How to Cite a Blog in MLA

To cite a blog in MLA, you treat the individual post as the source and the blog itself as its container: author, post title in quotation marks, blog name in italics, publisher or blog network if it differs from the blog, posting date, then URL. The platform hosting the blog — WordPress, Blogger, Substack — is not the container and almost never belongs in the citation. Because blog posts have no page numbers, your in-text citation is the author's last name or a shortened post title, and nothing more.

Blogs sit awkwardly between two familiar source types. They are periodical-like, because posts appear serially under a consistent title. They are also website-like, because nothing about them is paginated. MLA resolves this by applying the standard container model: the post is the source, the blog is container one, and any network or platform that publishes the blog is the publisher.

What Makes a Blog Post Distinct

Three features separate a blog citation from an ordinary web page citation:

• The blog has its own title. A post on a company site is a page; a post on Field Notes belongs to a named publication that must appear in italics after the post title.
• The author may be a name or a handle. Blogs routinely publish under usernames, and MLA accepts the name the writer actually uses on the site.
• The post date is usually precise — day, month, year — because blogs display a timestamp with every entry. When that timestamp is missing, the access date step takes over.

If the content is a page on a website with no serial title, it is not a blog post — use how to cite a website in MLA. If it is an article in a magazine or newspaper that happens to run a blog, cite the article itself, per citing an online article.

The Blog Post Citation Format

Work through it in order. The author comes first if a real name is given. The post title is in quotation marks because it is a short work. The blog title is italicized because it is the container. The network or publisher appears only when it is a distinct organization from the blog itself. The date is the posting date shown with the entry, and the URL closes the citation.

Choosing the Author: Name, Username, or Nothing

Blogs present three authorship situations, and each has a clear answer:

• A real name is displayed — use it, inverted as usual: Alvarez, Rosa.
• Only a username or handle appears — cite the name the writer uses on the site, in the form readers will recognize. No square brackets, no invented real name.
• No author at all — omit the author element and begin with the post title, exactly as for any unsigned source. See citing a website with no author.

One caution: if the account has a real name attached to it — in the profile, the byline, or the site's masthead — that name is the author. A handle is the fallback, not the preference.

The Blog Name Versus the Website Name

This is where most blog citations go wrong. The container is the blog, not the domain it lives on and not the software running it.

Here Teaching Ledger is the blog and goes in italics. Northstar Education Network is the publisher. Neither the domain teachingledger.com nor the platform hosting it appears anywhere in the entry — the URL already carries the address, and the container position is spoken for.

When a blog is hosted on a public platform such as WordPress or Blogger, the platform is a hosting service, not a publisher, so it stays out of the citation entirely. MLA applies the same logic to any site that merely provides the space for other people's content.

Blog Networks and Publishers

Many blogs belong to a larger organization — a magazine group, a university, a media network. When that organization publishes the blog under its own name, list it in the publisher slot, separated by a comma after the blog title:

If the network name simply repeats the blog name, leave it out — the rule against redundant publishers is the same one that applies to websites. When a blog is written by a single author whose name is also the site, MLA lets you skip the author element and start with the post title, with the author's name carrying the container position instead.

Dates: Posting Date, Updates, and Undated Posts

Use the date attached to the individual post, not the blog's copyright year and not the date a feed aggregator republished it. If the post shows an update stamp in addition to an original date, cite whichever one reflects the version you used.

Undated posts are common on personal blogs. In that case the Publication Date element is omitted and an access date closes the entry — no n.d., no invented day:

The full rules for missing dates are set out in citing a website with no date.

More Than One Post From the Same Blog

Each post earns its own entry — there is no single blog entry that other posts attach to, because readers can reach a post directly. When two entries begin with the same author, they sort together and the shorter entries use the three-em-dash record:

In text, two posts by the same author need a short title to tell them apart: (Alvarez, "Grading for Revision"). The mechanics are covered in citing multiple works by the same author.

In-Text Citations for Blog Posts

Blog posts have no page numbers, paragraph numbers, or stable section headings, so the parenthetical carries one element:

If the sentence already names the author, leave the parentheses empty or omit them entirely. Do not substitute a date for a locator — MLA in-text citations are not author-date. For a post where readers might need help locating the passage, a short section heading is acceptable inside the parentheses.

Guest Posts, Comments, and Whole Blogs

• Guest post — cite the guest writer as the author. If the post credits a series or a house editor as well, that name can be added with the appropriate contributor label after the blog title.
• Blog comment — cite the commenter's display name, the comment's own title or a description if it has none, the blog as container, and the date. If the comment has no permanent URL, cite the URL of the post it appears on.
• The whole blog — only when you are discussing the blog generally rather than a specific entry. Begin with the italicized blog name, add the network and copyright year if available, then the URL and an access date.
• Syndicated or reposted content — cite the version you actually read, with its own URL, rather than the original publication you did not consult.

Common Mistakes

• Italicizing the post title and putting the blog name in quotation marks — the formats are swapped.
• Using the platform (WordPress, Blogger, Medium, Substack) as the container instead of the blog's own title.
• Omitting the blog name because it appears in the URL — the container is a required element when it exists.
• Replacing a username with a guessed real name, or wrapping it in brackets.
• Citing the blog's copyright year instead of the post's date.
• Adding n.d. for an undated post instead of omitting the date and adding an access date.
• Creating one entry for the blog and referencing every post from it.
• Putting the URL or the posting date in the parenthetical citation.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I cite a blog post with no author?

Begin the entry with the post title in quotation marks, followed by the italicized blog name, date, and URL. Your in-text citation uses a shortened form of the post title. If the blog is signed with an organization, use that organization as the publisher rather than inventing an author.

Do I include the website or platform name?

Usually not. The blog's own title occupies the container position, and hosting platforms are not publishers in MLA. Include a platform name only when it genuinely publishes the content under its own editorial identity and no more specific title exists.

How do I cite a blog post written under a username?

Cite the name the writer uses on the site, exactly as it appears, without brackets or invented real names. If the account also displays a real name in a profile or masthead, prefer that name.

Do blog citations need an access date?

Only when the post has no publication date, or when you want to record a source that is likely to change or disappear. If the post carries a clear posting date, the access date is optional.