On this page
Updated . Example details checked against The Paris Review, no. 128, Fall 1993, interviewed by Elissa Schappell; the Purdue OWL MLA example of an interview you conducted.
The MLA format
Pattern
Last name, First name. “Title.” Interview by First Last. Publication, Date, URL.
- The person interviewed leads, because their words are what you cite.
- Untitled interview: write Interview by and the interviewer, without quotation marks.
- Your own interview: Last name, First name. Personal interview. Day Month Year. For email or phone, you can say “Email interview” or “Telephone interview.”
A real example
Works Cited entry
Morrison, Toni. “The Art of Fiction No. 134.” Interview by Elissa Schappell. The Paris Review, Fall 1993, www.theparisreview.org/interviews/1888/toni-morrison-the-art-of-fiction-no-134-toni-morrison.
In-text citation
(Morrison)
An interview you conducted (the MLA example form)
Works Cited entry
Smith, Jane. Personal interview. 19 May 2014.
In-text citation
(Smith)
When details are missing
- No interviewer named: write “Interview” after the title, or leave it out.
- No pages in an online interview: the citation is the name alone.
Common mistakes
- Listing the interviewer first. The interviewee leads; the interviewer follows “Interview by.”
- Leaving a personal interview out of Works Cited. In MLA, it gets an entry. (APA is different.)
Or let Format do it.
Choose Interview: name the person interviewed and the interviewer, and where it was published. Leave “Published in” empty for your own interview. Format writes the Works Cited entry and the in-text citation in MLA 9, exactly as shown above, and builds the Works Cited page when you export to Word or PDF. MLA and APA are free.
Questions
Does an interview I conducted go in Works Cited?
Yes, in MLA. Write the person’s name, “Personal interview,” and the date.
How do I cite an interview in a podcast or video?
Use the podcast or video pattern, and name the guest in your sentence.
More citation guides
The same source in other styles
Similar sources in MLA
Every source kind is on the MLA page, and every style is on How to cite.