mla format citation speech

• For educators

Citing a speech in MLA style

Create a new citation.

• Film/Online Video
• Online Database
• Advertisement
• Digital File
• Digital Image
• Dissertation
• Government Publication
• Introduction
• Miscellaneous
• Musical Recording
• Press Release
• Scholarly Project

Published February 11, 2021. Updated August 5, 2021.

To cite a speech, you need to know the name of the speaker, date, title of the speech, and URL (uniform resource locator) of the speech.

The templates and examples below are based on the  MLA Handbook , 9th Edition, and the  Official MLA Style website .

On this page, you can learn how to cite the following:

Speech transcript

Speech, audio recording

Speech, video recording

If you’re trying to cite a speech, the  Chegg Writing MLA citation generator  could also help.

Help protect your paper against accidental plagiarism with the Chegg Writing  plagiarism checker  and  citation generator .

Citing a speech transcript in MLA style

In-text citation templates and examples:

Parenthetical:

(Speaker’s Surname)

Note that year is not mentioned in parenthetical citations.

Works cited entry template and example:

Speaker’s Surname, First Name. “Title of the transcript.” Date of Speech.  Website Title/Container Transcript is Published in , Publisher, URL. Transcript (include if audio or video recordings also available).

Johnson, Lyndon B. “We Shall Overcome.” 15 Mar. 1965.  Voices of Democracy: The U.S. Oratory Project , U of Maryland, voicesofdemocracy.umd.edu/johnson-we-shall-overcome-speech-text/. Transcript.

Month is abbreviated in the works cited entry.

Read this  MLA format  guide for more style basics.

Citing a speech (audio recording) in MLA style

(Eisenhower)

Speaker’s Surname, First Name. “Title of the transcript.” Date of Speech.  Website Title/Container Transcript is Published in , Publisher, URL.

Eisenhower, Dwight D. “Farewell Address.” 17 Jan. 1961.  American Rhetoric ,  www.americanrhetoric.com/mp3clips/politicalspeeches/dwighteisenhowerfarewell.mp3 .

Citing a speech (video recording) in MLA style

Kennedy, Edward M. “Eulogy for Robert F. Kennedy.” 8 June 1968.  American Rhetoric ,  www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/ekennedytributetorfk.html .

For more information on citing sources in MLA, also read these guides on  MLA in-text citations  and  MLA works cited examples .

MLA Style: Learn More

Unlock more help for your courses

Nail down everything from main ideas to small edits: real expert proofreading, plagiarism scans, and instant grammar checks 24/7

Writing Help

Get the most out of chegg writing.

  Chegg Writing »  MLA Citation Generator  » Citing a speech in MLA style

• Library Catalogue

Citing lectures, speeches, or conference proceedings: MLA (9th ed.) citation guide

This guide is based on the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 9th ed. and provides selected citation examples for common types of sources.  For more detailed information, please consult the full manual: available in print and online .

Lecture, speech, reading or address

When citing a live presentation like a speech or lecture from a conference or an event, include the name of the sponsoring/presenting organization (after the title), and the venue (after date and before the wider location) in your works cited. 

Parenthetical (in-text) 

The presenter went to great lengths to prove his point regarding how your brain has been shaped by evolution (Crespi). 

Works cited 

A live lecture  .

Crespi, Bernie. "Darwin and Your Brain." Vancouver Evolution Festival . Simon Fraser University and University of British Columbia, 12 Feb. 2009, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver.

An online recording of a live presentation

Parker, Pardis. “Why Being a Billionaire is a Joke.” TED , Oct. 2022, www.ted.com/talks/pardis_parker_why_being_a_billionaire_is_a_joke.

Conference proceedings

A conference proceeding is the published record of a conference, congress, symposium, or other meeting sponsored by a society or association. The document will look similar to an article or book chapter (and it may in fact be a chapter in a book). To cite a conference proceeding, provide the same information as when citing a book or article , but also include additional information such as the title and date of the conference.

You may be citing an edited book of proceedings (see Edited print books ) or a single presentation, in which you would cite the author(s)/presenter(s), the title of the presentation, and the conference proceeding details similar to a book chapter or journal article .

Parenthetical (in-text)

Social media provides a platform for more minority groups to speak out (Fu).

Works cited

Whole proceedings.

Chang, Steve S., et al., editors. Proceedings of the Twenty-Fifth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, February 12–15, 1999: General Session and Parasession on Loan Word Phenomena . Berkeley Linguistics Society, 2000.

A single presentation

Fu, Yige, et al. “Research on the Influences of Social Media to Gender Equality.” SHS Web of Conferences , vol. 148, EDP Sciences, 2022, https://doi.org/10.1051/shsconf/202214803026.

Still using MLA 8?

We've now updated our citation guides to MLA 9, but you can still use the printable version of our MLA 8 citation guide. 

Need more help? Check our Ask a Librarian services .

• Free Tools for Students
• MLA Citation Generator

Free MLA Citation Generator

Generate accurate citations in MLA format automatically, with MyBib!

😕 What is an MLA Citation Generator?

An MLA citation generator is a software tool designed to automatically create academic citations in the Modern Language Association (MLA) citation format. The generator will take information such as document titles, author, and URLs as in input, and output fully formatted citations that can be inserted into the Works Cited page of an MLA-compliant academic paper.

The citations on a Works Cited page show the external sources that were used to write the main body of the academic paper, either directly as references and quotes, or indirectly as ideas.

👩‍🎓 Who uses an MLA Citation Generator?

MLA style is most often used by middle school and high school students in preparation for transition to college and further education. Ironically, MLA style is not actually used all that often beyond middle and high school, with APA (American Psychological Association) style being the favored style at colleges across the country.

It is also important at this level to learn why it's critical to cite sources, not just how to cite them.

🙌 Why should I use a Citation Generator?

Writing citations manually is time consuming and error prone. Automating this process with a citation generator is easy, straightforward, and gives accurate results. It's also easier to keep citations organized and in the correct order.

The Works Cited page contributes to the overall grade of a paper, so it is important to produce accurately formatted citations that follow the guidelines in the official MLA Handbook .

⚙️ How do I use MyBib's MLA Citation Generator?

It's super easy to create MLA style citations with our MLA Citation Generator. Scroll back up to the generator at the top of the page and select the type of source you're citing. Books, journal articles, and webpages are all examples of the types of sources our generator can cite automatically. Then either search for the source, or enter the details manually in the citation form.

The generator will produce a formatted MLA citation that can be copied and pasted directly into your document, or saved to MyBib as part of your overall Works Cited page (which can be downloaded fully later!).

MyBib supports the following for MLA style:

Daniel is a qualified librarian, former teacher, and citation expert. He has been contributing to MyBib since 2018.

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.

How do I cite an online lecture or speech?

Note: This post relates to content in the eighth edition of the MLA Handbook . For up-to-date guidance, see the ninth edition of the MLA Handbook .

To cite an online lecture or speech, follow the MLA format template . List the name of the presenter, followed by the title of the lecture. Then list the name of the website as the title of the container, the date on which the lecture was posted, and the URL:  

Allende, Isabel. “Tales of Passion.” TED: Ideas Worth Spreading , Jan. 2008, www.ted.com/talks/isabel_allende_tells_tales_of_passion/ transcript?language=en .

Home / Guides / Citation Guides / MLA Format / How to Cite a Lecture in MLA

How to Cite a Lecture in MLA

Citing a lecture.

Here’s a quick overview of how to cite a lecture in MLA style 9th edition.

Lecture – An oral presentation intended to present information about a particular subject; can be a speech, reading, or address.

MLA Lecture Citation Structure:

Speaker Last Name, First Name. “Presentation Title.” Event Name, Day Month Year presented, Location, City. Lecture.

Note: The event title, city, and location are not always specified in the lecture, but the information can be found elsewhere (like event programs).

MLA Lecture Citation Example:

Hamilton, Buffy J. “Illuminating Learning Communities Through School Libraries and Makerspaces: Creating, Constructing, Collaborating, Contributing.” Texas Library Association Conference, 29 Aug. 2013, Fort Worth Convention Center, Fort Worth. Lecture.

MLA Lecture In-text Citation Structure:

(Speaker Last Name)

MLA Lecture In-text Citation Example:

Troubleshooting, solution #1: referencing a lecturer repeating a quotation.

Often, lecturers will quote other sources in their presentations. When this happens, it is important to not misrepresent the information as their own original idea.

If the author is mentioned in the sentence, credit them by placing “qtd. in” followed by the lecturer’s name in parentheses.

In-text citation, indirect source where the author is mentioned in the sentence:

If the author of the original statement is not mentioned in the sentence, write their name followed by “qtd. in” and the lecturer’s name. Place this information in parentheses.

According to Johnson, the statistics needed to be run a fourth time to verify the data (qtd. in Dalton).

In-text citation, indirect source where the author is NOT mentioned in the sentence:

• Write the author’s name in last name first name format with a period following.
• List the title or a description of the lecture in quotations with a period following.
• Write the name of the event with a comma afterward.
• Write the date that the event was held in day, month, year format with a comma following.
• List the location of the event with a comma between the specific location and city with a period following.
• Write “Lecture” with a period following.

According to the article, the statistics needed to be run a fourth time to verify the data (Johnson qtd. in Dalton).

Reference example of an indirect source:

Barron, Dalton. “An Analysis of Books by Jerome Walton.” Colloquium for English Research, 1 May 2021, Denver Arts Building, Denver. Lecture.

Solution #2: How to cite a class lecture that you saw in person.

Create an in-text citation by placing the speaker’s name in parentheses. Example:

Contrary to our expectations, the data in section three suggests that the apes did not use fewer interactive enrichment tools (Barron).

To create a reference page citation, do the following:

• Write the speaker’s name in last name, first name format with a period following.
• Write the name of the course with a comma following.
• List the location and city of the event with a period following.
• Lastly, write “Class lecture” with a period following.

Reference example:

Barron, Dalton. “An Analysis of Books by Jerome Walton.” An Introduction to Literary Theory, 1 May 2021, The University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg. Class lecture.

MLA Formatting Guide

MLA Formatting

• Annotated Bibliography
• Bibliography
• Block Quotes
• et al Usage
• In-text Citations
• Paraphrasing
• Page Numbers
• Sample Paper
• Works Cited
• MLA 8 Updates
• MLA 9 Updates
• View MLA Guide

Citation Examples

• Book Chapter
• Journal Article
• Magazine Article
• Newspaper Article
• Website (no author)
• View all MLA Examples

How useful was this post?

Click on a star to rate it!

We are sorry that this post was not useful for you!

Let us improve this post!

Tell us how we can improve this post?

MLA Citation Examples

Writing Tools

Citation Generators

Other Citation Styles

Plagiarism Checker

Upload a paper to check for plagiarism against billions of sources and get advanced writing suggestions for clarity and style.

Get Started