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MLA Style Guide

A brief introduction to Modern Language Association (MLA) Style Citations.

Overview

In-text citations (or parenthetical citations) point your reader to specific entries on the Works Cited page.

They include the author or source name and the page number, if relevant.

In-text citations are used whenever you quote, paraphrase, or summarize information from a source. You can cite references either within the text, or at the end of a sentence.

Variations: Example:
In-text citation at the end of a sentence: Some researchers strongly dispute the Committee’s conclusion (Smith and Jones 10).
Author name as part of a sentence: Smith and Jones dispute the Committee’s conclusion (10).
Source cited within another source:

Clark’s study (qtd. in Smith and Jones 10) indicates that…

In this situation, your Works Cited page will contain the article by Smith and Jones.
Clark is merely credited in the text of your paper.

For more information on how to incorporate source material into your paper, please see the following information:

In-text Citation Examples

Note: Do NOT highlight your in-text citations.

Highlighting is used to show the naming of these citations. The examples used here refer to the full citations shown on the Works Cited Page on this guide.

In Dr. Seuss’s book, children are encouraged to eat green eggs and ham (Green Eggs 56-62). Neither eggs nor ham is naturally green, and this color should alarm parents. When eggs are not refrigerated, the infectious disease Salmonellosis is a big concern. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that some victims will feel “pain in their joints, irritation of the eyes, and painful urination” (“Salmonella”). There are similar concerns about green ham. Letizia describes how undercooked pork can carry a deadly parasite, resulting in Trichinosis (1073). In severe cases, its victims “may have trouble coordinating movements, and have heart and breathing problems.” Death is rare, but does occur (“Parasites”). If the child avoids this infection, he or she still might experience a dangerous allergic reaction (Huber 147, 160).

More Examples

Variations: Example:
One, or two authors: (Jones 7), (Dunn and Diaz 44)
Three or more authors: (Phipps et al. 45)
Organization as an author:

(United States, Dept. of Labor 221)
Govt agency website with no author, use title:

(“Salmonella”) - the agency will be the publisher in the full citation
No page number: (Jones)
An eBook with chapters but no page numbers: (Hawthorne, ch. 2)
No author - use the first word of the book title: (Infrastructure 3)
No author - use the first word of the article title: ("Economy" 3)
To clarify the author, if necessary: (N. Smith 9)
More than one work from the same author: (Smith “Project” 194) or (Austen, Persuasion 54)

If information in a paragraph comes from non-consecutive
pages in the same work:

 (Smith 6+)
If the information comes from multiple sources: (Smith 6; Jones 55)
Poems without page numbers: (The Raven, lines 1-2)
Plays: (Miller 1.3.12-14) - the numbers refer to act, scene, lines
Identifying location in film or video: (Big Bang 00:03:16-00:04:05) or simply (Big Bang)
If a quotation appears at the end of a sentence: The Committee reported "street repairs are ongoing” (Jones 52).

Adapted from the Pima Community College Library: PCC Handout: Guide to MLA 9.

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