When quoting or paraphrasing another person's words or ideas, you must give credit to that person. You can do this by listing his or her last name and the page number(s), if available, within the text of your paper. This is called an in-text citation. An in-text citation is in parenthesis at the end of the phrase or sentence(s) you are quoting or paraphrasing. With a print source, an in-text citation will look like this: (last name page number). With a web site, where there is usually no page numbers, just list the author's last name.
IMPORTANT! For space reasons, the full citation examples here are not formatted according to MLA guidelines. When formatting your citation: Double-space within and between each entry.
When the author's name is part of the text, list just the page number:
Example: Wordsworth extensively explored the role of emotion in the creative process (263).
When the author's name is not part of the text, list the name and page number
Example: Romantic poetry is characterized by the "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" (Wordsworth 263).
Full citation for your Works Cited page:
Wordsworth, William. The Complete Poetical Works of William Wordsworth. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1932.
Print.
When using a web site, with no page number, list just the author's name
Example: The incident at Virginia Tech involved a greater number of deaths than any campus shooting in U.S. history (Johnson).
Full citation for your Works Cited page:
Johnson, Alex. "Worst U.S. Shooting Ever Kills 33 on Va. Campus." MSNBC. Microsoft, 16 Apr. 2007. Web.
15 Jan. 2008.
When there is no author, use a short form of the title, followed by the page number:
Example: As of 2001, at least three hundred towns and municipalities had considered legislation regulating use of cell phones while driving ("Lawmakers" 2).
Full citation for your Works Cited page:
"Lawmakers Drive Message Home. " Telegraph - Herald 22 Nov. 2007: A8. LexisNexis Academic. Web. 20
Aug. 2009.
When there are two authors, list both names, followed by the page number:
Example:
Experts in the affect of trauma should be more
extensively involved in the formulation of disaster response policy (Fairbank
and Gerrity 317).
Full citation for your Works Cited page:
Fairbank, John A., and Ellen T. Gerrity. "Making Trauma Intervention Principles Public Policy." Psychiatry 70.4
(2007): 316-319. ProQuest. Web. 5 Feb. 2008.