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How to Cite a Source with No Title

Photographs, letters, raw data, social media posts, and archival documents often have no title at all. All three major styles solve the problem the same way, by letting you describe the work in the title slot, but they format that description differently: APA 7 puts it in square brackets, MLA 9 writes it as plain sentence-case text, and Chicago 18 uses a roman descriptive phrase without quotation marks. This guide shows each form with a full reference and in-text citation. It is the third of a set: no author and no date cover the other two missing elements.

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Quick Answer: cite a source with no title

Write a short, factual description of the work where the title would go. In APA 7 the description sits in square brackets and is not italicized: [Photograph of a red barn in winter]. In MLA 9 it is plain text with no italics or quotation marks, capitalized like a sentence: Photograph of a red barn in winter. In Chicago 18 it is a descriptive phrase in roman type, again without quotation marks. Everything else in the entry, including the author, date, and source, is formatted exactly as it would be for a titled work.

Templates for an untitled work

APA 7 reference:

Author, A. A. (Year). [Description of the work]. Source. https://xxxxx

APA 7 in-text:

(Author, Year) — or ([Description of the work], Year) when there is no author

MLA 9 works cited:

Author. Description of the work. Year. Container, URL.

MLA 9 in-text:

(Author) — or (Description of the work) when there is no author

Chicago 18 note:

1. Author Name, description of the work, Year, Repository, https://xxxxx.

Chicago 18 bibliography:

Name, Author. Description of the work. Year. Repository. https://xxxxx.

Chicago 18 author-date:

Name, Author. Year. Description of the work. Repository. https://xxxxx. — cited as (Name Year)

Look for a title before you write a description

A work with no title on its face often has one somewhere else. Descriptions are a fallback for works that were never titled, not for titles you did not find. Check these places first.

  1. The catalog or collection record. A museum, archive, or stock library usually assigns a title or a caption, and that assigned title is citable even if the artist gave none.
  2. The file name or the alt text of an online image. If it is descriptive rather than a serial number, some instructors accept it; a plain IMG_4471.jpg is not a title.
  3. The subject line of an email or the first line of a letter. An email's subject line is its title in all three styles.
  4. The text of a social media post. APA and MLA use the post's own words as its title; only a post with no words needs a description.
  5. The heading printed above a table, chart, or map in the source document. That heading is the title of the figure.

If a work was deliberately titled Untitled, that is its title. Italicize it as you would any artwork title and add the medium in the usual way: in APA, *Untitled* [Painting]; in Chicago, *Untitled*, 1968, oil on canvas. A description is only for works that have neither a real title nor that word as a title.

APA 7: describe the work in square brackets

APA's missing reference information page gives the rule in one line: when there is no title, describe the work in square brackets in the title position. The brackets signal that the words are yours. The description is not italicized, ends with a period outside the closing bracket, and should be specific enough that a reader could recognize the work: [Photograph of a red barn in winter], not [Photograph].

APA 7, untitled photograph with a known photographer

Reference:

Reyes, M. (2019). [Photograph of a red barn in winter]. Vermont Historical Society. https://vermonthistory.org/collections/photographs/12345

Parenthetical:

(Reyes, 2019)

Narrative:

Reyes (2019)

The bracketed description does double duty. For a titled photograph APA writes the title in italics and then adds [Photograph] to name the medium; for an untitled one, the description already says it is a photograph, so you do not add a second bracket. [Photograph of a red barn in winter] [Photograph] is wrong. The same applies to maps, paintings, and audio: [Map of the Champlain Valley], [Untitled painting of a harbor at night], [Recording of a town meeting].

Untitled social media posts

Social media posts almost never have a title, and APA does not treat them as untitled. §10.15 uses the first 20 words of the post as the title, keeping the original spelling, capitalization, hashtags, and emojis, and then adds a bracketed description of any attached media, such as [Photograph] or [Video]. Only a post that contains no words at all gets a bracketed description in place of the title. The social media reference examples show the pattern for each platform.

APA 7, Instagram post with and without text

Post with a caption (first 20 words, then the media):

National Park Service [@nationalparkservice]. (2024, June 12). Bison are the largest land mammals in North America, and they can run up to 35 miles per hour. Give [Photograph]. Instagram. https://www.instagram.com/p/C8abcDEFghi/

Post with no words at all:

National Park Service [@nationalparkservice]. (2024, June 12). [Photograph of a bison grazing in Lamar Valley]. Instagram. https://www.instagram.com/p/C8abcDEFghi/

In-text for either:

(National Park Service, 2024)

Count the words strictly. The example stops at Give because it is the twentieth word, even though the sentence is unfinished; that is what the rule asks for. If two posts by the same author on the same date would otherwise be identical, the different titles keep them apart, and the year takes letters, 2024a and 2024b, in the in-text citations. See how to cite social media in APA for handles, comments, and highlights.

Unpublished raw data and other bracketed descriptions

Raw data is the clearest case of a work that never had a title. APA's data set references page describes the data in brackets, starting with the words Unpublished raw data, and names the institution that holds it as the source.

APA 7, official unpublished raw data example

Reference:

Baer, R. A. (2015). [Unpublished raw data on the correlations between the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire and the Kentucky Inventory of Mindfulness Skills]. University of Kentucky.

Parenthetical:

(Baer, 2015)

Narrative:

Baer (2015)

A published data set with a title is cited by that title instead, in italics, with [Data set] after it; the two forms are compared in how to cite a dataset in APA. Do not put a bracketed description on data that has a title merely because the title is dull.

No title and no author

When the author is also missing, the bracketed description moves into the author position, exactly as a title would. The APA missing-information table gives the form [Description of work]. (Date). Source. and the in-text form ([Description of work], Date). Keep the brackets in the in-text citation; they are part of how the reader matches it to the entry.

APA 7, untitled archival photograph with no photographer

Reference:

[Photograph of the Sacramento River Delta]. (n.d.). California State Library. https://www.library.ca.gov/collections/online-exhibits/delta/photo-0412

Parenthetical:

([Photograph of the Sacramento River Delta], n.d.)

Narrative:

The photograph of the delta ([Photograph of the Sacramento River Delta], n.d.) shows the levees before the 1913 flood.

That example also has no date, so it takes n.d.; the rules combine rather than replace one another. An APA reference can have a bracketed description, n.d., and no author all at once, and the in-text citation simply carries the first two elements of the entry.

MLA 9: a plain description in place of the title

MLA Handbook §5.28 says that when a work has no title, you provide a brief description in its place. The description is written like an ordinary sentence fragment: capitalize the first word and any proper nouns, do not italicize it, and do not put it in quotation marks. If the description mentions the title of another work, that title keeps its own italics or quotation marks. The handbook's own example is a piece of furniture in a museum.

MLA 9, untitled objects and photographs

Works cited, handbook example:

Mackintosh, Charles Rennie. Chair of stained oak. 1897–1900, Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

Works cited, online photograph:

Reyes, Marisol. Photograph of a red barn in winter. 2019. Vermont Historical Society, vermonthistory.org/collections/photographs/12345.

In-text:

(Mackintosh); (Reyes)

Note the difference in punctuation between the two entries. When the object is viewed in the museum itself, the date and location follow the description with a comma, as for any artwork seen in person. When the photograph is reproduced on a website, the website is a container, so it is italicized and followed by the URL. Both follow the rules in how to cite artwork in MLA.

Descriptions that contain another title

Many untitled works are about a titled work: an untitled review, a comment on an article, a letter answering a book. MLA writes those with a description that begins Review of, Comment on, or Letter to, and formats the embedded title normally. The description itself still gets no quotation marks.

MLA 9, descriptions built around another work

Untitled review:

Nakamura, Jun. Review of The Overstory, by Richard Powers. Kenyon Review, vol. 41, no. 2, spring 2019, pp. 188–91.

Reader comment:

Halvorsen, Ida. Comment on "Why Cities Are Getting Quieter." The Atlantic, 3 Apr. 2025, www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/04/quiet-cities/.

Archival letter:

Barry, Mary. Letter to Daniel Ryan. 12 Jan. 1918. Ryan Family Papers, MS 1234, Boston Public Library.

In-text:

(Nakamura 189); (Halvorsen); (Barry)

Untitled social media posts in MLA

MLA, like APA, uses the words of a post as its title, in quotation marks, and shortens a long post to its first few words followed by an ellipsis. A post with no words is described instead. MLA 9 places the account handle in square brackets after the author's name, so the description and the handle are the only two elements you supply yourself.

MLA 9, Instagram post with no caption

Works cited:

National Park Service [@nationalparkservice]. Photograph of a bison grazing in Lamar Valley. Instagram, 12 June 2024, www.instagram.com/p/C8abcDEFghi/.

In-text:

(National Park Service)

With a caption instead:

National Park Service [@nationalparkservice]. "Bison are the largest land mammals in North America . . ." Instagram, 12 June 2024, www.instagram.com/p/C8abcDEFghi/.

In-text citations for untitled works

MLA parentheticals point to the first element of the entry. With an author, that is the surname and nothing changes. With no author, the description takes the author's place in the parenthetical: use the description, or its first few words if it is long, in plain text with no quotation marks and no italics. Add a page number only when the source has one. The rest of the author-page rules are in MLA in-text citations.

MLA 9, untitled work with no author

Works cited:

Photograph of the Sacramento River Delta. California State Library, www.library.ca.gov/collections/online-exhibits/delta/photo-0412. Accessed 4 Mar. 2026.

In-text:

(Photograph of the Sacramento River Delta)

In prose:

An undated photograph in the California State Library shows the levees before the 1913 flood (Photograph of the Sacramento River Delta).

Chicago 18: a descriptive phrase without quotation marks

Chicago treats a missing title the way it treats an untitled artwork or an archival document: it supplies a descriptive phrase in roman type, without quotation marks or italics, and capitalizes it as a sentence. In a note the phrase runs on from the author's name after a comma; in a bibliography it begins with a capital and ends with a period. The Notes and Bibliography guide shows artworks and manuscript material treated this way, and Chicago also reminds you that artworks are often cited in the text or a note alone, with no bibliography entry.

Chicago 18 notes-bibliography, untitled photograph

Note:

1. Marisol Reyes, photograph of a red barn in winter, 2019, Vermont Historical Society, https://vermonthistory.org/collections/photographs/12345.

Shortened note:

2. Reyes, photograph of a red barn.

Bibliography (optional for artworks):

Reyes, Marisol. Photograph of a red barn in winter. 2019. Vermont Historical Society. https://vermonthistory.org/collections/photographs/12345.

The description is lowercase inside the note because it is not a title, only a phrase in a sentence-like string. If the photograph had a title, that title would be italicized and capitalized headline-style: Red Barn, Peacham, 2019. Do not put the description in quotation marks to make it look more like a title; Chicago reserves quotation marks for the titles of articles, chapters, and other short works.

Untitled letters and documents

Manuscript collections are where untitled sources are the rule rather than the exception. Chicago's notes identify a letter by writer, recipient, and date, an unidentified document by a description such as untitled typescript or memorandum, and then give the collection and repository. The bibliography usually lists the collection as a whole rather than each item. The full pattern, including box and folder numbers, is in how to cite archival sources in Chicago and how to cite a manuscript in Chicago.

Chicago 18, items from a manuscript collection

Letter, note:

1. Mary Barry to Daniel Ryan, January 12, 1918, box 3, folder 7, Ryan Family Papers, Boston Public Library.

Letter, shortened note:

2. Barry to Ryan, January 12, 1918.

Untitled document, note:

3. Untitled typescript on the Charlestown shipyard, ca. 1932, box 2, folder 4, Ryan Family Papers, Boston Public Library.

Bibliography (collection level):

Ryan Family Papers. Boston Public Library.

Author-date

Author-date style moves the year after the name and otherwise keeps the same description. A published or online untitled work gets a reference-list entry and a normal (Name Year) citation. Archival material is usually cited in the text by collection, with the collection in the reference list, because a single letter rarely needs its own entry; the Author-Date guide follows that practice.

Chicago 18 author-date, untitled photograph and archival letter

Reference list:

Reyes, Marisol. 2019. Photograph of a red barn in winter. Vermont Historical Society. https://vermonthistory.org/collections/photographs/12345.

In-text:

(Reyes 2019)

Reference list, collection:

Ryan Family Papers. Boston Public Library.

In-text, letter cited by collection:

(Mary Barry to Daniel Ryan, January 12, 1918, Ryan Family Papers)

Quick comparison

How each style formats a description in place of a missing title.
DecisionAPA 7MLA 9Chicago 18
Form of the descriptionSquare brackets, no italics: [Photograph of a red barn in winter]Plain text, no italics or quotation marks: Photograph of a red barn in winter.Roman descriptive phrase, no quotation marks: photograph of a red barn in winter
CapitalizationSentence case inside the bracketsSentence case: first word and proper nounsSentence case; lowercase when it runs on inside a note
Medium labelBuilt into the description; no second [Photograph]Not needed; may follow as a separate element for artworksIncluded in the phrase or added after the date (photograph, oil on canvas)
Social media post with textFirst 20 words as the title, then [Photograph] or [Video]The post's words in quotation marks, shortened with an ellipsisQuote the post text in the note, up to about 160 characters
Social media post with no text[Description] in place of the titleDescription in plain textDescription in the note
No author either[Description]. (Date). Source. — cited as ([Description], Date)Description first — cited as (Description)Description first in the note; artworks often need no bibliography entry
Raw data[Unpublished raw data on . . .]Description such as Unpublished survey data.Description in the note, with the holding institution

APA 7

Reyes, M. (2019). [Photograph of a red barn in winter]. Vermont Historical Society. https://vermonthistory.org/collections/photographs/12345

Brackets mark the words as yours. In-text: (Reyes, 2019).

MLA 9

Reyes, Marisol. Photograph of a red barn in winter. 2019. Vermont Historical Society, vermonthistory.org/collections/photographs/12345.

No brackets, no quotation marks, first word capitalized. In-text: (Reyes).

Chicago 18

1. Marisol Reyes, photograph of a red barn in winter, 2019, Vermont Historical Society, https://vermonthistory.org/collections/photographs/12345.

Lowercase phrase inside the note; capitalized at the start of a bibliography entry. Author-date: (Reyes 2019).

Common mistakes

  • Inventing a title from the file name, the alt text, or the first words of a caption, and then formatting it as though the author gave it.
  • Italicizing the description. In all three styles a description is plain text; italics belong to real titles.
  • Putting an MLA or Chicago description in quotation marks. Quotation marks say "these are the author's words," and a description is yours.
  • Doubling the APA medium: [Photograph of a red barn] [Photograph]. One bracket carries both the description and the medium.
  • Writing [Untitled] or Untitled alone. Describe the work so a reader could recognize it; use Untitled in italics only when that is the artist's actual title.
  • Treating a social media post as untitled when it contains words. APA and MLA use the post's own text as the title.
  • Counting more or fewer than 20 words for an APA social media title, or fixing the spelling and capitalization of the post.
  • Dropping the brackets from an APA in-text citation for an authorless untitled work. It stays ([Description], Date).
  • Giving an archival letter its own Chicago bibliography entry when the collection-level entry is what Chicago expects.
  • Making the description vague. [Photograph] or Photograph. identifies nothing; say what the photograph shows and, where useful, where or when it was taken.

Frequently asked questions

How do I cite a source that has no title in APA 7?
Describe the work in square brackets in the title position and format everything else normally: Reyes, M. (2019). [Photograph of a red barn in winter]. Vermont Historical Society. https://vermonthistory.org/collections/photographs/12345. The description is not italicized, and you do not add a separate [Photograph] label because the description already names the medium. The in-text citation is (Reyes, 2019).
Do I italicize or put quotation marks around a description in MLA?
No. MLA 9 writes the description as plain text, capitalized like a sentence, with no italics and no quotation marks: Photograph of a red barn in winter. If the description contains the title of another work, as in Review of The Overstory, that embedded title keeps its own italics or quotation marks.
How does Chicago cite an untitled photograph or document?
Chicago uses a descriptive phrase in roman type without quotation marks. In a note it runs on after the creator's name in lowercase: 1. Marisol Reyes, photograph of a red barn in winter, 2019, Vermont Historical Society. In a bibliography or author-date entry the phrase begins with a capital: Reyes, Marisol. Photograph of a red barn in winter. 2019. Chicago also allows artworks to be cited in a note or the text alone, with no bibliography entry.
How do I cite a social media post that has no title?
A post with words is not untitled: APA uses its first 20 words as the title and MLA uses the text in quotation marks, shortened with an ellipsis if it is long. Only a post with no text at all gets a description, such as [Photograph of a bison grazing in Lamar Valley] in APA or Photograph of a bison grazing in Lamar Valley in MLA. Chicago quotes or describes the post inside the note.
What if a source has no title and no author?
Move the description into the author position. APA writes [Photograph of the Sacramento River Delta]. (n.d.). California State Library. and cites ([Photograph of the Sacramento River Delta], n.d.). MLA begins the works-cited entry with the description and cites (Photograph of the Sacramento River Delta). Chicago begins the note with the description and often needs no bibliography entry for an artwork.
How do I cite unpublished raw data with no title in APA?
Use a bracketed description that begins with the words Unpublished raw data and name the institution that holds the data as the source: Baer, R. A. (2015). [Unpublished raw data on the correlations between the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire and the Kentucky Inventory of Mindfulness Skills]. University of Kentucky. Cite it as (Baer, 2015). If the data set has been published under a title, use that title in italics with [Data set] after it instead.
Can I use the file name as the title of an image?
Only if it is a genuine descriptive title the creator or repository assigned, such as a museum catalog title. A camera-generated name like IMG_4471.jpg identifies nothing and should be replaced with a description. When in doubt, describe what the image shows and where it comes from.
How do I cite a work actually titled Untitled?
Treat Untitled as the title, because that is what the artist called it. APA writes Untitled [Painting] with the medium in brackets; MLA italicizes Untitled like any artwork title; Chicago italicizes it and adds the year and medium. Reserve a description for works that have no title at all, including no Untitled.

Format the description for you

Leave the title field empty and enter a short description of the work instead. The image and artwork generators bracket it in APA, keep it plain in MLA, and run it into the note in Chicago, so you do not have to remember which style wants which punctuation.

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