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Book-Specific Resources / Documenting Sources / MLA Format: In-Text Citations MLA style requires documentation in the text of an essay for every quotation, paraphrase, and summary as well as other material requiring documentation. In-text citations document material from other sources with both signal phrases and parenthetical references. Signal phrases introduce the material, often including the author's name. Keep your parenthetical references short, but include the information your readers need to locate the full reference in the list of works cited at the end of the text. Place a parenthetical reference as near the relevant material as possible without disrupting the flow of the sentence. Note in the following examples where punctuation is placed in relation to the parentheses. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In-Text Citation Index |
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Ordinarily, you can use the author's name in a signal phrase—to introduce the material—and
cite the page number(s) in parentheses.
Herrera indicates that Kahlo believed in a "vitalistic form of pantheism" (328).
When you do not mention the author in a signal phrase, include the author's last name before the page number(s) in the parentheses. Use no punctuation between the author's name and the page number(s).
In places, Beauvoir "sees Marxists as believing in subjectivity" (Whitmarsh 63).
Use all the authors' last names in a phrase or in parentheses.
Gortner, Hebrun, and Nicolson maintain that "opinion leaders" influence other people in an organization because they are respected, not because they hold high positions (175). Use the first author's name and et al. ("and others"), or name all the authors in a phrase or in parentheses.
Similarly, as Belenky et al. assert, examining the lives of women expands our understanding of human development (7). Give the group's full name or a shortened form of it in a phrase or in parentheses.
Any study of social welfare involves a close analysis of "the impacts, the benefits, and the costs" of its policies (Social Research Corporation iii). Use the full title, if it is brief, in your text—or a shortened version of the title in parentheses.
"Hype," by one analysis, is "an artificially engendered atmosphere of hysteria" ("Today's Marketplace" 51). If your list of works cited has more than one work by the same author, include a shortened version of the title of the work you are citing in a phrase or in parentheses. Gardner shows readers their own silliness in his description of a "pointless, ridiculous monster, crouched in the shadows, stinking of dead men, murdered children, and martyred cows" (Grendel 2). Include the author's first and last name in a signal phrase or first initial and last name in a parenthetical reference.
Children will learn to write if they are allowed to choose their own subjects, James Britton asserts, citing the Schools Council study of the 1960s (37-42). In a parenthetical reference, note the volume number first and then the page number(s), with a colon and one space between them.
Modernist writers prized experimentation and gradually even sought to blur the line between poetry and prose, according to Forster (3: 150). Because literary works are often available in many different editions, cite the page number(s) from the edition you used
followed by a semicolon, and then give other identifying information that will lead readers to the passage in any edition. Indicate
the act and/or scene in a play (37; sc. 1). For a novel, indicate the part or chapter (175; ch. 4).
In utter despair, Dostoyevsky's character Mitya wonders aloud about the "terrible tragedies realism inflicts on people" (376; bk. 8, ch. 2). For a poem, cite the part (if there is one) and line(s), separated by a period. If you are citing only line numbers, use the word line(s) in the first reference (lines 33-34). On dying, Whitman speculates, "All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses, / And to die is different from what anyone supposed,
and luckier" (6.129-30).
For a verse play, give only the act, scene, and line numbers, separated by periods.
As Macbeth begins, the witches greet Banquo as "Lesser than Macbeth, and greater" (1.3.65).
For an essay, short story, or other piece of prose reprinted in an anthology, use the name of the author of the work, not the editor of the anthology, but use the page number(s) from the anthology.
Narratives of captivity play a major role in early writing by women in the United States, as demonstrated by Silko (219). To cite a sacred text such as the Qur'an or the Bible, give the title of the edition you used, the book, and
the chapter and verse (or their equivalent) separated by a period. In your text, spell out the names of books. In parenthetical
references, use abbreviations for books with names of five or more letters (Gen. for Genesis).
He ignored the admonition "Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall" (New Oxford Annotated Bible, Prov. 16.18). Use the abbreviation qtd. in to indicate that you are quoting from someone else's report of a conversation, interview, letter, or the like.
As Arthur Miller says, "When somebody is destroyed everybody finally contributes to it, but in Willy's case, the end product would be virtually the same" (qtd. in Martin and Meyer 375). Separate the information with semicolons.
Economists recommend that employment be redefined to include unpaid domestic labor (Clark 148; Nevins 39). Include the reference in the text without any page numbers or parentheses.
Michael Ondaatje's poetic sensibility transfers beautifully to prose in The English Patient.
If a work has no page numbers or is only one page long, you may omit the page number. If a work uses paragraph
numbers instead, use the abbreviation par. (or pars.).
Whitman considered their speech "a source of a native grand opera," in the words of Ellison (par. 13). Give enough information in a signal phrase or parenthetical reference for readers to locate the source in the list of works cited. Usually give the author or title under which you list the source. Specify a source's page, section, paragraph, or screen numbers, if numbered, in parentheses.
Describing children's language acquisition, Pinker explains that "what's innate about language is just a way of paying attention to parental speech" (Johnson, sec. 1). |
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