PERRLA/Guides/MLA 9/TED Talk

How to Cite a TED Talk in MLA 9

For a TED Talk on TED.com, an MLA 9 Works Cited entry gives the speaker's last name and first name, the talk title in quotation marks, TED in italics as the website, the month and year shown on the talk's page, and the URL: Gawande, Atul. "How Do We Heal Medicine?" TED, Mar. 2012. For the same talk on YouTube, start with the title as YouTube shows it, then YouTube, uploaded by TED, and the upload date. In the text, cite the speaker and the time: (Gawande 00:04:51).

The format

Speaker Last Name, First Name. "Title of the Talk." TED, Month Year, www.ted.com/talks/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

Paste the talk's TED.com address into PERRLA's reference search. PERRLA recognizes TED talk pages: it fills in the speaker, the talk title, the month and year of the event, and the URL. Then change the Website Name to TED, the name of the site, which is what MLA puts in italics.

Watched the talk on YouTube? Paste the YouTube link instead. PERRLA fills in the account that posted it (TED or TEDx Talks), the title, the upload date, and YouTube as the platform. Check the title against YouTube's: if it ends with the speaker's name or the event, keep that, because it's part of the title.

Adding one by hand? Choose Videos (online), then A streaming (online) video. For TED.com, pick A video on its own website (e.g., video on TED website), add the speaker as an Individual, and type TED as the Website Name. For YouTube, pick A video posted on a streaming site (e.g., video on YouTube), add the channel as a Username (screen name) or a Group or Organization, and type YouTube as the Platform.

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

The parts of the works cited entry

1. Speaker (TED.com)

For a talk on TED.com, the speaker is the author. Write the last name, a comma, and the first name, then a period.

Gawande, Atul.

For a talk on YouTube, the usual entry starts with the title instead, and the account that posted it (TED or TEDx Talks) goes after "uploaded by." Name the speaker in your sentence. (MLA also lets you put the speaker first on a YouTube video when it's clear who made it.)

2. Talk title

Put the talk's title in quotation marks, in title case. A question mark at the end of the title takes the place of the period.

"How Do We Heal Medicine?"

On YouTube, TED titles usually add the speaker's name after a vertical bar, and TEDx titles add the event too. Keep them: that's the title of the version you watched.

"What an ICU Nurse Learned about Being Human | Christie Watson | TEDxVienna."

3. Website: TED or YouTube

The site you watched on is the container, so its name goes in italics, followed by a comma. On TED.com, that's TED. On YouTube, it's YouTube, followed by "uploaded by" and the account name.

TED,

YouTube, uploaded by TED,

4. Date

Give the date the version you watched shows. On TED.com, the talk's page lists the event with a month and year, like TED2012 • March 2012, so the entry gets the month and year. Abbreviate months longer than four letters.

Mar. 2012,

On YouTube, use the upload date under the video, written day, month, year. It's often different from the TED.com date.

16 Apr. 2012,

5. URL

End with the link to the talk itself, without https://, followed by a period.

www.ted.com/talks/atul_gawande_how_do_we_heal_medicine.

Examples

A TED Talk from the TED website

Surgeon and writer Atul Gawande's talk on why medicine needs teams and systems, given at TED2012. The talk's page on TED.com shows March 2012. The citation quotes the line "Autonomy was our highest value," which starts at 4:51 in TED's transcript.

  • In-text citation(Gawande 00:04:51)
  • Narrative citationGawande observes that in medicine, "autonomy was our highest value" (00:04:51).

The same TED Talk on YouTube

Gawande's talk again, this time from TED's YouTube channel. The entry starts with the title as YouTube shows it, speaker's name included, and TED goes after "uploaded by." The date is the YouTube upload date.

  • In-text citation("How Do We Heal Medicine?")
  • Narrative citationIn "How Do We Heal Medicine? | Atul Gawande," Gawande argues that …

A TEDx talk from the TED website

Researcher Brené Brown's talk on vulnerability, given at TEDxHouston and later featured on TED.com, where its page shows TEDxHouston • June 2010. A TEDx talk on TED.com takes the same format as any TED Talk: the speaker first, then TED.

  • In-text citation(Brown)
  • Narrative citationBrown argues that …

A TEDx talk on YouTube

A talk on nursing by Christie Watson, a writer and professor of medical and health humanities, given at TEDxVienna and posted on the TEDx Talks channel. The title keeps the speaker and the event as YouTube shows them, and TEDx Talks goes after "uploaded by."

  • In-text citation("What an ICU Nurse Learned")
  • Narrative citationIn "What an ICU Nurse Learned about Being Human | Christie Watson | TEDxVienna," Watson argues that …

In-text citations

An MLA in-text citation starts with whatever starts the Works Cited entry. For a talk from TED.com, that's the speaker's last name. For a talk from YouTube, it's the title, shortened, in quotation marks.

  • From TED.com: (Gawande 00:04:51), or with the name in your sentence: Gawande observes that in medicine, "autonomy was our highest value" (00:04:51).
  • From YouTube: the title, shortened if it's long: ("How Do We Heal Medicine?")
  • A quote or a specific moment: talks have no page numbers, so add the time where the quote starts, in hours, minutes, and seconds separated by colons, with no comma before it.
  • The speaker isn't first in the entry: for a YouTube version, name the speaker in your sentence and cite the title: Christie Watson describes what nursing taught her ("What an ICU Nurse Learned").

Use the talk's transcript on TED.com to find your quote, then play the talk to that line and note the time. The time belongs to the version you cite: a talk can start at a different second on YouTube than on TED.com.

Common mistakes

  • "How Do We Heal Medicine?" TED, uploaded by Atul Gawande, Mar. 2012,Gawande, Atul. "How Do We Heal Medicine?" TED, Mar. 2012,On TED.com, the speaker is the author and goes first. Gawande gave the talk; he didn't upload it.
  • Gawande, Atul. "How Do We Heal Medicine?" TED Conferences, Mar. 2012,Gawande, Atul. "How Do We Heal Medicine?" TED, Mar. 2012,The italic container is the website's name, TED. TED Conferences is the company behind it, and MLA leaves out a publisher whose name is basically the same as the site's.
  • Gawande, Atul. How Do We Heal Medicine? TED, Mar. 2012,Gawande, Atul. "How Do We Heal Medicine?" TED, Mar. 2012,A talk is a short work on a larger site, so its title goes in quotation marks and the site goes in italics.
  • Gawande, Atul. "How Do We Heal Medicine?" YouTube, Mar. 2012, www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3QkaS249Bc."How Do We Heal Medicine? | Atul Gawande." YouTube, uploaded by TED, 16 Apr. 2012, www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3QkaS249Bc.Mixing the two versions gives an entry nobody can match. The title, uploader, date, and URL all come from the version you watched.
  • (Gawande, 4:51)(Gawande 00:04:51)MLA puts no comma between the name and the time, and gives the time in hours, minutes, and seconds.

Quick checklist

  • TED.com: the speaker first, last name inverted
  • YouTube: the title first, then uploaded by TED or TEDx Talks
  • Talk title in quotation marks and title case
  • TED or YouTube in italics
  • TED.com: month and year; YouTube: day, month, year
  • Every part from the same version, ending with its URL
  • A timestamp in the citation when you quote

Questions students ask

Who is the author of a TED Talk in MLA?

On TED.com, the speaker: Gawande, Atul. On YouTube, the entry starts with the video's title, and the account that posted it, usually TED or TEDx Talks, goes after "uploaded by." Name the speaker in your sentence. MLA also allows the speaker first on YouTube when it's clear who made the video, but the title-first form is the one PERRLA builds.

Is the website TED or TED Conferences?

For MLA, use TED, the name of the website, in italics. TED Conferences is the company that runs it, and MLA leaves out a publisher whose name is basically the same as the site's.

What date do I use for a TED Talk?

The date the version you watched shows. A talk's TED.com page shows the event with a month and year, so use those: Mar. 2012. On YouTube, use the full upload date under the video: 16 Apr. 2012.

How do I cite a TEDx talk?

The same way as a TED Talk. On TED.com, the speaker comes first and TED is the website, with no extra mention of TEDx. On YouTube, TEDx talks are usually posted by the TEDx Talks channel, so it goes after "uploaded by," and the event's name stays in the title if YouTube shows it there.

Can I cite the TED Talk transcript instead of the video?

Cite the talk itself, and use the transcript to find your quote. Then play the talk to that line and give the time where your quote starts: (Gawande 00:04:51).

How is MLA different from APA for a TED Talk?

APA writes the speaker's initials, puts the year after the name, italicizes the title in sentence case, adds [Video], and credits TED Conferences. MLA spells out the first name, puts the title in quotation marks and title case, italicizes TED, and puts the date after it. In the text, MLA uses the time where APA uses the year.

Rules checked against the MLA Handbook (9th ed.), chapter 5 (the core elements and containers) and chapter 6 (in-text citations), and the MLA Style Center's posts on citing an online lecture or speech (its example is a TED talk), YouTube videos, online videos, titles of uploaded videos, prepositions in titles, and leaving out a publisher whose name matches the website. Each talk was checked on October 27, 2026: the TED.com pages for the speaker, title, event, and date (TED2012, recorded 2012-03-01; TEDxHouston, recorded 2010-06-06) and the site name TED; the YouTube versions against YouTube's oEmbed data and watch-page upload dates. The 4:51 timestamp comes from TED's own transcript of the talk.

PERRLA builds the TED Talk entry from its TED.com or YouTube link, with the right first element for the version you watched.

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