Basic In-Text Citation Rules



Basic In-Text Citation Rules – MLA Style

All information taken from another source must be properly identified using the following format.

Standard Author and Page Number

In MLA style, referring to the works of others in your text is done by using what is known as parenthetical citation. Immediately following a quotation from a source or a paraphrase of a source's ideas, you place the author's name followed by a space and the relevant page number(s).

Human beings have been described as "symbol-using animals" (Burke 3).

Anonymous Work or Author is Unknown

If the work you are citing has no author, including online sources, use the work's title or the webpage’s title.

People waited for bread and basic necessities in lines that were at times 10 city blocks long (“The New Deal” 2).

For many webpages a page number is not possible to determine. If your online resource is printed, is in pdf format or otherwise provides page numbers, use them as you would for a print source. Otherwise use only the author or title information.

Including the Author in your text

The author's name may appear either in the sentence itself or in parentheses following the quotation or paraphrase, but the page number(s) should always appear in the parentheses, not in the text of your sentence. For example:

Wordsworth stated that Romantic poetry was marked by a "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" (263).

OR

Wordsworth extensively explored the role of emotion in the creative process (263).

Standard formatting would look like this:

Romantic poetry is characterized by the "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" (Wordsworth 263).

The citation, both (263) and (Wordsworth 263), tells readers that the information in the sentence can be located on page 263 of a work by an author named Wordsworth.

Your in-text citations will correspond with an entry on your Works Cited page, where all the publication information for your sources is listed. One entry on the Works Cited page may look something like this:

Burke, Kenneth. Language as Symbolic Action: Essays on Life, Literature, and Method. Berkeley: U of California P, 1966.

Placement of In-Text Citations

• Place a citation as close to the quoted or paraphrased material as possible without disrupting the sentence.

• When material from one source and the same page numbers is used throughout a paragraph, use one citation at the end of the paragraph rather than a citation at the end of each sentence.

• Parenthetical citations usually appear after the final quotation mark and before the period.

Practice: Correctly write the in-text citation for the following excerpt from an essay. Use the Works Cited information below.

Mark Twain was able to take a humorous tone toward his neighbors who were farmers and laborers and at the same time champion their cause as true Americans who deserve the respect and even the envy of those more educated and more prosperous than them ________________________________ .

Hart, Bret. “Review of the Innocents Abroad.” The Overland Monthly 4 no. 1 (January 1870) excerpted and reprinted in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism, Vol. 6. Sharon K. Hall (Detroit: Gale Research Company, 1982), pp. 453-454.

As John Atkins, a Professor of Literature at Stanford University noted, Orwell showed an interest in the politics of communism at several times during his young adulthood _____________________________________ .

Atkins, John. George Orwell: A Literary Study. (Calder & Boyars, 1971); excerpted and reprinted in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism, Vol. 6. Sharon K. Hall (Detroit: Gale Research Company, 1982), p. 341.

We will be using EasyBib to create Works Cited pages. If you are not in class or are not able to complete your works cited page on this day, you are still responsible for formatting a correct Works Cited page for this paper.

You can find helpful information and examples at the following websites.





The reference page in MLA is called the works cited page, and it includes complete publication information for only those sources used in a document.

• The page is titled simply – Works Cited

• Entries are double-spaced.

• The 2nd, 3rd, and any subsequent lines are indented

• Entries are alphabetized according to authors' last names

• Entries are alphabetized according the works title for anonymous sources

• Abbreviations (p., pp.) are not used before page numbers.

• Titles of books, pamphlets and brochures, reports, journals, and magazines are underlined or italicized.

• Titles of articles and book chapters appear in quotations.

• If email addresses or URLs for web pages will not fit on one line, break the line after a mark of punctuation (that is, after a period or slash) so that the address break is logical for readers.

• Angle brackets are used to enclose URL’s < ..> Not underlining or hyperlink formatting.

Books

Author’s Last name, first name. Title. City of Publication: Publisher, year of publication.

One Author

Gorman, Elizabeth. Prairie Women. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986.

Two Authors

Caper, Charles and Lawrence T. Teamos. How to Camp. Philadelphia: Doubleday, 1986.

Book with an Editor

Vanderkirk, Pamela, ed. Ten Short Plays. Los Angeles: Nowell Book Co., 1982.

Literary Criticism Volumes:

If the original critique was published in a book, cite this way:

Author. Title of book. (Publisher, Date); excerpted and reprinted in Series title, vol. Editor/s (City: Publisher, Date), page numbers.

Example:

Atkins, John. George Orwell: A Literary Study. (Calder & Boyars, 1971); excerpted and

reprinted in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism, Vol. 6. Sharon K. Hall (Detroit: Gale

Research Company, 1982), pp. 341-343.

If the original critique was published in a periodical, cite this way:

Author. “Title of article.” Title of Periodical Vol Issue # (Date); excerpted and reprinted in Series title, vol. Editor/s (City: Publisher, Date), page numbers.

Example:

Warncke, Wayne. “George Orwell’s Critical Approach to Literature.” The Southern Humanities Review 2 no. 4 (Fall 1968) excerpted and reprinted in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism, Vol. 6. Sharon K. Hall (Detroit: Gale Research Company, 1982), pp. 346-347.

Online Library Subscription Services: Student Resource Center

Author. "Title of Article." Title of Magazine Date: Page(s). Name of Database.

Date of Access .

Farley, Christopher. "Dead Teen Walking." Time 19 Jan. 1998: 50+.

Gale Group Databases. 8 May 2009 .

OR

Author. "Title of Article." Title of Journal Volume number (Year): Page(s).

Name of Database. Date of Access .

Monahan, Deborah J. "Teen Pregnancy Prevention Outcomes: Implication for Social Work

Practice." Families in Society: The Journal of Contemporary Human Services 83 (2002):

431-455. Gale Group Databases. 8 May 2009 .

Online Sources

Author's Last Name, First Name. "Title of Work or Article." Title of Website or Complete Work. The date of publication. Name of Corporation or Affiliation. The date of access. The URL in angle brackets.

Website or content on a website with an author

Schrock, Kathleen. "Digital Gadgets." Kathy Schrock’s Guide for Educators. 20 February 2009. 11 March 2011. .

Anonymous information on a website

"Great Gatsby Study Guide." . 5 January 2010. 11 March 2011.

 .

You may find more examples and information for situations not listed here at the following sites:





Warm-up

Following is an example of an in-text citation:

During Hemmingway’s time in southern Florida he met several influential sugar cane tycoons but spent far more time recreating with the field workers who knew the difficulty of the production process first hand (Allan 251).

1. This information does not need to have an in-text citation after it because it is not a direct quote.

True False

2. This in-text citation is incorrect because it does not give the title of the book or article where this information was found.

True False

Following is an example of an in-text citation from a website without an author given:

Ayn Rand develops her ideas of an “imperfect and dangerous society from her youth in the newly Marxist Soviet Union” ("Dystopias in Famous Literature").

3. This in-text citation is correctly formatted and correctly placed in the sentence.

True False

Warm-up

True or False:

1. ________ Every minor point in my outline needs a citation (identification of the source) when I write my rough draft.

2. ________ Citations in the rough draft require the page number where the information was found in the original source.

3. ________ I will not need to cite the source for examples that have come from my novel.

4. ________ I will need a citation for information that I use from a research source even though I found this information in several places.

5. _______ I will not need to provide a citation for information from a research source if I put it into my own words.

6. _______ The majority of content in my body paragraphs will come from research or examples from my novel.

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