How to Use This Guide
MLA citations style consists of a works cited list and use of in-text citations. Use this guide as a reference point on how to cite correctly.
Basics
In-text Citations:
- Usually has two elements: author's name and page number
- If no author: use the first word of the title of the work.
- Name of author and page number in parentheses.
- Do not use commas
An in-text citation begins with the shortest piece of information that directs your reader to the entry in the works-cited list. Thus, it begins with whatever comes first in the entry: the author’s name or the title (or description) of the work. The citation can appear in your prose or in parentheses. An in-text citation should contain enough information for the reader to identify the source in the works cited page.
Basics:
The first component of an in-text citation is the first element of the source's citation in the works cited page, usually the author's last name. For instances where multiple sources have authors with the same last name, include the first initial or first name before the last name. If the source does not include a personal author, use a shortened form of the title instead. The shortened title should also be added after the author in cases where you cite multiple works by the same author.
The in-text citation also includes a location number (page number, or for web, page paragraph number) to help the reader find where in the source you are citing, such as a page number, paragraph number, line number, or time stamp in a multimedia source. If the source does not include location numbers, such as many Web sources, then you do not need to include one.
A generic in-text citation comes together to look like this:
(Author location number)
This is placed at the end of the sentence where your quotation is included, before the closing punctuation.
You can also incorporate the author before the end of the quotation:
According to Author, this quotation "is a really great quotation" (34).
| Citation in Prose | Parenthetical Citation | Works Cited |
| Naomi Baron broke new ground on the subject. | At least one researcher has broken new ground on the subject (Baron). | Baron, Naomi S. “Redefining Reading: The Impact of Digital Communication Media.” PMLA, vol. 128, no. 1, Jan. 2013, pp. 193–200. |
| According to the article “Bhakti Poets,” female bhakti poets “faced overwhelming challenges through their rejection of societal norms and values.” | The female bhakti poets “faced overwhelming challenges through their rejection of societal norms and values” (“Bhakti Poets”). |
“Bhakti Poets: Introduction.” Women in World History, Center for History and New Media, chnm.gmu.edu/wwh/modules/lesson1/lesson1.php?s=0. Accessed 20 Sept. 2020. |
| According to Naomi Baron, reading is “just half of literacy. The other half is writing” (194). One might even suggest that reading is never complete without writing. | ||
| Reading at Risk notes that despite an apparent decline in reading during the same period, “the number of people doing creative writing—of any genre, not exclusively literary works—increased substantially between 1982 and 2002” (3). | ||
| Despite an apparent decline in reading during the same period, “the number of people doingcreative writing—of any genre, not exclusively literary works—increased substantially between 1982 and 2002” (Reading 3). | ||
| According to Gao Xingjian, “Literature in essence is divorced from utility” (7). Gao adds, however, that the market for publishing works is constricted by politics (13). | Literature’s aesthetic and social roles have been debated in the West at least since Plato. The global landscape in which so much literary production takes place, however, has revealed just how diminished—if not “wretched” (Gao 15)—the individual creator has become. | Gao Xingjian. Aesthetics and Creation. Cambria Press, 2012. |
Shortened form of title:
MLA Hand Book, 9th Ed. p. 79
Works cited:
Some sources uses paragraphs rather than page numbers. In these cases, give the relevant number or numbers, preceded by the label par. or pars. You could also use sections (sec., secs.) or chapters (ch., chs.). In these cases, if the author's name begins the citation, place a comma after the name.
Chapter citation:
Example:
There is little evidence here for the claim that "Eagleton has belittled the gains of postmodernism" (Chan, ch.5).
MLA Hand Book, 9th Ed. p. 244
Works in Verse:
Citation
Dressed as a beggar as he plots his return to power, Odysseus observes that “[o]f all the creatures
/ that live and breathe and creep on earth, we humans / are weakest” (bk. 18, lines 129–31),
suggesting that an awareness of one’s vulnerability is key to overcoming it.
Work cited
Homer. The Odyssey. Translated by Emily Wilson, W. W. Norton, 2018.
Citation
One of Shakespeare’s protagonists seems resolute at first when he asserts, “Haste me to know’t,
that I, with wings as swift / As meditation . . . / May sweep to my revenge” (Hamlet 1.5.35–37),
but he soon has second thoughts; another tragic figure, initially described as “too full o’ th’ milk
of human kindness” (Macbeth 1.5.17), quickly descends into horrific slaughter.
Works cited
Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. The Riverside
Shakespeare, edited by G. Blakemore Evans et al., Houghton Mifflin, 1974, pp.
1135–97.
-----------------------. The Tragedy of Macbeth. The Riverside Shakespeare, edited by G. Blakemore
Evans et al., Houghton Mifflin, 1974, pp. 1306–42.
MLA Handbook, 9th Ed. pp. 244-245