is located, but the eighth edition states that this is only necessary in particular instances, such as in a work published before 1900. Since pre-1900 works were usually associated with the city in which they were published, your documentation may substitute the city name for the publisher’s name.

Thoreau, Henry David. Excursions . Boston, 1863.

Date of access:

When you cite an online source, the MLA Handbook recommends including a date of access on which you accessed the material, since an online work may change or move at any time.

Bernstein, Mark. "10 Tips on Writing the Living Web." A List Apart: For People Who Make Websites, 16 Aug. 2002, alistapart.com/article/writeliving. Accessed 4 May 2009.

As mentioned above, while the MLA handbook recommends including URLs when you cite online sources, you should always check with your instructor or editor and include URLs at their discretion.

A DOI, or digital object identifier, is a series of digits and letters that leads to the location of an online source. Articles in journals are often assigned DOIs to ensure that the source is locatable, even if the URL changes. If your source is listed with a DOI, use that instead of a URL.

Alonso, Alvaro, and Julio A. Camargo. "Toxicity of Nitrite to Three Species of Freshwater Invertebrates." Environmental Toxicology , vol. 21, no. 1, 3 Feb. 2006, pp. 90-94. Wiley Online Library, doi: 10.1002/tox.20155.

Creating in-text citations using the previous (eighth) edition

Although the MLA handbook is currently in its ninth edition, some information about citing in the text using the older (eighth) edition is being retained. The in-text citation is a brief reference within your text that indicates the source you consulted. It should properly attribute any ideas, paraphrases, or direct quotations to your source, and should direct readers to the entry in the Works Cited list. For the most part, an in-text citation is the  author’s name and the page number (or just the page number, if the author is named in the sentence) in parentheses :

When creating in-text citations for media that has a runtime, such as a movie or podcast, include the range of hours, minutes and seconds you plan to reference. For example: (00:02:15-00:02:35).

Again, your goal is to attribute your source and provide a reference without interrupting your text. Your readers should be able to follow the flow of your argument without becoming distracted by extra information.

How to Cite the Purdue OWL in MLA

Entire Website

The Purdue OWL . Purdue U Writing Lab, 2019.

Individual Resources

Contributors' names. "Title of Resource." The Purdue OWL , Purdue U Writing Lab, Last edited date.

The new OWL no longer lists most pages' authors or publication dates. Thus, in most cases, citations will begin with the title of the resource, rather than the developer's name.

"MLA Formatting and Style Guide." The Purdue OWL, Purdue U Writing Lab. Accessed 18 Jun. 2018.