PERRLA/Guides/MLA 9/Interview

How to Cite an Interview in MLA 9

In MLA 9, the person interviewed is the author of an interview, wherever it appeared. Start with the interviewee's last name and first name, then the interview's title in quotation marks (or the word Interview if it has no title), and you can add Interview by and the interviewer's name. Then give the magazine, podcast, or archive it's in, the date, and the URL. The in-text citation is the interviewee's last name: (Smith). An interview you did yourself gets a Works Cited entry too: Lastname, First. Interview. Conducted by Your Name, Day Mon. Year.

The format

Interviewee Last Name, First Name. "Title of the Interview." Interview by First Last. Container, Day Mon. Year, URL.
Interviewee Last Name, First Name. Interview. Conducted by First Last, Day Mon. Year.

PERRLA MLA Experts ยท Updated October 30, 2026
Checked against the MLA Handbook, 9th edition. Every example is formatted by PERRLA's reference engine.

First, the easy way: PERRLA

A published interview isn't its own reference type. Build it the way you'd build anything else from the same place, then make the person interviewed the author. For a magazine or newspaper interview, paste the article's link or DOI into PERRLA's reference search; PERRLA fills in the article, with the writer as the author, so replace the writer with the person interviewed. For a podcast, paste the Apple Podcasts episode link, add the guest as an Interviewee, and use Move Contributor Up to put the guest at the top of the list. PERRLA then starts the entry with the guest.

An interview you did yourself has nothing to look up. Choose Interview, then An unpublished interview you did yourself, and pick Interview with a named person. Type the person's name in Person Interviewed and pick the day you talked in Publication Date. PERRLA builds the Works Cited entry (Lastname, First. Interview. and the date) and cites it by the person's last name. Location of Interview is optional; the MLA entry doesn't use it.

Found an old radio interview in an online archive, like the Studs Terkel Radio Archive? Choose Podcasts & Radio, then A radio interview in a digital archive, and add each person interviewed as an Interviewee. Fill in the Interview Title, the Episode Date, the Archive Name, the Archive Institution, and the URL. PERRLA puts the interviewees first, the title in quotation marks, and the archive in italics.

A transcript or recording held in a library's collection, like an oral history? Choose Interview, then An unpublished interview in an archive, database, or library, and pick Interview with a named person. Put the person in Person Interviewed, pick the interview date in Publication Date, fill in Archive, Database, or Library with the collection and the institution that holds it, and enter the box or folder in Database or Archive Identifier.

Not using PERRLA yet? Here is how to build the same works cited entry by hand.

The parts of the works cited entry

1. The person interviewed

MLA lists the person being interviewed as the author, even when someone else wrote the article or hosted the show. Write their last name, a comma, and their first name, then a period. Two people interviewed together share one entry, like coauthors.

Smith, April.

Young, Quentin, and Kenneth Vaux.

2. The title

Copy the interview's title as the source gives it, in title case. An interview inside a larger work, like a magazine, a podcast, or an archive, goes in quotation marks. Keep the guest's name if the title includes it.

"What Is Interoception, and How Does It Affect Mental Health? 5 Questions for April Smith."

No title? Write the word Interview in its place, with no quotation marks and no italics. You can say how it was done, like E-mail interview.

Interview.

3. The interviewer (optional)

MLA lets you name the interviewer when it helps your reader. For an interview inside a larger work, add Interview by and the name after the title, followed by a period. For an untitled interview that stands alone, write Conducted by and the name after the word Interview, followed by a comma and the date.

Interview by Kirsten Weir.

Interview. Conducted by First Last, Day Mon. Year.

Leave it out when it's already clear who asked the questions, like the host of a podcast.

4. The container and date

Then give the place the interview appeared, in the format of that kind of source: the magazine's name in italics with vol., no., and the date; the podcast's name in italics with the episode number, the company, and the date; or the archive's name in italics with the institution and the recording date. Finish with the URL when there is one.

Monitor on Psychology, vol. 54, no. 3, 1 Apr. 2023,

Studs Terkel Radio Archive, Chicago History Museum, 16 Apr. 1987,

Drop a leading The from the publisher's or institution's name.

5. An interview you did yourself

Unlike APA, MLA gives an interview you conducted a Works Cited entry. Give the person's name, the word Interview (or E-mail interview, or Phone interview), and the date you talked. You can add Conducted by and your name before the date. Leave out titles and credentials like Dr., RN, or MSN.

Lastname, First. Interview. Conducted by Your Name, Day Mon. Year.

Recording it on your phone or on Zoom doesn't change the entry. Your reader can't play a recording only you have, so there's no timestamp to give.

6. Interviews in an archive

Oral histories and recorded interviews kept in a library's collection start with the person interviewed, then Interview (or the title), the interviewer if one is named, the collection, the institution and its city, the date of the interview, and any box or folder number.

Lear, Walter J. Interview.

Examples

A published interview in a magazine

A question-and-answer interview in APA's Monitor on Psychology, where writer Kirsten Weir talks with Auburn University psychologist April Smith about interoception, eating disorders, and suicide risk. Weir wrote it, but MLA treats Smith, the person interviewed, as the author. Adding Interview by Kirsten Weir after the title is optional.

  • In-text citation(Smith)
  • Narrative citationAs Smith explains, …

An interview on a podcast

Episode 393 of APA's Speaking of Psychology, where host Kim Mills interviews Harvard psychologist Matthew K. Nock about suicide prevention. Nock, the guest, is the author. The host is clear from the show, so the entry can leave her out, and you can name her in your sentence.

  • In-text citation(Nock)
  • Narrative citationNock told Mills that …

A recorded interview in an online archive

A 1987 WFMT broadcast in which Studs Terkel talks medical ethics with physician Quentin Young and theologian Kenneth Vaux, now in the Studs Terkel Radio Archive. Both people interviewed are the authors of one entry. Terkel, the interviewer, can go in your sentence.

  • In-text citation(Young and Vaux)
  • Narrative citationYoung and Vaux told Terkel that …

An oral history transcript held in an archive

An oral history interview with Walter J. Lear, dated December 22, 1993, one of the interviews Temple University's Urban Archives recorded about Philadelphia General Hospital. The transcript is held at Penn's Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing (MC 203, Box 1, Folder 5), and the finding aid doesn't name the interviewer. In MLA, Lear is the author, Interview stands in for the title, and the entry ends with the collection, the archive, the date, and the box and folder.

  • In-text citation(Lear)
  • Narrative citationLear recalled that …

In-text citations

An MLA 9 in-text citation for an interview uses the first element of your Works Cited entry, which is usually the person interviewed.

  • Published interview: the interviewee's last name: (Smith). If you read it in print, add the page number after the name.
  • Podcast: the guest: (Nock). Add a timestamp when you quote the audio.
  • Two people interviewed: both last names: (Young and Vaux)
  • An interview you did yourself: the person's last name: (Lastname). There's no page or time to add.
  • Name in your sentence: leave the parentheses off when there's nothing left to put in them: Smith describes interoception as …

If you name the interviewer in your sentence, repeat the interviewee's name in the parentheses so your reader finds the right entry: In a conversation with Kirsten Weir, April Smith explained that … (Smith).

Common mistakes

  • Weir, Kirsten. "What Is Interoception, and How Does It Affect Mental Health? 5 Questions for April Smith."Smith, April. "What Is Interoception, and How Does It Affect Mental Health? 5 Questions for April Smith."MLA lists the person interviewed as the author, even when someone else wrote the article. The writer can follow the title: Interview by Kirsten Weir.
  • (J. Lastname, personal communication, March 3, 2026)(Lastname)That's APA. MLA gives an interview you did yourself a full Works Cited entry and cites it by the person's last name.
  • Lastname, First. "Interview." 3 Mar. 2026.Lastname, First. Interview. 3 Mar. 2026.Interview is a description standing in for a missing title, so it takes no quotation marks and no italics.
  • Separate Works Cited entries for Quentin Young and Kenneth VauxYoung, Quentin, and Kenneth Vaux. "Discussing Medical Ethics …"One interview is one work, however many people answer the questions. List them together, like coauthors.

Quick checklist

  • The person interviewed as the author
  • Title in quotation marks, or Interview when there's no title
  • Interview by and the interviewer, if it helps your reader
  • The container in its own format, then the date and the URL
  • Your own interview: name, Interview, and the date you talked
  • In the text, the interviewee's last name, plus a timestamp for a recording

Questions students ask

Do interviews go on the MLA Works Cited page?

Yes: published interviews, archived interviews, and interviews you did yourself all get an entry. MLA, unlike APA, has no personal communication rule that keeps them off the list.

How do I cite an interview I did for a class assignment in MLA?

Give the person's name, last name first, then Interview, and the date you talked. You can add Conducted by and your name before the date: Lastname, First. Interview. Conducted by Your Name, 3 Mar. 2026. In your text, cite the person's last name.

Who is the author of a podcast interview in MLA?

The person interviewed, the guest. Put the guest first and leave the host out, or name the host after the title or in your sentence. In PERRLA, add the guest as an Interviewee and move them to the top of the contributor list, and the entry starts with the guest.

How do I cite an e-mail interview?

Treat it like any interview you did yourself, with E-mail interview in place of a title: Lastname, First. E-mail interview. Conducted by Your Name, 3 Mar. 2026. The same works for a phone or messaging-app interview.

What if the person I interviewed doesn't want to be named?

Don't create a Works Cited entry for them. Explain in a note that the source is an interview you conducted, how it was done (in person, by phone, by e-mail), and the date. Check with your instructor about how they want the quotations identified.

How do I cite an interview in a magazine or newspaper in MLA?

Start with the person interviewed, then the article's title in quotation marks, and you can add Interview by and the writer. Then give the publication in italics, the volume and issue if it has them, the date, and the page or URL.

Rules checked against the MLA Handbook (9th ed.), chapters 5 and 6 (the core elements, optional elements such as Interview by and the interviewer, 5.107, and in-text citations), and the MLA Style Center's answers on documenting an interview, an interview that you recorded, two interviewees in one interview, an interviewee named in your prose, interviews in collections, e-mail interviews, anonymous interviewees, and unpublished audio transcripts. Example sources are the ones verified for the APA 7 page: the Monitor on Psychology article page, the Apple Podcasts episode page, the Studs Terkel Radio Archive record, and Penn's finding aid for the Philadelphia General Hospital oral history collection (MC 203).

PERRLA builds published interviews from their links and writes the Works Cited entry for the interviews you did yourself.

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