About MLA

NOTE: Teachers may require all 3 parts or some other combination. If you are unsure what a teacher expects, be sure to ask what your teacher means when they request that you use "MLA." For this assignment, your teacher wants you to practice all 3 parts.

Keep in mind that MLA provides guidance for even more details, including use of punctuation, abbreviations, etc. To explore further, refer to the Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL). Also, check out this help on Navigating OWL.

• For general websites, use a citation generator like the EasyBib web tool or Google Docs add-on. Keep in mind that these tools are not perfect, and so you may need to refer to OWL to fix generated citations.
• For online databases, use built-in citation tools. For example, see screenshots below for using "Cite" with the EBSCOhost database. As with EasyBib, these citations may need to be fixed slightly once pasted and so you may need to refer to OWL.

Q1: What are in-text citations?

A1: In-text citations are included within the main text of your paper. Whenever you use a quote (or specific paraphrased information that is not common knowledge), you should include an in-text citation to connect the quote to its source from your Works Cited page.

Q2: Are these the same as parenthetical citations?

A2: Yes! In-text citations are included between parentheses ( ), which is why they are sometimes called parenthetical citations.

Q3: What do I put INSIDE the parentheses?

A3: The most common thing you'll put in parentheses is: (AuthorLastName PageNumber). Example: (Golding 54) - Of course, you may commonly find yourself using web content that does not have page numbers. In this case, just include the author's last name. For other situations - such as when there is no author, when there is more than one author, etc. - see OWL.

Q4: Where do the parentheses go?

A4: "Place the parenthetical citation where there is a pause in the sentence – normally before the end of a sentence or a comma" (EasyBib). Notice the EasyBib quote that has just been cited for this answer. There is:

• The closing quotation mark
• 1 space
• The parenthetical reference
• NO space
• Period [.]

Q5: What about long quotes?

A5: That is a great question! Long quotes are considered to be "more than four lines of prose or three lines of verse" (OWL). When using long quotes:

• The introductory sentence ends with a colon [:] like how A5 above ends with a colon.
• Start the quote on a new line.
• Indent the entire quote 1/2 inch from the left margin.
• Keep regular double spacing.
• Do NOT use quotation marks around the quote.
• End quote with (1) closing punctuation, usually a period + (2) a space + (3) parenthetical citation + (4) NO additional punctuation

Learn more about how to format long quotes from OWL.