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MLA Style

In-text citations

In-text citations include the author and the page of the source and may appear in two formats.

  • Narrative citations, which introduce the author in the flow of the sentence and the page in parentheses.
  • Parenthetical citations, which introduce the author and the page in parentheses in the middle or at the end of the sentence.

Click on one of the options below to see examples of in-text citations.

When you cite a work by a single author, give the author's last name followed by a page reference. Intervening punctuation is not required.
When you cite a work written by two authors, give the authors' last names connected using the word "and" followed by a page reference.
When you cite a work which has three or more authors, in a narrative citation you may provide the first author's last name followed by the phrase "and others" or "and colleagues". If you want you could write all the authors names. In a parethetical citation give the first author's last name followed by et al. without any intervening punctuation.
When you cite a work by a group author, in a narrative citation provide the full name of the organization, group, or assosication followed by a page reference. In a parenthetical citation shorten the name to the first noun. Exlude also any initial articles: a, an, the.
When you cite a work by its title, provide the title of the work in a narrative or parenthetical citation followed by a page reference. In parenthetical citations, abbreviate the title if it is longer than a noun phrase. If possible, give the first noun and any preceding adjectives. Omit any initial article (e.g. a, an, the).
When you cite a source whose author is an online user, you can refer to him with the online username.
When you cite something from a secondary source and not the original one, place the phrase qtd. in ("quoted in") before the indirect source you cite in your parenthetical citation. The abbreviation should appear in a parenthetical reference followed by the author of the indirect source and a page reference.
When you cite two or more works by the same author(s), provide apart from the author's name, a shortened version of the title of the work and the relevant page reference.

When you cite two or more works in a single parenthetical reference, give the author and page reference for each work, separating the works with semicolons.
When you have a work with several volumes and you want to cite only a part from one volume, do not provide the volume number in the in-text citation. You have to provide the volume number only if you are borrowing from more than one volume. Separate the two numbers with a colon and a space. The words volume and page are not required.