MLA: In-Text Citations

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The examples found in the MLA section are based on the manual MLA Handbook, 9th ed., 2021.

In-text citations must appear in your paper whenever you use information or ideas belonging to other people. The role of in-text citations is to give just enough details to point your reader to the complete citation found in your Works Cited list.

  • MLA in-text citations use parentheses.
  • The reference comes at the end of the cited material and includes a page number or numbers (if available).
  • The author’s name can be included in the parentheses or inserted into the text that introduces the cited material.

Examples

Format

  • Indicate the author’s last name and page number.
  • The name of the author may be mentioned in the text or within the parentheses.
  • The closing punctuation of the sentence comes after the parentheses.

Example:

Levan explains that “violence is not condemned, and is often revered among inmates” (63). The prison environment is organized as a hierarchy where inmates have different roles depending on where they find themselves within this structure (Levan 42-43).

Format

  • List the last names of both authors separated by “and“, followed by the page number.
  • The closing punctuation of the sentence comes after the parentheses.

Example:

Anthropological research has provided “ecologically insightful accounts of native views of the natural world” (Knudtson and Suzuki 23).

Format

  • Begin with the last name of the first author followed by “et al.” (meaning “and others”).
  • The closing punctuation of the sentence comes after the parentheses.

Example:

This analysis of youth violence concludes that “girls commit a substantial amount of violence” (Esbensen et al. 69).

Format

  • The name of the corporation or organization is treated in the same manner as an author.
  • If you place the name in parentheses, shorten the organization name to its first noun phrase.

Example:

The report put out by the Canadian Institute for Health Information confirms “that the aging of Canada’s population will likely put pressure on the health care system to adapt to meet Canadians’ needs” (128).

OR

This report confirms “that the aging of Canada’s population will likely put pressure on the health care system to adapt to meet Canadians’ needs” (Canadian Institute 128).

Format

  • Along with the author and page number, you must include the title of the work.
  • If the title is long, give a shortened version (check the “No author” section for pointers on shortening titles).
  • The title has to be in the same format (italics or in quotation marks) as it is in your list of works cited.

Example

(Kitcher, Living with Darwin 104)

  • If you mention the author in your text, include the title and page number in the parentheses at the end of the citation.

According to Kitcher, these principles would be difficult to define (Living with Darwin 104).

Format

This is a very common scenario with websites. When no author can be found, the title of the work is used instead.

  • Use the full title if you are mentioning it in your text.
  • Shorten long titles for parenthetical references. A long title is a title consisting of more than one noun phrase.
  • To shorten a long title, only keep the first noun phrase (e.g. “Korean Masculinities and Transcultural Consumption” would become “Korean Masculinities”). If the title does not begin by a noun phrase, only keep the first word (e.g. “Bullying. No Way!” would become “Bullying”). Omit articles like “an” or “the”.
  • Be sure to format the titles in the same way as in your Works Cited list. If the title is in italics, you must use the italics in your in-text citation. If the title is enclosed within “quotations marks”, then you must include the “quotation marks”.
  • Follow the title by the page number of the cited material (if available).

Examples:

Nature Canada has taken a stand on the pipeline project (“Enbridge’s Pipeline”). Meanwhile, the city of Calgary has made large tracts of land available for development (“Regional” 1). In a blog post entitled “Say No to the Enbridge Pipeline”, anonymous local citizens express their concerns.

Format

If there are no page numbers, no number can be put within the parentheses. This is very common with web documents.
  • The parenthetical reference will contain just the author’s name (or title if there is no author).
  • If you choose to include your author name in your text (or title if there is no author), you can omit the parenthetical citation altogether.

Example:

A recent study has found that sleep problems occur in 15% to 25% of youth (Cummings).

According to the geneticist Pamela Ronald, the genetically modified foods currently on the market are safe to eat.

  • If a document has numbered sections or paragraphs, include them in the parentheses: (Smith, par. 23), (Beaulieu, secs. 2-5). Do not count paragraphs if such numbers are not provided.
  • Note that the author’s name is followed by a comma in this situation.

Format

A runtime is the time between the start and end of a piece of audiovisual media. Videos, songs, podcasts and audiobooks are all sources with runtimes.
  • When writing an in-text citation for a media source with a runtime, follow the author’s name (or title of source if you don’t have an author) with the timestamp or time range corresponding to the moment the cited information appears.
  • Give the numbers for the hours, minutes and seconds as displayed in your media player, separated with colons.

Examples:

Since many ancient civilizations knew that the Earth was round, we can conclude that “the modern Flat Earth movements that exist aren’t contiguous with any past movement” (“Flat Earth” 00:00:50).

The music video for the song “Take Me to Church” includes scenes of homophobic violence, meant to denounce religious attitudes towards the LGBT+ community (Hozier 00:01:35-00:02-40).

Format

  • Include the edition that you are using (in italics), then the book, chapter and verse (or equivalent) separated by periods.
  • The names of the books of the Bible can be abbreviated (ex: Gen. for Genesis).
  • If you make further references to the same edition of the Bible, include only the book, chapter and verse in the parentheses.

Example:

According to the words of Solomon: “Pride comes first; disgrace soon follows; with the humble is wisdom found” (The New Jerusalem Bible, Prov. 11. 2).

Format

  • If you are using a longer quotation it must be indented 1.5 cm (half an inch) from the main margin and double-spaced.
  • At the end of the quote, type a space and then insert the parenthetical reference.
  • Note that the parentheses come after the concluding punctuation.

Example:

The researchers found that:

As long as programs target the known risk factors and adhere to the principles of effective intervention, youths should be affected in positive ways. Importantly, addressing even a few risk factors can have modest effects for youths who experience multiple risk factors in multiple domains. (Esbensen et al. 190)

Format

  • If the author of your source is quoting another author and you’d like to use that quote in your essay, begin your parenthetical reference with “qtd. in” (meaning quoted in).
  • Follow this by the last name of the author of the source you found the quote in.
  • Your list of works cited should only include the source you actually consulted.
  • In the following example, the person writing is quoting something said by Claude Levi-Strauss which they found in a book by Knudston and Suzuki. Their Works Cited list should only include the book by Knudston and Suzuki.

Example:

French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss refers to the worlds of the shaman and the scientist as “two parallel modes of acquiring knowledge about the universe” (qtd. in Knudtson and Suzuki 8).

Tip:  For more examples, visit the OWL (Online Writing Lab) at Purdue University or ask for help at the library reference desk. The OWL also has a sample paper in the MLA style available for consultation.