How to Cite a Tweet (X Post) in MLA, APA, and 5 More Styles

By MLA Generator Editorial Team · Updated July 7, 2026

A post on X breaks the usual citation template three ways at once: it has no title (the text of the post has to stand in for one), its author has two names (a real name and a handle), and the platform itself changed names, so half the guidance online says Twitter while the current official rules say X. Both MLA and APA have published exact formats for this source, and they solve the missing-title problem in opposite ways. This guide gives you both formats from the official examples, the same real post rendered in all seven styles the site supports, and the edge cases that actually come up: deleted posts, threads, hashtags, and DMs.

The shortest answer: in MLA, the account owner is the author (real name, then handle in square brackets), the full text of the post in quotation marks is the title, and X is the italicized container, followed by the date and the URL with https:// removed. Like this: Fogarty, Mignon [@GrammarGirl]. “Every once in a while, that Gmail notice asking if you meant to reply to a 5-day-old message is quite helpful.” X, 13 Feb. 2019, x.com/GrammarGirl/status/1095734401550303232. In-text, cite the name alone: (Fogarty).

What counts as a tweet or X post

For citation purposes, a post is any single public item on X: a text post, a reply, a quote post, a post with an image or video attached. The format is the same for all of them. What changes is whether the post is really the thing you should be citing:

• A post linking to a news article you actually read cites as the article — a website citation with the article’s own author and publication.
• A post embedding a video that lives on YouTube cites as a YouTube video, with the channel and upload date.
• A screenshot of a TikTok circulating on X cites as a TikTok if you can reach the original.
• A direct message is not a post at all — it is a private communication, handled like other unpublished personal communications (more under edge cases below).

Cite the post itself when the post is the evidence: a public figure’s statement, an announcement, a claim you are analyzing, a primary example of online discourse.

Information to collect before you cite

Open the post’s own page (click through to the single-post view, not the timeline) and copy:

• The account owner’s real name — from the profile, if it is public knowledge.
• The handle — the @username, exactly as spelled.
• The full text of the post — verbatim, including typos and hashtags. MLA needs all of it; APA needs the first twenty words.
• The date of posting — day, month, and year. The time is optional in MLA and sometimes worth adding when an account posts many times a day.
• The URL — the single-post URL ending in /status/ plus a long number. Either x.com or twitter.com works; old links redirect.
• Attachment type — image, video, poll, or link preview. Only APA records this.

The generator at / extracts most of these fields from a pasted post URL. Double-check the real-name field: profiles use display names that are not always names.

The same post, formatted in all seven styles

The example below is the MLA Style Center’s own worked example, a 2019 post by Grammar Girl, updated for the X rename as MLA’s March 2024 guidance directs.

The source: Mignon Fogarty, posting as @GrammarGirl. Post text: “Every once in a while, that Gmail notice asking if you meant to reply to a 5-day-old message is quite helpful.” Posted February 13, 2019. URL: https://x.com/GrammarGirl/status/1095734401550303232. Accessed July 4, 2026.

Two structural decisions split the styles. The first is what stands in for the missing title. MLA quotes the entire post, verbatim, in quotation marks — capitalization, hashtags, and typos preserved exactly as posted. APA takes only the first twenty words and italicizes them like a standalone work’s title; the example post is twenty-one words long, so APA cuts it off mid-sentence at “quite,” with no ellipsis. Chicago and the numeric styles treat the text as an ordinary web-page title, and Harvard (Cite Them Right) puts the post’s text — or the shortest portion of it that makes sense to a reader — in single quotation marks as the title, before the [X] platform bracket.

The second is where the handle goes. MLA and APA both attach it in square brackets after the real name: Fogarty, Mignon [@GrammarGirl] and Fogarty, M. [@GrammarGirl]. Harvard gives the author’s name with the username where available — Fogarty, M. [@GrammarGirl] — and leads with the handle only when no real name is known. The remaining styles use the plain name; add the handle only when it is the sole name you have. One more note: Chicago normally cites posts in a footnote rather than the bibliography — First Last (@handle), “text of the post up to 280 characters,” X, Month Day, Year, URL — and the row above shows the author-date form the generator produces.

The in-text citation for the same post:

• MLA: (Fogarty) — whatever begins the entry, no page number; (@GrammarGirl) if the entry starts with the handle
• APA 7: (Fogarty, 2019) in parentheses; Fogarty (2019) narratively
• Chicago author–date: (Fogarty 2019)
• Harvard: (Fogarty, 2019)
• Vancouver, AMA: the entry’s number, e.g. superscript ⁵
• IEEE: [5]

How to cite a tweet / X post in MLA

The MLA 9 works-cited template, from the MLA Style Center’s social-media guidance:

Author’s Last Name, First Name [@handle]. “Full text of the post.” X, Day Month Year, URL.

Element by element:

• Author. The real name, inverted, with the handle in square brackets: Fogarty, Mignon [@GrammarGirl]. The brackets tie the citation to the account even if the display name changes.
• Title. The complete text of the post, in quotation marks, exactly as written. Hashtags stay; emojis need not be included. A very long post may be truncated with an ellipsis.
• Container. X, italicized. MLA’s March 2024 update is explicit: because posts published on Twitter now exist on X, use X as the container for all posts, past and present — even a 2019 post like the example.
• Date and URL. Day-month-year, then the URL with https:// dropped. MLA’s own 2024 example keeps a twitter.com URL, so either domain is acceptable; the time of posting is optional.

In-text, cite whatever begins the entry — usually the surname, with no page number: (Fogarty), or woven into your sentence (“Fogarty notes that…”). See the in-text citations guide for how this interacts with quoting.

The three variants you are most likely to need:

You only know the handle. Start the entry with the handle and cite it in-text: @GrammarGirl. "Every once in a while..." and (@GrammarGirl). Never invent a real name from a display name that might be a joke or a pseudonym.

You are citing a thread. A thread discussed as a whole is treated as a collaborative work under MLA’s guidance: one entry, with the URL of the first post, described in your prose as a thread. If you quote one specific post in the thread, cite that post individually with its own URL — every post in a thread has one.

The post predates the rename. Same as any other post: container X, original date, original URL. MLA also advises writing “posts,” not “tweets,” in your prose, however natural the old word feels.

How to cite a tweet / X post in APA

The APA 7 reference template, from APA Style’s official “X references” page (updated for the rename in November 2023):

Author, A. A. [@username]. (Year, Month Day). Content of the post up to the first 20 words [Post]. X. https://x.com/username/status/xxx

Element by element:

• Author. Individual names are inverted with initials, then the handle in brackets: Fogarty, M. [@GrammarGirl]. Group authors keep their full name: CDC [@CDCgov].
• Title. The first twenty words of the post, italicized. URLs, hashtags, and emojis each count as one word, and APA says to replicate emojis if your software allows it. No ellipsis when the post runs longer — the title simply stops at word twenty.
• Brackets. Audiovisual content gets its own bracket before [Post]: [Image attached], [Video attached], [Thumbnail with link attached]. APA’s official example shows the stacking: CDC [@CDCgov]. (2020, June 11). Scientists do not know if having antibodies to the virus that causes #COVID19 can protect someone from getting infected again [Image attached] [Post]. X. https://x.com/CDCgov/status/1271180413134876672
• Source and URL. X as the site name, then the full URL including https://.

In-text, APA is standard author-date: (CDC, 2020) parenthetically, CDC (2020) narratively. The handle does not appear in-text.

Citing an entire profile works differently: Fogarty, M. [@GrammarGirl]. (n.d.). Posts [X profile]. X. Retrieved July 4, 2026, from https://x.com/GrammarGirl — the title element Posts is italicized, the date is (n.d.), and a retrieval date is required, because a profile is designed to change and is not archived.

Edge cases: deleted posts, threads, profiles

The post was deleted. MLA’s ruling: use the information you captured in your screenshot to cite the post as it existed at the time the screenshot was taken, and note the deletion in your prose. The practical lesson comes before the citation — the moment a post becomes evidence for your paper, screenshot it and save a Wayback Machine snapshot. A deleted post you never captured cannot be reconstructed into a citation.

Retweets and quote posts. Cite the post you actually used. If the account you follow reposted someone else’s statement, click through and cite the original author’s post. If you are analyzing the quote post itself (the commentary added on top), cite the quote post — its URL preserves the embedded original.

A whole thread versus one post in it. MLA treats a thread discussed as a whole as one collaborative work; APA cites the individual post or posts you used, each with its own URL. When in doubt, cite the specific post you quote — it is always retrievable on its own.

Private accounts and DMs. A protected post or a direct message is not retrievable by your reader, so APA handles both as personal communications: cited in text only — (M. Fogarty, personal communication, February 13, 2019) — with no reference list entry. In MLA, treat it like other unpublished private communications, and get the sender’s permission before quoting either way.

No real name anywhere. Use the handle as the author in every style. Do not promote a display name like “coffee-powered editor” into the author slot; the handle is the stable identifier.

Hashtags and emojis. MLA: hashtags are part of the quoted title; emojis are optional. APA: both count toward the twenty-word title, one word each, and emojis should be replicated if possible. If an emoji carries the meaning you are analyzing, keep it in both styles.

A final principle: a post citation has to survive the platform it points at. Quote the text faithfully (it may be edited or deleted), keep the handle (display names change), use X as the platform name (the old one is gone), and capture your own copy the day you cite. The reader of your paper should be able to see what you saw, even if x.com no longer shows it.

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