MLA In-Text Citations 8th Edition

In-Text Citations and Works Cited Example

~Element that comes first in an entry of a works-cited page

~Usually author’s last name and page number

Examples:

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

OR

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

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How it appears in Works Cited:

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Baron, Naomi S. “Redefining Reading: The Impact of Digital Communication Media.”

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(MLA Handbook 54)

In-Text Citations (cont.)-Title

~ Sometimes a title may be the first to appear on a Works Cited page

Example:

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Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America 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).

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OR

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Despite an apparent decline in reading during the same period, “the number of people doing creative writing-or any genre, not exclusively literary works-increased substantially between 1982 and 2002” (Reading 3).

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Works Cited

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Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America. National Endowment for the Arts, June 2004.

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(MLA Handbook 56)

In-Text Citations (cont.) Abbreviations

~A source may give paragraph or section numbers

Paragraph (par. or pars.)

Section (sec., secs.)

Chapters (ch., chs.)

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Example:

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There is little evidence here for the claim that “Eagleton has belittled the gains of postmodernism” (Chan, par. 41).

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(MLA Handbook 56)

In-Text Citations (cont.)

~Citing Indirect Sources-a source cited in another source

~Use “qtd. in”

Example:

Ratvich argues that high schools are pressured to act as “social service centers, and they don’t do that well” (qtd. in Weisman 259).

Taken from Purdue Owl-https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/02/

Works Cited

Information taken from:

MLA Handbook. 8th ed., Modern Language Association of America, 2016.