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Citation: MLA Style 9th ed.

In-Text Citations

  • Typical in-text citation format: (Last Name Page #)
    • EX: (Jones 219)
  • "The in-text citation in your text makes clear to your reader what you took from a source and where in the source you found the information" (Bullock 112).
  • "An in-text citation begins with the shortest piece of information that directs your reader to the entry in the works-cited list" (MLA Handbook 227) . Once you complete your citations on the Works Cited page you will be able to determine more clearly what to put in your in-text citation.
    • In-text begins with whatever comes first in the Works Cited entry: the author's name or the title of the work.
    • If using the title of the work, use a shortened version of the work's title in the in-text citation
      • Include the first noun and any preceding adjectives, leaving out articles (the, a, etc.)
      • Example: (Reading) for the longer title Reading at Risk: A survey of Literary Reading in America
      • Example: (Faulkner's Novels) for the longer title Faulkner's Novels of the South

Examples:

Direct quotation:

Reading is "just half of literacy. The other half is writing" (Baron 194).

Author mentioned directly in your paper as a signal phrase:

According to Naomi Baron, reading is "just half of literacy. The other half is writing" (194).

Author unknown:

When an entry on the Works Cited page begins with the title of the work because the author is unknown, use the work's title or a shortened version of the title in the parentheses.

Example:  A powerful editorial in last week's paper asserts that healthy liver donor Mike Hurewitz died because of "frightening" faulty postoperative care ("Every Patient's Nightmare" 27).                   

Two authors:

(Smith and Jones 35).

Smith and Jones explain how powerful using a proofreader is for students' writing (35).

Three or more authors

(Roberts et al. 256)

According to Roberts and colleagues, the recipe...(256)

No author and no page number

This would be for an internet article with no pages.

("Cake").

In the article "Cake," the description...


Sources:

Bullock, Richard et al. The Little Seagull Handbook with Exercises. W.W. Norton, 2014, pp.112, 115.

MLA Handbook Ninth Edition. Modern Language Association of America, 2021, p.230.