PERRLA/Guides/MLA 9/Special issue or section

How to Cite a Special Issue or Section in MLA 9

An MLA 9 Works Cited entry for a whole special issue lists the guest editors followed by editors, the issue's title in italics, the words Special issue of and the journal name in italics, then vol., no., the date, and the issue's DOI if it has one. A special section works the same way, with its title in quotation marks, Special section of before the journal, and the section's pages. The in-text citation uses the editors' names: (Brooks Carthon et al.).

The format

Last Name, First Name, and First Name Last Name, editors. Title of the Issue. Special issue of Journal Name, vol. #, no. #, Month Year, https://doi.org/xxxx.

PERRLA MLA Experts · Updated October 27, 2026
Checked against the MLA Handbook, 9th edition. Every example is formatted by PERRLA's reference engine.

First, the easy way: PERRLA

In PERRLA, choose Journal, then the type Special issue or section, then Entire special issue or Special section. Put the guest editors in the Editor rows of the contributors, in the order the issue names them, and leave the author blank. Then fill in the Issue Title (or Section Title), the Journal Name, the date, the Volume Number, the Issue Number, and the issue's DOI if it has one. A special section also asks for its pages.

PERRLA adds editor or editors after the names, puts an issue title in italics or a section title in quotation marks, and writes Special issue of or Special section of before the journal name. If the issue names no editors anywhere, leave the editor blank too: PERRLA starts the entry with the title and uses it in your in-text citations.

Citing one article from a special issue instead? Paste the article's DOI into PERRLA's reference search, or choose Journal article and A single published article.

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

The parts of the works cited entry

1. Editors

The guest editors of the issue or section take the author position. Invert the first editor's name (last name, a comma, first name as printed), then add a comma and editor for one or editors for more than one, and a period.

Two editors: invert only the first name and join them with and.

Tsai, Jack, and Kenneth E. Freedland, editors.

Three or more: give the first editor, a comma, and et al.

Brooks Carthon, J. Margo, et al., editors.

Write two-part surnames the way the editor does. J. Margo Brooks Carthon's last name is Brooks Carthon, so she's listed under B. And use the special issue's own editors, not the journal's editor in chief. If the issue page doesn't list them, check the introductory editorial: guest editors often name themselves there.

2. Title of the issue or section

A whole special issue is a publication of its own, so its title goes in italics, in title case, followed by a period.

Health Equity and Social Determinants of Health.

A special section is one part of an issue, so its title goes in quotation marks instead, with the period inside.

"Resilience for Physical and Behavioral Health."

Leave out words like Special Issue on that the journal puts in front of the title. Research in Nursing & Health calls this issue "Special Issue on Health Equity and Social Determinants of Health," and the title in the entry starts at Health. Keep a term's own capitals, too: mHealth stays mHealth.

3. Special issue of and the journal

Next comes the phrase Special issue of (or Special section of) and the journal's name in italics, then a comma. Special is capitalized because it starts a new part of the entry, after a period.

Special issue of Research in Nursing and Health,

MLA's advice is to spell out an ampersand (&) in a title as and, so Research in Nursing & Health becomes Research in Nursing and Health.

4. Volume, issue, and date

Write vol. and the volume number, no. and the issue number, and the issue's date, each followed by a comma (or a period at the end). Abbreviate months longer than four letters.

vol. 45, no. 2, Apr. 2022,

5. Pages (special sections only)

A special section is a group of articles inside a regular issue, so give the pages it runs, from the first page of its first article to the last page of its last one, with pp. in front.

pp. 243–300.

Find the range in the issue's table of contents: the section starts at its heading and ends where the next heading begins. A whole special issue takes no page range, because you're citing the entire issue.

6. DOI

Most special issues and sections have no DOI of their own; their articles do. If yours has none, the entry ends after the date or the pages. Some publishers, Wiley among them, register a DOI for each whole issue. If yours does, end with it as a https://doi.org/ link and a period.

https://doi.org/10.1002/nur.v45.2.

Examples

A special issue with guest editors

The April 2022 issue of Research in Nursing & Health is a special issue on health equity with three guest editors. They go in the order they gave themselves in their introductory editorial (the journal's website sorts guest editors alphabetically), and with three of them, MLA names the first and adds et al.

  • In-text citation(Brooks Carthon et al.)
  • Narrative citationIn their special issue, Brooks Carthon et al. argue that …

A special issue whose editors are named in its editorial

The February 2021 issue of Research in Nursing & Health is a special issue on telehealth. The issue page lists no guest editors, but the opening editorial by Melissa O'Connor and Kathryn H. Bowles says they served as co-guest editors, so they're the editors in the entry.

  • In-text citation(O'Connor and Bowles)
  • Narrative citationO'Connor and Bowles note that …

A special section inside a regular issue

The April 2022 issue of Health Psychology opens with a special section on resilience, guest edited by Jack Tsai and Kenneth E. Freedland, that runs from page 243 to page 300. Its introduction, "Introduction to the Special Section: Resilience for Physical and Behavioral Health," gives the section's title. Cite that introduction as a regular article only if you mean the introduction itself.

  • In-text citation(Tsai and Freedland)
  • Narrative citationThe special section Tsai and Freedland edited brings together …

One article from a special issue

Most of the time you'll cite a single study from a special issue, like Sangmi Kim's article in the health equity issue above. That's an ordinary journal article entry: the article's own author, title, pages, and DOI, with no editors and no special issue wording.

  • In-text citation(Kim 155)
  • Narrative citationKim found that … (155).

In-text citations

Cite a special issue or section by its editors, the first thing in the Works Cited entry. Add a page number when you point to one passage.

  • One editor: the editor's last name alone.
  • Two editors: both last names joined by and: (O'Connor and Bowles) or (Tsai and Freedland)
  • Three or more editors: the first editor and et al.: (Brooks Carthon et al.)
  • No editors named: a short form of the title, in italics for an issue or in quotation marks for a section.
  • Name in your sentence: leave the parentheses off when there's no page to give: In their special issue, Brooks Carthon et al. argue that …

Don't add editors or Special issue of to the in-text citation; they belong only in the Works Cited entry. If you're really discussing one article in the issue, cite that article's author instead: (Kim 155).

Common mistakes

  • Brooks Carthon, J. Margo, et al., editors. Special Issue on Health Equity and Social Determinants of Health.Brooks Carthon, J. Margo, et al., editors. Health Equity and Social Determinants of Health. Special issue of"Special issue" describes the issue; it isn't part of its title. It goes after the title, in front of the journal's name.
  • Brooks Carthon, J. Margo, et al. Health Equity and Social Determinants of Health.Brooks Carthon, J. Margo, et al., editors. Health Equity and Social Determinants of Health.The guest editors sit in the author position, so editors tells your reader they edited the issue rather than wrote it.
  • "Health Equity and Social Determinants of Health." Special issue ofHealth Equity and Social Determinants of Health. Special issue ofA whole special issue's title is italic. Quotation marks are for a special section, which is only part of an issue.
  • vol. 45, no. 2, Apr. 2022, pp. 137–262,vol. 45, no. 2, Apr. 2022,A whole special issue takes no page range. Only a special section, which is part of an issue, gives its pages.
  • Carthon, J. Margo Brooks, et al., editors.Brooks Carthon, J. Margo, et al., editors.Brooks Carthon is a two-part surname. Keep both parts in the last-name position, the way the editor writes it.
  • (Brooks Carthon et al., 2022)(Brooks Carthon et al.)That's APA. MLA in-text citations don't take the year, and a whole issue has no single page to add.

Quick checklist

  • Guest editors in the author position, followed by editor or editors
  • Issue title in italics, or section title in quotation marks
  • Special issue of or Special section of before the journal name in italics
  • vol., no., and the issue's date
  • Pages for a special section only
  • The issue's DOI at the end, if it has one

Questions students ask

How do I cite one article from a special issue in MLA 9?

Cite it like any journal article: the article's author, its title in quotation marks, the journal, vol., no., the date, the article's pages, and its DOI. MLA lets you add the special issue's title and Special issue of before the journal name, but says it isn't generally necessary, so most students leave it out.

What if a special issue doesn't name any editors?

Start the entry with the title of the issue, in italics, and cite it in the text by a short form of that title. Before you decide there are none, check the issue's opening editorial, since guest editors often name themselves there.

Should I include the journal's editor in chief?

No. List the editors of the special issue or section, usually called guest editors. The journal's regular editor goes in only if they also edited that issue.

What's the difference between a special issue and a special section?

A special issue is an entire issue built around one topic, so its title is italic and the entry has no page range. A special section is a set of articles on one topic inside a regular issue, so its title goes in quotation marks and the entry gives the pages the section covers.

Does a special issue entry need a DOI?

Only if the issue itself has one. Most don't, because DOIs usually belong to the articles. Some publishers, Wiley among them, register a DOI for each whole issue; if yours does, end the entry with it.

Why is the special issue title italic in MLA but not in APA?

MLA treats a whole special issue as a work in its own right, like a book, so its title is italic and the journal it belongs to follows. APA treats the issue as part of the journal and leaves its title plain.

Rules checked against the MLA Handbook (9th ed.), chapters 5 and 6 (the core elements, contributors, and in-text citations), and the MLA Style Center's answers on citing a special issue of a journal, naming journal editors (its whole-special-issue example), and ampersands in titles. Example sources are the ones verified for the APA 7 page, rechecked on October 27, 2026: the issue dates and DOIs for Research in Nursing & Health 45(2) (April 2022) and 44(1) (February 2021) on Crossref, the guest editors' full names on Crossref's records of the two guest editorials, Health Psychology 41(4) (April 2022, pp. 243–300) on Crossref's records of the issue's articles, the section's title on its introduction (Tsai and Freedland), and its guest editors on APA Journals' announcement of the resilience series, and Kim's article on PubMed and Crossref.

PERRLA builds the special issue entry with the editors, the italics, and Special issue of in the right places.

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