"The standard citation style guide for the humanities, especially languages and literature, is the MLA Handbook, 8th edition, 2016. The Modern Language Association of America (MLA) publishes the manual. It is commonly referred to it as the "MLA Manual" or the "MLA Handbook"" (Neely-Sardon, About MLA).
In MLA the list of resources cited in your paper is called Works Cited. Entries are listed alphabetically by the author's last name, or by the first word of the title if there is no author.
In the 8th (2016) edition of the MLA , citations are created using a list of core elements, regardless of the type of publication. This is a change from previous editions (and differs from APA), which have different rules for books, websites, journal articles, etc...
The Core Elements (including punctuation) are:
Book with one author / editor:
Book with two authors / editors:
Book with no author:
Part of book (poem):
Part of book (chapter):
Entire website / blog:
Part of website / blog:
Journal / Magazine article (print):
Journal / Magazine article (online):
Online video:
Song:
In-text citations are the way in which you give credit to authors for the quotations, ideas, or facts that you have used in your paper. In-text citations (sometimes called parenthetical references) correspond directly to a source in your Works Cited - you can't have one without the other.
In-text citations include the first element of Works Cited entry (usually the first author's last name, but, when there is no author, an abbreviated title) and the page number (or paragraph, time in a video,or other location marker) (Neely-Sardon, About In-Text Citations).
According to Neely-Sardon, "you can provide the author's last name and page number at the end of the sentence enclosed in parenthesis, or the author's last name can appear as part of the sentence with the page number at the end of the sentence enclosed in parenthesis. If the author's last name was used in the sentence, do not repeat the author's name in the in-text citation" (About In-Text Citations).
I have included some examples in the above paragraph, but here are a few more from page 6 of this book:
Welldon, Christine. Pier 21: Listen to My Story. Nimbus, 2012.
"If passengers failed to show the correct documents or were not in good health, there was a chance they might be sent back to their homeland" (Welldon 6).
As Welldon writes, "if passengers failed to show the correct documents or were not in good health, there was a chance they might be sent back to their homeland" (6).
Passengers arriving at Pier 21 in poor health or without the proper documents, ran the risk of being sent back to their homeland (Welldon, 6).
For in-depth information about MLA Style, visit: