MLA 9 dissertation citation format
Last, First. Dissertation Title. Degree Type, Institution, Year.
Example (PhD dissertation):
Thompson, Sarah R. Postcolonial Identity in Contemporary African Fiction. PhD dissertation, University of Oxford, 2021.
Dissertation from ProQuest / database
Last, First. Dissertation Title. Degree Type, Institution, Year. ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global, URL.
Example:
Garcia, Marco. Machine Learning Applications in Climate Modelling. PhD dissertation, MIT, 2023. ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global, www.proquest.com/docview/123456789.
Master’s thesis
Last, First. Thesis Title. Master’s thesis, Institution, Year.
Example:
Kim, Ji-Young. The Rhetoric of Social Media Activism. Master’s thesis, Georgetown University, 2022.
Key rules
- Dissertation/thesis title is italicised
- Specify the degree: “PhD dissertation”, “Master’s thesis”, “Undergraduate thesis”
- Include the institution’s full name
- For database versions, add the database name as a second container
In-text citation
(Thompson 45) with a page number
(Garcia) if no specific page is cited