MLA Style is currently in its 9th edition (as of November 2021). Disciplines that use MLA Style are English Studies, Foreign Languages, Literary Criticism, Cultural Studies. Talk to your teacher about the proper format for your paper.
For more information, visit Purdue OWL website.
As with all Citations, check Noodletools for In-Text Citation guidance. For each source, Noodletools will instruct / guide on how to create an in-text citation for each individual source.
The table below gives some examples of basic in-text citations.
| Author/Source | In-Text Citation(s) | Structure & Explanation |
|---|---|---|
| No author |
(Corgi Care 41) ("Nothing Lost" 178) |
Use shortened version of title Italics are used for whole sources, like books, plays, entire websites. Quotation marks are used for works part of a bigger source (chapter in a book, article in a journal, post in a blog). |
| 1 author | (Epstein 16-21) | Author's last name and page number(s) (if available) |
|
1 author, 2 sources |
(Austen Emma and Mansfield Park) | Author's last name with 1st source's title and 2nd source's title |
|
2 authors, 1 source |
(Eriksson and Sagen 23) | 1 Authors last name and 2nd Author's last name |
| 3+ authors | (Leung et al. 58) | 1st Author's last name with et al. and page number |
| Editor | (Castillo 74) | Editor's last name and page number |
|
Different sources, Same in-text citation |
(Sarreal 11; Dearce 65) | Author's last name and page number of 1st source; Author's last name and page number of 2nd source |
| Source divided into numbered parts | (Luxemburg, ch. 26) | Add a comma after the author's last name and give a paragraph, section, or chapter number with relevant abbreviation |
| Play with numbered lines | (Shakespeare 1.2.95) | Include the act, scene, and line numbers separated by periods, instead of a page number |
| Audiovisual source | (Wynn 10:23-45) | Include the time range as displayed in the media player |
| Source with no numbered divisions | (Rajaram) | Include only the author's last name or, if no author, the shortened title |
| Multiple sources with same author |
(Butler, Gender Trouble 27) (Butler, "Performative Acts" 522) |
If you cite more than one work by the same author, add a shortened title to signal which source you are referencing. |
| Different authors with the same last name |
(A. Butler 19) (J. Butler 27) |
To distinguish between different authors with the same lat name, use the authors' initials or, if the initials are the same, use the full first names. |
