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MLA Style Guide Ninth Edition

Title of Container

On the MLA template of core elements, a container is a work that contains another work. The title of the container is italicized and is followed by comma since the information that follows describes the container. In the example below, the website Guernica contains the short story " Carrot Legs"; the website name appears in the Title of Container element.

Chour, Elaine Hsieh. "Carrot Legs." Guernica, 12 Sept. 2019, www.guernicamag.com/carrot-legs/.

Examples of containers are shown in the following list:

  • A periodical, such as a journal, magazine, or newspaper, is the container of an article published in it.
  • A print anthology is the container of an essay, poem, or short story published in it.
  • A website or database can be the container of a post, a comment, a review, a song or audio file, a video or  film, an image, a digitized essay or book, or other media published or aggregated on it. 
  • A vinyl album or CD is the container of a song.
  • Television series, podcasts, and radio programs are the containers of individual episodes.
  • An art exhibit is the container of artwork featured in it.

Examples of works with one container:

 

Book

Davis, Angela Y. Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday. Pantheon, 1998.

 

Periodical

Kafka, Ben. "The Demon of Writing: Paperwork, Public Safety, and the Reign of Terror." Representations, no. 98, 2007, pp1-24.

Note:  A work can sometimes have two containers. A container can be nested in another container. When there is more than one container, include as much information as possible about each container to help the reader understand and locate the original source. The following template can be used as a guide to cite a work with two containers.

 

Container 1

1. Author.

2. Title of source.

3. Title of container,

4. Other contributors,

5. Version,

6. Number,

7. Publisher,

8. Publication date,

9. Location.

 

Container 2

3. Title of container,

4. Other contributors,

5. Version,

6. Number,

7. Publiser,

8. Publication date,

9. Location.

 

Examples

 

Website

Toorn, Penny van, and Daniel Justice. "Aboriginal Writing." The Cambridge Companion to Canadian Literature, edited by Eva-Marie Kröller, Cambridge UP,
          2017, pp.26-58. Cambridge Core, Https://doi.org/10.1017/978131667.004.

 

Television

"I, Borg." Star Trek: The Next Generation, season 5, episode 23, Paramount Pictures, 1992. Netflix, www.netflix.com.