When an author is MIA, MLA says: use the title. Think of the title as the source’s stand-in name for the citation. If the source is an article called “The Science of Sourdough,” that phrase becomes your actor’s stage name in both your in-text citation and your Works Cited page.
For your in-text citation, place the title in quotation marks if it’s a short work (like a web article or poem). If it’s a book, italicize it. Easy, right? Then add the page number if you have one. Example: (“The Science of Sourdough” 22).
Pro tip: If the title is long, use a shortened version—just the first few key words. “The Science of Sourdough” becomes “Science of Sourdough.” You’re not writing a legal document; you’re helping your reader find the source quickly.
Your Works Cited Entry: The No-Name Workaround
On your Works Cited page, the title now moves to the very first slot, where the author’s name would normally live. The rest of the entry—publisher, date, URL—follows as usual. It looks something like this: “The Science of Sourdough.” Baking Monthly, 15 Mar. 2026, www.bakingmonthly.com/sourdough.
Notice the period after the title? It’s not a typo. In MLA, the title ends with a period before the next container (like the journal or website name). Punctuation matters here—it’s the grammar police of academic writing, but hey, rules give structure to our chaos.
Here’s a fun fact: This rule applies to entire websites, too. If you’re citing the website “World Health Organization” without a specific author for a page, you still start with the title of the page. The World Health Organization itself becomes the publisher.
