In-text Citations
Also called
Parenthetical Documentation
Basic Directions
• You must not only list your sources on the
Works Cited page, but you must indicate
what information was derived from each
source.
• The most practical way is to give the
author and page number or whatever
information is at the bottom of each
notecard.
• 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. An exception
occurs, however, in quotes of four or more lines since
these quotes are presented as block quotes: that is, they
are indented and use no quotation marks. In such cases,
the parenthetical citation goes after the period, as the
following example shows:
Ways to cite text
• You may put the author’s name in the body of
your text and just put page number in
parentheses at the end of the sentence. Ex:
Wordsworth stated that Romantic poetry was
marked by a "spontaneous overflow of
powerful feelings" (263).
• You may put the author and page in
parentheses at the end of the sentence. Ex:
Romantic poetry is characterized by the
"spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings"
(Wordsworth 263).
• You may paraphrase what the author said,
citing his name in your text. Ex:
Wordsworth extensively explored the role
of emotion in the creative process (263).
Book with One Author
• You must use what is listed first on source card
• Human beings have been described as "symbolusing animals" (Burke 3).
• Human beings have been described by Kenneth
Burke as "symbol-using animals" (3).
• Source card information:
• Burke, Kenneth. Language as Symbolic
Action: Essays on Life, Literature, and
Method. Berkeley: U of California P,
1966. Print.
Book with Two Authors
• Certain literacy theorists have gone so far as to
declare that "the most significant elements of human
culture are undoubtedly channeled through words,
and reside in the particular range of meanings and
attitudes which members of any society attach to
their verbal symbols" (Goody and Watt 323).
• Goody and Watt claim that Certain literacy theorists
have gone so far as to declare that "the most
significant elements of human culture are
undoubtedly channeled through words, and reside in
the particular range of meanings and attitudes which
members of any society attach to their verbal
symbols" (323).
Book with Three Authors
• Medieval Europe was a place both of
“raids, pillages, slavery, and extortion” and
of “traveling merchants, monetary
exchange, towns if not cities, and active
markets in grain” (Rabkin, Greenberg, and
Olander 10).
Book with more than three authors
• Cogdill et al. argue that "making backchannel
overtly available for study would require making
its presence and content visible and its content
persist, affecting the nature of the backchannel
and raising social and ethical issues" (109).
•
They claim that "making backchannel overtly
available for study would require making its
presence and content visible and its content
persist, affecting the nature of the backchannel
and raising social and ethical issues" ( Cogdill et
al.109).
Citation for Quote over 4 Lines
• Bolles argues that the most effective job hunting
method is what he calls the creative job hunting
approach:
– figuring out your best skills, and favorite knowledge, and
then researching any employer that interests you before
approaching that organization and arranging, to see the
person there who has the power to hire you for the
position you are interested in. This method, faithfully
followed, leads to a job for 86 out of every 100 jobhunters who try it. (57)
Source with No Known Author
• Several critics of the concept of the
transparent society ask if a large society
would be able to handle the complete loss
of privacy ("Surveillance Society" 115).
Website with No Page Numbers
• Abraham Lincoln's birthplace was
designated as a National Historical Site in
1959 (National Park Service).
Someone Else Quoted in your
Source
• As Erickson reminds us, the early
psychoanalysts focused on a single
objective: "introspective honesty in the
service of self enlightenment" (qtd. in
Weiland 42).
Two Sources by Same Author
• Hypertextuality makes text borderless as it
"redefines not only beginning and endings
of the text but also its borders—its sides,
as it were" (Landow, “Hypertext” 79).
Corporate Author
• If the corporate author's name is long, it
should be included in the text rather than the
parentheses:
• According to the Centre for Development and
Population Activities, interest in gender roles
and responsibilities over the past decade has
been "driven by the realization that women
often do not benefit from development
activities and in some cases become even
poorer and more marginalized" (3).
Citing Volume and Page Number of
Multivolume Work
• The anthology by Lautner and his
coeditors contains both Stowe’s “Sojouner
Truth, and the Libyan Sibyl” (1: 2424-33)
and Gilman’s “the yellow Wall-Paper” (2:
800-12).
• Between the years 1945 and 1972, the
political-party system in the United States
underwent profound changes (Schlesinger
4:629).
• 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.
Two Sources Cited
• (Burns 23; Sandford 56).
Works Cited
• Duke
MLA In-Text
Universisty
Parenthetical
library at Citations. Duke
http://library.duke.edu/research/citing/within/mla.
University
Library. 7 Dec. 2009. Web. 5 Feb.
html Dec. 7 2009
2010.<http://library.duke.edu/research/citing/with
• in/mla.html>.
LEO: Literacy Education Online MLA
• LEO:
Parenthetical
Literacy Education
Documentation
Online. MLA
http://leo.stcloudstate.edu/research/mlaparen
Parenthetical
Documentation. LEO. 2004.
.html 5
Web.
2004
February 2010. http://leo.stcloudstate
• .edu/research/mlaparen.html
Stolley, Karl. "MLA Formatting and Style Guide."
OWL
at Purdue.
10 May 2006.
Purdue
• The
Stolley,
Karl.
"MLA Formatting
and Style
Guide."
University
Writing
Lab.
February
2010.
The OWL at
Purdue.
10Web.
May 92006.
Purdue
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/0
University Writing Lab. Web. 9 February 2010.
2/.
<http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/
02/>.
Works Cited
• MLA In-Text Parenthetical Citations. Duke University
Library. 7 Dec. 2009. Web. 5 Feb.
2010.<http://library.duke.edu/research/citing/within/mla.ht
ml>.
• LEO: Literacy Education Online. MLA Parenthetical
Documentation. LEO. 2004. Web. 5 February 2010.
http://leo.stcloudstate
• .edu/research/mlaparen.html
• Stolley, Karl. "MLA Formatting and Style Guide." The
OWL at Purdue. 10 May 2006. Purdue University Writing
Lab. Web. 9 February 2010.
<http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/02/>.