Container title
Also called: container, source container
The name of the larger work a source sits inside: the journal holding an article, the book holding a chapter, the site holding a page.
MLA 9 made “container” explicit, but every style has the concept. An article has a journal; a chapter has an edited book; an episode has a series; a post has a platform. The container is what you italicise while the contained item takes quotation marks.
Sources can nest. A television episode inside a series inside a streaming service is three levels, and MLA allows a second container precisely for that. Getting the nesting right is what makes citations for digital sources tractable — identify the immediate container first, then ask whether it sits inside another.
Item and container
“Teaching Citation as a Habit of Mind” (item) in Handbook of Writing Instruction (container).