How to cite YouTube Video per MLA?
You are writing a scholarly paper. You have done your homework. Found a couple of great YouTube video sources. And now you have to cite them in your paper in MLA style. Here is how you do it.
You are writing a scholarly paper. You have done your homework. Found a couple of great YouTube video sources. And now you have to cite them in your paper in MLA style. Here is how you do it.
Before we start.
💡 A quick detour on MLA citing format. Modern Language Association (MLA) format is a style of crediting sources you use in written scholarly work. It is commonly used to cite sources in research papers within liberal arts and humanities.
YouTube video and audio must be cited using guidelines similar to citing printed sources. Basically, MLA citations is just information arranged in a specific order. For Youtube, you need the five things:
That’s pretty much it. And Here is the outline of the five things described:
Creator's Last Name, First Name. "Title of Video." YouTube, uploaded by [Uploader if different from creator], Day Month Year, URL.
Let’s take a video by Lex Fridman. He did a wonderful interview of Ray Kurtzweil about AI and the future of humanity. Here is how you cite it in your working paper:
Fridman, Lex. "Ray Kurzweil: Singularity, Superintelligence, and Immortality" YouTube, 17 September 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykY69lSpDdo.
Good question. In this case start with a title instead. And do include the information about who uploaded the video. Here is an example, if Ray Kurzweil interview was uploaded by someone called Curious Lex:
"Ray Kurzweil: Singularity, Superintelligence, and Immortality " YouTube, uploaded by Curious Lex, 17 September 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykY69lSpDdo.
There are two way to do this if your citing the same interview of Ray Kurzweil by Lex Fridman:
Proper citations maintain academic integrity. They allow for source verification. And demonstrate your research skills. While it may seem tedious, accurate citations are a crucial part of scholarly work.
Before you go away, here are important MLA format things to remember:
That’s it.
Oh, and lastly here is a quick visual guide to help you with your future citations:
I hope this is helpful.
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