How to Cite a Dissertation or Thesis in MLA 9

To cite a dissertation in MLA 9, list the author, the italicized title, the year, then the institution and a plain description such as "PhD dissertation" or "MA thesis." If you read it online, add the database or repository as a second container, followed by the URL. MLA stopped separating published from unpublished dissertations in the eighth edition (2016), and the ninth edition (2021) keeps that rule, so one pattern covers a bound copy in a library basement and a ProQuest download.

The official MLA 9 rule

The MLA Handbook, 9th edition, builds every Works Cited entry from the same template of core elements: Author, Title of Source, Title of Container, Contributors, Version, Number, Publisher, Publication Date, Location. A dissertation uses only three of them as required elements: author, title, and date. The MLA Style Center adds that the institution granting the degree and a description of the work are optional elements, and it includes both in its own example. Treat them as mandatory in practice. Without "Northwestern U, PhD dissertation," your reader has an italicized title and a year and no way to tell a thesis from a novel.

Format, print or unpublished copy:

Last Name, First Name. Title of Dissertation. Year. Institution, Description.

Format, accessed online:

Last Name, First Name. Title of Dissertation. Year. Institution, Description. Database or Repository, URL.

The MLA's own example (MLA Style Center, "How do I cite a dissertation in MLA style?"):

Njus, Jesse. Performing the Passion: A Study on the Nature of Medieval Acting. 2010. Northwestern U, PhD dissertation.

Njus, Jesse. Performing the Passion: A Study on the Nature of Medieval Acting. 2010. Northwestern U, PhD dissertation. ProQuest, search.proquest.com/docview/305212264.

Four details in that entry do the work:

• The year comes right after the title. In a book entry the date sits after the publisher; in a dissertation entry there is no publisher, so the date moves up and the institution follows it. Swapping the two is an easy slip because it copies the book pattern.
• The description is roman type. "PhD dissertation" and "MA thesis" carry no italics and no quotation marks. The title is the only italicized element in the first container.
• The institution can be abbreviated. MLA shortens "University" to "U" and "University Press" to "UP" in publisher names, and the Style Center applies the same habit here ("Northwestern U"). Writing "Northwestern University" in full is also accepted by most instructors. Pick one form for the whole list.
• The database is a second container. ProQuest is italicized like any container title, then a comma, then the URL. It is never treated as the publisher of the dissertation.

The supplemental element for dissertations (institution plus description) is covered in section 5.113 of the Handbook, alongside the other supplemental elements that follow the date.

What changed from MLA 7

If you learned MLA before 2016, or your department's sample paper predates it, you will recognize this form:

Njus, Jesse. Performing the Passion: A Study on the Nature of Medieval Acting. Diss. Northwestern U, 2010. Ann Arbor: UMI, 2010. Print.

Every piece of that is gone. MLA 8 dropped the "Diss." abbreviation, the publication medium ("Print," "Web"), the UMI publisher line, and the distinction between published and unpublished work. MLA 9 changed none of it back. If a library handout still shows "Diss." or "Web," it is a seventh-edition handout.

Worked examples

Each example gives the Works Cited entry, then the in-text citation. The in-text form is the same author-page pattern MLA uses for every source: (Njus 45) in parentheses, or the author's name in the sentence with the page alone in parentheses. Our complete guide to in-text citations covers the variations.

1. PhD dissertation, print or unpublished copy

You read a bound copy or a PDF the author sent you, and it is not posted anywhere public.

Njus, Jesse. Performing the Passion: A Study on the Nature of Medieval Acting. 2010. Northwestern U, PhD dissertation.

In-text: (Njus 112), or Njus's name in the sentence with the page alone in parentheses: Njus makes the case at length (112).

2. PhD dissertation from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global

ProQuest is the database most North American students meet first. Its name goes in italics as the second container; the docview URL is the location.

Gentile, Sarah. Leadership Actions for Equitable Arts Education. 2023. Syracuse U, PhD dissertation. ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global, search.proquest.com/docview/2825084800.

In-text: (Gentile 54)

Two choices in that entry are yours. You may write the container as ProQuest (the Style Center does) or as ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global (the full product name on the record page); both identify the source. You may also write "Syracuse University" in full. Whatever you decide, apply it to every dissertation in the list.

3. Dissertation in a university repository

Most universities now post doctoral work in an open repository (DSpace, Digital Commons, ResearchSpace, OhioLINK and so on). The repository name is the container; the handle or permalink is the location.

Sadikeen, Shiraz. Dead Ends: Critique, Contradiction and the Commodity Form. 2024. U of Auckland, PhD dissertation. ResearchSpace, hdl.handle.net/2292/68412.

In-text: (Sadikeen 203)

When the repository page offers a handle (hdl.handle.net/...) or a DOI as well as the browser URL, use the handle or DOI. MLA 9 prefers a DOI where one exists because it will not break when the library reorganizes its site.

4. Master's thesis

Same template; only the description changes. "MA thesis," "MS thesis," and "Master's thesis" all appear in library guides and all satisfy the Handbook. "MA thesis" is the MLA Style Center's own form.

Angelova, Anelia Nedelcheva. Data Pruning. 2004. California Institute of Technology, MS thesis. CaltechTHESIS, resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechETD:etd-05282004-000943.

In-text: (Angelova 17)

5. Master's thesis read as a PDF, no online record

Evans, Angela. The Effects of Teaching Analogy-Based Reading and Spelling Strategies to Children in Years Three and Four. 2013. Massey U, MA thesis.

In-text: (Evans 20)

If the same thesis is in the Massey repository, which this one is, add the container: Massey Research Online, mro.massey.ac.nz/handle/10179/5126. Cite the version you used. A reader who follows your entry should land where you did.

6. Dissertation with a DOI

Repositories increasingly mint DOIs. MLA 9 writes a DOI as a full https://doi.org/ link in the location slot.

Wiley, Amanda J. Exploring Nursing Students' Knowledge and Attitudes Regarding Academic Integrity: Perceptions of Severity. 2021. Columbia U, PhD dissertation. Columbia Academic Commons, https://doi.org/10.7916/d8-z7kc-5a88.

In-text: (Wiley 5)

7. Undergraduate honors or bachelor's thesis

The Handbook gives no separate pattern, so extend the description. "Honors thesis," "BA thesis," and "Undergraduate thesis" are all defensible; use the label on the title page.

Author, First Name. Title of Thesis. Year. Institution, Honors thesis.

In-text: (Author 9)

The placeholder names above are deliberate. An honors thesis that is not deposited online exists only as the copy you were given, and a fabricated author would be a fabricated source.

8. Dissertation in a language other than English

Keep the original title. MLA 9 lets you add a translation in square brackets after it if your readers need one.

Author, First Name. Titre de la thèse [Title of the Dissertation]. Year. U de Montréal, PhD dissertation. Papyrus, URL.

In-text: (Author 88)

Special cases

The dissertation has no page numbers

Many repository PDFs paginate; some HTML renderings and some ProQuest previews do not. MLA's rule is to cite the author alone, (Sadikeen), and never to count screens or PDF-viewer pages yourself. If the work has numbered chapters or sections, MLA permits "ch. 3" or "sec. 2" in place of a page: (Sadikeen, ch. 3). Note the comma, which MLA uses only when the locator is something other than a page number.

Two dissertations by the same author, or the author also wrote a book you cite

The in-text citation needs a shortened title to tell them apart: (Njus, Performing 45) versus (Njus, Medieval Stage 12). In the Works Cited, list the entries alphabetically by title, and from the second entry onward MLA replaces the author's name with three em dashes followed by a period.

The dissertation was later published as a book

Cite what you read. If you worked from the published monograph, cite it as a book in MLA 9 and leave the dissertation out. If you read the original dissertation because the book changed the argument, cite the dissertation. Citing both is fine when you draw on both, each with its own entry.

Only the abstract is available (embargoed work)

Embargoed dissertations show a ProQuest or repository record with an abstract and no full text. You have two honest options. Track the full text down through interlibrary loan and cite it normally, or cite the abstract, which the MLA Style Center treats as its own kind of source: the author, the description "Abstract of" plus the italicized title in place of a title, then the container and URL. Do not cite the dissertation as if you had read it. The chapter you quote from memory of the abstract is the chapter your marker will ask about.

Institution is missing from the record

Some aggregators (Google Scholar, CORE, a departmental page) strip the institution. Open the PDF; the title page almost always names it. If it genuinely is not there, the Style Center's rule for any missing element applies: skip it. "2019. PhD dissertation." is an acceptable first container, and the repository in the second container will usually reveal the university anyway.

Your own thesis

Cite it exactly as you would anyone else's, with your name as author. MLA has no self-citation format, and leaving yourself out is the one choice that can be read as reusing work without attribution. Our guide to citing a source you cannot find or access covers the related case of a thesis that was never deposited and that you no longer have.

An instructor says to follow MLA 8

Nothing in this post changes. MLA 9 did not alter the dissertation pattern; it added examples and clarified punctuation. An MLA 8 entry and an MLA 9 entry for the same dissertation are identical.

Common mistakes and how to avoid them

• "Diss." in front of the institution. It is the MLA 7 abbreviation and was removed in 2016. Write "PhD dissertation" after the institution.
• Italicizing or quoting the description. Library guides disagree with each other here, and at least one well-known university guide italicizes "MA thesis." The Handbook and the Style Center do not. Roman type, no quotation marks.
• Year at the end of the first container. The date follows the title: "Title. 2010. Northwestern U, PhD dissertation." A date after the description ("Northwestern U, PhD dissertation, 2010") follows the book pattern and misreads the template.
• ProQuest as publisher. "Ann Arbor: UMI" and "ProQuest, 2010" are both MLA 7 relics. ProQuest is a container, italicized, placed after the description and followed by a URL.
• A proxy URL. ezproxy.yourlibrary.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/... works only for people logged in at your campus. Strip the proxy prefix and give the docview URL, or the DOI if the record shows one.
• "Accessed" dates on every entry. MLA 9 makes the access date optional and suggests it for sources that lack a date or that change. A dated dissertation in a stable repository does not need one.
• "Web." or "Print." at the end. The medium element was dropped in MLA 8.
• Capitalizing the degree inconsistently. "PhD dissertation" and "MA thesis" in one entry, "Ph.D. Dissertation" in the next. MLA writes the degree without periods and the noun in lowercase. Choose the Style Center's forms and hold to them.

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