In-text citations--MLA style



Citations

YOU MUST CITE YOUR SOURCES. To support your argument, you will be using—throughout your paper—the claims, the opinions, and the research of experts in your topic area. Whenever you use the words, ideas, or labor of others, you must give credit by naming the source. This may be done in the words of the sentence itself or in parentheses within the sentence (called a “parenthetical reference”). It doesn’t matter if you quote directly or if you put the information into your own words—you must cite your sources when you use the words, ideas, or labor of others!

READ THIS:

• A citation includes whatever element of the bibliographic entry (on the Works Cited page) comes first – usually the author’s last name, sometimes the name of the article.

• If you’re citing a print source, you must always include the page number from which the information is taken. Do not use a comma or any punctuation mark to separate the first element and the page number.

• The parenthetical reference goes inside of the period closing the sentence.

• If whatever you’re using in the citation is underlined on the Works Cited page, then underline it in the citation. If it is in quotation marks on the Works Cited page, then put it in quotation marks in the citation.

THE EIGHT EXAMPLES BELOW SHOW TYPICAL WAYS TO CITE SOURCES:

1. “Time has altered the meaning of McCarthyism” (Collins 327).

This is a direct quote and, of course, cites the author's name – and page number if you have one.

2. “Time has altered the meaning of McCarthyism” (Collins).

If the example above had not been a print source, there would have been no page number, and only the author’s name would have been put in the parentheses.

3. Collins argues that our understanding of McCarthyism has changed over the years (327).

This is a paraphrase of the original quote, so quotation marks are not used. The author's name is used in the words of the sentence itself, so only the page number goes in the parentheses.

4. Collins argues that our understanding of McCarthyism has changed over the years.

If the example above had not been a print source, there would have been nothing to put inside the parentheses. The reference to “Collins” in the words of the sentence itself would have been enough.

5. Our understanding of McCarthyism has changed with the passing years (Collins 327).

The name and page number (because this is a print source) follow this paraphrase.

6. Drinking water can make up 40 percent or more of a person's total exposure to dangerous bacteria (Information Please 572).

In cases where an author is not available use whatever comes first on the source’s entry on the Works Cited page (you can shorten the title by using just the first few words). In this case, the source is a book, the title of which comes first on the entry on the Works Cited page. Note: it is underlined in its bibliographic entry on the Works Cited page, so it is also underlined here in the parenthetical reference.

7. “The Water We Drink” states that drinking water can make up 20 percent or more of a person's total exposure to lead.

Again, no author. In this case, though, the source is given in the words of the sentence itself, so it is not in parentheses at the end of the sentence. The source is an article on a website, which is in quotation marks in its bibliographic entry on the Works Cited page, so it is also in quotation marks here in the citation. Notice, there is no page number given – because there is no page number to give.

8. Drinking water can make up 20 percent or more of a person's total exposure to lead (“The Water We Drink”).

This is another version of the example above. In this one, the source is not mentioned in the sentence itself, so it is given in a parenthetical reference. No page number is given because this is a website, and there isn’t one.

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download