How to cite a report in MLA 9
A technical or policy report from a government agency or organization. Standard in literature, languages, and the humanities. 9th edition published 2021.
Quick answer
To cite a report in MLA 9, include the author(s), year, title, and container or publisher details. A concrete example is below.
Example
World Bank. "World Development Report 2023: Migrants, Refugees, and Societies." World Bank Group, 2023.
This example is rendered with the official CSL definition for MLA 9. For the exact style required by your journal, paste your references into DEEPNOTIS and pick that style from the dropdown — the app covers 2,800+ variants.
What you need
For a report, MLA 9 expects these fields at minimum:
- Author or issuing organization
- Year
- Report title
- Report number (if assigned)
- Publisher
- URL (if online)
Common mistakes
- Abbreviating author names. MLA spells out the first author's full name.
- Using parentheses around the year — that's APA. MLA puts the year inside the container description.
- Forgetting the DOI. When a DOI exists, most styles now require it (usually as a full https://doi.org/… URL).
- Inconsistent capitalization. APA uses sentence case for titles; MLA and Chicago use title case. Mixing them is the single most common style error.
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Last updated: 5 May 2026