In-Text Citation Basic Format

A sentence with a quote has three components: the signal phrase, the quote, and the in-text citation. You can also follow the quote with your own words, but for simplicity we will just consider a quote with a signal phrase followed by an in-text citation for now.

The signal phrase is a signal to your reader that a quote is coming up. You can and should vary your phrasing, but I am using the most basic format here:

#1: The Signal Phrase:

According to Chesterton,

#2: The Quote:

“The point of the story is not that a man can cut himself off from his conscience, but that he cannot”

Note that I did not include a period after the quote. You save that for after the in-text citation (unless it is a special punctuation mark such as an exclamation point or a question mark).

#3: The In-text Citation (usually indicates the page number that the quote appears on): 

(184).

Notice that I did not include the author’s name in the citation, as I have already mentioned it in my signal phrase. Note: MLA currently states that if the author’s name is mentioned in the signal phrase that the citation is optional, but I do still like to see them.

Now let’s put all these parts together for a properly formatted quote with a signal phrase and an in-text citation. I’ve color-coded them in order to help us distinguish the three components. Write yours in black, please:

According to Chesterton,

“The point of the story is not that a man can cut himself off from his conscience, but that he cannot”

(184). 

All together, it looks like this:

According to Chesterton, “The point of the story is not that a man can cut himself off from his conscience, but that he cannot” (184).

This would be the Works Cited entry for the quote above:

Chesterton, G.K. “The Real Stab of the Story.” Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, edited by Katherine Linehan, W.W. Norton, 2003.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you are quoting from an online source that does not use page numbers, simply give the author’s last name in the in-text citation. If you do not know who the author is, provide an abbreviated form of the article title in quotation marks:

One critic states, “Jekyll can be viewed as one side of a person with multiple personality disorder” (“Split Personality”).

Click below for a PDF version of this exercise.

[a formatting notation: Elliot writes about MLA format and citation in the “Fun With Works Cited Pages!” exercise below. Part of that format is using Times New Roman, 12 point font. As the font on this website is consistent from page to page, this presentation is not in Times New Roman. You will find the correctly formatted MLA font in the attached PDF, “Fun With Works Cited” at the bottom of this page.]

Fun with Works Cited Pages!

Well, maybe my idea of fun differs from yours.

Every research paper that is written in MLA format must have a separate page of references, known as a Works Cited page. As the name suggests, this is a list of the “works” that you have “cited,” in other words, sources that you quoted from or paraphrased from, in your paper. Any item that appears on your Works Cited page must actually have been referred to in the paper itself — do not just write a list of sources that you never mentioned in the paper.

I know there are apps and programs that will create these lists for you. The problem is that these programs almost always make mistakes, and you should always check the entry that is generated so that you can be sure that you are offering a Works Cited that adheres to current MLA guidelines. Therefore, you need to have an understanding of the nuts and bolts of this type of bibliography. So let’s take a look at the anatomy of a Works Cited page.

The Works Cited must be on a separate page, and like all the other pages in your paper, it should have your last name, one space, and the page number in the right hand corner, in Times New Roman 12. Remember that although this page should be numbered like all your other pages, it does not count as a page of writing. If your instructor requires a 5 to 7-page paper, do not make the Works Cited page 5 because then your paper will be considered as being too short. For a 5-page paper, the Works Cited should be page 6.

The words Works Cited should be the first item on the page and centered, written just as it appears here, in Times New Roman 12. Do not bold it. Do not italicize it. Do not underline it. Do not write it in all upper case. Do not make it larger than 12 pt. Do not write Works Cited Page. Write it just like this:

Works Cited

Your first entry should be the author’s name if you know it. List the names in alphabetical order by last name. Write the author’s name last name first, first name last. Note the comma after the last name and the period after the first name:

Frank, Anne.

Next comes the title of the work itself. A full-length work like Anne’s Diary, a novel, or a play has its title written in italics only, anywhere that title appears in your paper, so let’s add that piece of information next, again followed by a comma, because we have editors and a translator that we will add next. Those entries are also followed by a comma:

Frank, Anne. Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition, edited by Otto H. Frank and Mirjam Pressler, translated by Susan Massotty.

Next we will add the name of the publisher and the publication date and finish with a period:

Frank, Anne. Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition, edited by Otto H. Frank and Mirjam Pressler, translated by Susan Massotty, Bantam, 1995.

We’re almost done! However, MLA calls for hanging indents if your entry is more than one line. This means that the first line is left-justified, but the second and any subsequent lines must be indented. It is the opposite of what you do when you start a new paragraph:

Now we have a perfectly executed Works Cited entry for Anne’s Diary! I told you this was fun.

There are many variations you might run into. If you do not know the author of an article that you find on the web for example, your next choice is to use the title of the article in quotation marks, followed by what is now known as the container, in other words, the larger publication wherein the article is found:

“Anne Frank Might Not Have Been Betrayed at All,” The New York Times, 14 May 2020.

As you do not have an author name, the in-text citation in your paper where you quote from this article would be an abbreviation of the article title, placed in quotation marks:

One historian claims that “the arrest might have stemmed from a criminal investigation into food coupon counterfeiting” (“Anne Frank Not Betrayed”).

Here is a link to the Purdue OWL MLA Works Cited guide and some other helpful links:

https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/mla_style/mla_formatting_and_style_guide/mla_works_cited_page_basic_format.html

How to create a hanging indent in Word: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/create-a-hanging-indent-7bdfb86a-c714-41a8-ac7a-3782a91ccad5

Video Tutorial on how to create a hanging indent: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBv7gWpOiP4

LaGuardia Library MLA citation guide: https://library.laguardia.edu/help/cite/mla/

Enjoy!

Click below for a PDF version of this exercise.