Fletcher Library at the West Campus
MLA - Examples of Citation in the Text
Basic rules for print and electronic sources
By Author
Author's last name and the page number(s) in parentheses
This point has already been argued (Tennen 178-85).
Author's last name in text
Place only the page number(s) in parentheses.
Tennen has argued this point (178-85).
Author unknown
Use the entire title (if it is short) or a short version of the title. Ignore a, an and the. Book titles should be underlined and article titles should be placed between quotation marks.
A presidential commission reported . . . (Report 3).
. . . the use of cell phones while driving ("Lawmakers" 2 ).
Page number unknown
If page numbers are not given, lave them out. It often happens with Web sources and articles in electronic full text format.The California Highway Patrol opposes . . . (Jacobs).
Note: If a source indicates paragraph or section numbers, provide those with the abbreviation "par." or "sec."(Smith, par. 4).
Two or three authors
Cite all authors' last names in text or in parenthesis.
Redelmeier and Tibshirani found that . . . (453).
the risk of a collision. . . (Redelmeier and Tibshirani 453).
else but here(Rabkin, Greenberg, and Olander vii).
Four or more authors
Cite the first author's last name and et al. ("and others") in parenthesis or in your text.. . . of American's political philosophy (Norton et al. 141).
More than one work by the same author
In parentheses:place a comma after the author's last name, add a short version of the title, and provide the page numbers.
. . . the production of services (Toffler, Future 221).
In text:
if you mention the author's last name and the title in your sentence, then add the page numbers in parentheses.
Toffler argues in The Third Wave that the society. . . the information age (26).
Corporate author or government agency
Researchers at the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis found . . . (3-4).By 1992 it was apparent. . . (Public Agenda Foundation 4).
Indirect Sources
When you are quoting someone's original words quoted by someone else, place qtd. in ("quoted in") before the indirect source's information.Samuel Johnson admitted that Edmund Burke was an "extraordinary man" (qtd. in Boswell 2: 450).
Multivolume work
In your parentheses, cite the volume number, followed by a colon, a space and the page number.Terman's studies of gifted children reveal a pattern of accelerated language acquisition (2: 279).
Encyclopedia or dictionary
If an author is not known, an encyclopedia or a dictionary will be listed in the references (works-cited) by the word you looked up (instead of the name of an encyclopedia/dictionary). Use the word in your text or parentheses. The page number is not necessary.The word crocodile has a surprisingly complex etymology ("Crocodile").
Literary and Religious Works
Because literary works, such as novels, plays and poems often have multiple editions, it is recommended that you provide additional information with the page numbers. Provide the page number, followed by a semicolon, a space and other appropriate information, using abbreviations such as pt., sec., ch.Although Flaubert sees Madame Bovary for . . . (216; pt. 2, ch. 12).
Two or more works
Cite each work normally and separate each work with a semicolon and a space.
(Oleson 59; Trimble 85; Hylton 63)
An entire work It is preferable to include the author's name in text and no page numbers. McRae's The Literature of Science includes many examples of this trend.
Content and samples are from:
- Gibaldi, Joseph. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. 5th ed. New York: The Modern Language Association of America, 1999.
- Trimmer, Joseph F. A Guide to MLA Documentation : with an Appendix on APA Style. 5th ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999.
- Hacker, Diana, and Barbara Fister. "Humanities: Documenting Sources - MLA In-Text Citations." Research and Documentation Online. n.d., 28 November 2003, 04/03, 11/03 en
