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MLA Style: In-text citation

Every in-text citation must correspond with a full citation on the Works Cited page, and vice versa. You can't include a source in your references list if you don't also cite it in your paper.

Parenthetical Citations

Place at the end of a sentence, before the ending punctuation mark.

  • One author: Citations help readers follow your research... (Naess 25).
  • Two authors: Researchers agree that citing is important... (Miller and Jones 63).
  • Three or more authors: Discussions are ongoing on this topic... (Hamilton et al. 498).
  • No author and no page number: Researchers discuss the importance... ("Sustainable Management").

Narrative Citations

If preferred, include the author or title of the cited work in the signal phrase by which you introduce the content. Then, the parentheses only contains the page number. 

  • One author: Naess noted the importance of... (25). 
  • Two authors: Miller and Jones found that... (63). 
  • Three or more authors: Hamilton et al. argue that... (246). 
  • No author and no page number: The article "Sustainable Management" discusses...

Short Quotes

For short quotations, which consist of four typed lines or fewer of prose and three lines of verse, add quotation marks around the words and incorporate the quote into your own text. Include the author and page number in the parenthetical citation.

  • According to Johnson, citations are "breadcrumbs that all researchers can follow” (725).
  • Researchers should "follow citation guidelines as closely as possible" to avoid plagiarism (Rivera 47). 

Block Quotes

For longer quotations of more than 4 typed lines of text or more than 3 lines of poetic verse, format the quote in its own paragraph, with the entire section indented 1/2". Do not use quotation marks around it, and include the standard citation information at the end. 

For example, if you wished to quote a longer section from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, that would be formatted as a block quote: 

When the rabbit actually took a watch out of its waistcoat pocket, and looked at it and then hurried on, Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat pocket or a watch to take out of it, and burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge. (Carroll 10)

Multiple Sentences in a Paragraph from the Same Source 

When borrowing more than one time from the same source in a single paragraph, there are multiple options for citing. You can give a parenthetical citation at the end of each sentence. If the reader can easily determine that the same source is being cited, then use of the page number alone is sufficient.

Octavia Butler’s work asserts that “humans, as a species, won’t behave more decently toward each other ... until we have literally no other choice” (Canavan 150 – 51). Accordingly, readers will find “no manifestos or utopias” in Butler’s writings (4).

 

Another option would be using a single parenthetical citation after the last borrowed source.

Octavia Butler’s work asserts that “humans, as a species, won’t behave more decently toward each other ... until we have literally no other choice.” Accordingly, readers will find “no manifestos or utopias” in Butler’s writings (Canavan 150 – 51, 4).

 

Keep in mind that you may need to reintroduce a source, either in prose or in parenthetical citation, for clarity, such as after citing a different source or including your own ideas.