MLA Citation: In-Text Citations

On this page you will learn about in-text citation

In-Text Citation: Author-Page Style

MLA format follows the author-page method of in-text citation. This means that the author's last name and the page number(s) from which the quotation or paraphrase is taken must appear in the text, and a complete reference should appear on your Works Cited page. The author's name may appear either in the sentence itself or in parentheses following the quotation or paraphrase, but the page number(s) should always appear in the parentheses, not in the text of your sentence.

For example:

  • Wordsworth stated that Romantic poetry was marked by a, "...spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" (263).

    • Here, you can see that the author, William Wordsworth, is mentioned by name in the sentence so he is removed from the parenthetical citation at the end of the sentence, because it would be redundant. Citation is anything but redundant! 😆

  • Romantic poetry is characterized by the, "...spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" (Wordsworth 263).

    • And here, the author's surname is inside the parenthetical citation because his name does not appear in the sentence itself.

  • Wordsworth extensively explored the role of emotion in the creative process (263).

    • In-text citation is not just for direct quotes! It is for in-direct quotes also! This citation tells us that the author of the paper has stated something about William Wordsworth based upon information found on page 263 of a certain source.

A citation uses two key grammatical markings to do its job. The first is quotation marks and the second is parenthesis.

Quotation Marks

Quotation marks indicate to the reader that the text inside the quotation marks is text that is written by another author.

It is also used to indicate the title of short works, such as newspaper articles, essays, poems, and short stories.

Parentheses

Parentheses in composition are used to enclose nonessential or supplemental information in a sentence.

Inside the parenthesis is where the author's surname and page number appears.

Citing Prose

The example below is an in-text citation. The important grammatical marks are in red. Take note of where the commas and the period is in the sentence.

Mr. Oxford writes, "In English Language Arts it is important to cite all of your information," and stresses the importance of grammar (Oxford 541).

  1. Before introducing a quote, you must use a comma. Notice that in the example above there is a comma after "says." Notice that there is additional text written by the author after the quote, so an additional comma goes there inside the quotation marks.

  2. The text that is taken word for word from another source is put inside quotation marks

  3. The citation goes inside parentheses after the quotation marks

  4. Notice that the period is after the parenthesis. Treat the parenthetical citation as part of the sentence.

Citing Poetry

In this classic and quite famous poem, there are nine lines. Some poetry anthologies will number the lines, sometimes you will need to count them yourself. Why do you need to know the line numbers? Because you use them in citations!

Mention the author and name of the text before using a citation from the poem

When citing a poem, you want to make sure you state the author and text before including a citation, for example:

The poem, written by Jerome Oxford, “Mr. Oxford is a Poet?,” is a great example of Mr. Oxford’s poetic brilliance. The poem captivates the reader immediately with, “Mr. Oxford is a poet, so he says” (1).


Note! When citing poetry, the grammatical markings (commas, periods, hyphens, semicolons, etc.) are often an important part of a poem. When you cite them, you must include all grammatical marks as they appear in the poem! Read more about this below...

Use forward slash / and // to show line breaks and stanza breaks

When using short (fewer than three lines of verse) quotations from poetry, mark breaks in verse with a slash, ( / ), at the end of each line of verse (a space should precede and follow the slash). If a stanza break occurs during the quotation, use a double slash ( // ). There is a space between the forward slash and the words around it.

Look at the cited quote below:

“I wish I never had to read / Mr. Oxford’s poem. // I am not sure Mr. Oxford is a poet,” (6-9).

Notice the / and the //? The single slash shows the line breaks, and the double slash shows the stanza breaks.

Make sure punctuation marks are not changed in citation!

In poetry, the punctuation marks are just as important as the words! Look at the quotation below:

“He wrote a poem and… / ...well,” (2-3).

The ellipses (which is the three dots) is intact for both parts of the line as well as the comma after “well,”

If you are referring to multiple poets, include the author’s surname before line numbers.

If you are writing about multiple poems by separate authors in a single paragraph or paper, use the authors surname in the citation to help reduce confusion.

“it didn’t rhyme or have any meaning” (Oxford 5).