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 MLA
Formatting and Style Guide -
In-Text Citations: The Basics
by
Dave Neyhart and Erin E. Karper. Revision by Karl Stolley
www.owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/
01.
MLA - General Format
02.
MLA - In-Text Citations: The Basics
03.
MLA - In-Text Citations: Author-Page Style
04.
MLA - Formatting Quotations
05.
MLA - Footnotes and Endnotes
06.
MLA - Works Cited Page: Basic Format
07.
MLA - Works Cited Page: Books
08.
MLA - Works Cited: Periodicals
09.
MLA - Works Cited: Electronic Sources
10.
MLA - Works Cited: Other Non-Print Sources
11.
MLA - Additional Resources
In-Text Citations: The Basics
Guidelines for referring to the works of others
in your text using MLA style is covered in chapter six of the
MLA Handbook and in chapter seven of the MLA Style Manual. Both
books provide extensive examples, so it's a good idea to consult
them if you want to become even more familiar with MLA
guidelines or if you have a particular reference question.
Basic In-Text Citation
Rules
In MLA style, referring to the works of others in your text is
done by using what's known as parenthetical citation.
Immediately following a quotation from a source or a paraphrase
of a source's ideas, you place the authors name followed by a
space and the relevant page number(s).
Human beings have been described as "symbol-using
animals" (Burke 3).
When a source has no known author, use a
shortened title of the work instead of an author name. Place the
title in quotation marks if it's a short work, or italicize or
underline it if it's a longer work.
Your in-text citation will correspond with an entry in your
Works Cited page, which, for the Burke citation above, will look
something like this:
Burke, Kenneth. Language as Symbolic Action: Essays on
Life,
Literature, and Method. Berkeley: U of
California P, 1966.
We'll learn how to make a Works Cited page in a
bit, but right now it's important to know that parenthetical
citations and Works Cited pages allow readers to know which
sources you consulted in writing your essay, so that they can
either verify your interpretation of the sources or use them in
their own scholarly work.
Multiple Citations
To cite multiple sources in the same parenthetical
reference, separate the citations by a semi-colon:
...as has been discussed elsewhere (Burke 3; Dewey
21).
When Citation is not
Needed
Common sense and ethics should determine your need for
documenting sources. You do not need to give sources for
familiar proverbs, well-known quotations or common knowledge.
Remember, this is a rhetorical choice, based on audience. If
you're writing for an expert audience of a scholarly journal,
they'll have different expectations of what constitutes common
knowledge.
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