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For each in-text citation, we must be sure to provide the author name and the page number.
If you do not use as a signal phrase at the beginning of the sentence (“According to ____,” “____ argues,” “In ______’s essay,…”), you must provide both the author name and the page number in the parentheses at the end.
For example,
“I was ashamed of her English” (Tan 2).
If the source is electronic (online), we abbreviate the title, as in the example below:
Example:
“It's by spending yourself that you become rich” (Allende, “Giving”).
*** Note: when abbreviating the title, as in the example above, be sure to include a comma between title and the author’s name. But when providing the page number, no commas are needed: example: (Smith 2).
If you name the author in a signal phrase (ex. “According to Tan”), we only need to provide the page number (or abbreviated title, for electronic sources without page numbers) in parentheses.
Examples:
According to Tan, how we speak can make our loved ones ashamed of us: “I was ashamed of [my mother’s] English” (2).
Allende explains, “It's by spending yourself that you become rich” (“Giving”).
In-text citations Summary
Example:
For an Article or TED talk from a Website:
Leonard, Andrew. “The Surveillance State High School.” Salon, 27 Nov. 2012,
www.salon.com/2012/11/27/the_surveillance_state_high_school/. Accessed 7 Nov. 2017.
Dhar, Julia. “How to have constructive conversations.” TED, March 2021,
https://www.ted.com/talks/julia_dhar_how_to_have_constructive_conversations.
Accessed 11 April 2022.
Work from an Online Database or a Subscription Service (meaning, any sources obtained through the Library portal):
McFarland, Ron. “Sherman Alexie’s Polemical Stories.” Studies in American Indian Literatures,
vol. 9, no. 4, Winter 1997, pp. 27-38. JSTOR,
http://www.jstor.org.unhproxy01.newhaven.edu:2048/stable/pdf/20739423.pdf. Accessed
7 Nov. 2017.
Johnston, Reed K., & Lawrence, K. “Team Listening Environment (TLE) Scale.”
Development and Validation. International Journal of Business
Communication (Thousand Oaks, Calif.), vol. 48 no. 1, 2011,
Business Source Complete,
https://doi.org/10.1177/0021943610385655. Accessed 26
March 2022.
A Book
Chomsky, Noam. Requiem for the American Dream: The 10 of Principles of
Concentration of Wealth & Power. Seven Stories Press, 2017.
Source: Fitzpatrick, Kathleen. MLA Handbook Eighth Edition. Modern Language Association of America, 2016. Revised by Professor Lane Glisson 06-20-2016.
https://www.bmcc.cuny.edu/library/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/MLA-8th-revised-August-2016.pdf
When you quote, paraphrase, or use other writers’ ideas, you must cite your sources. Every source in your bibliography (Works Cited page) must be cited in your writing, using notes in parentheses.
Cite the author’s last name and page numbers where the ideas you write about were found. Examples:
Format: The list titled “Works Cited” is double spaced. Each source is listed in alphabetical order and begins at the left margin. If the citation exceeds one line, indent the following lines one half inch (Microsoft Word -> Format -> Paragraph -> Indentation -> Special -> Hanging -> 0.5’’). The words University and Press are abbreviated with U and P.
Book:
Author's Last name, First name. Title of Book (italicized). Publisher, Year.
Chang, Leslie T. Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China. Spiegel & Grau, 2008.
Book with editor:
Editor's Last name, First name, editor. Title of Book (italicized). Edition number, if there is more than one,
Publisher, Year.
Hahn, Daniel, editor. The Oxford Companion to Children’s Literature. 2nd ed., Oxford UP, 2009.
E-book in a library database:
Last name, First name. Title of Book (italicized). Publisher, Year. Name of Database (italicized).
Miller, W. Jason. Origins of the Dream : Hughes's Poetry and King's Rhetoric. UP of Florida, 2015.a
ProQuest ebrary.
Chapter in an e-book:
Tracy, Steven C. "Langston Hughes and Afro-American Vernacular Music." Historical Guide to Langston
Hughes, edited by Steven C. Tracy, Oxford UP, 1971, pp. 85-118. ProQuest ebrary.
Articles in library databases -- Don’t include URLs, unless your professor requests them:
Author’s Last name, First name. “Title of Article.” Title of Publication, volume, or issue, number, date,
page numbers if given. Name of Database, DOI number (if available) for scholarly journal articles.
Encyclopedia article with no author’s name provided, in a database:
"Phenomenology." Gale Encyclopedia of Psychology, edited by Jacqueline L. Longe, 3rd ed., vol. 2, Gale,
2016, pp. 885-886. Gale Virtual Reference Library.
Scholarly journal article with a DOI number, in a database:
Pan, Allison. "Crossing the Border: Art and Change in East Harlem." Journal for Cultural Research, vol.
12, no. 1, Jan. 2008, pp. 39-57. Academic Search Complete, doi:10.1080/14797580802090968.
Newspaper article in a database:
Ewing, Jack. "In Davos, Europe Is Pressed for Debt Crisis Solution." The New York Times, 29 Jan. 2012,
Sunday ed. LexisNexis Academic.
Magazine article in a database:
Coates, Ta-Nehisi. "Letter to My Son." Atlantic, vol. 316, issue 2, 2015, pp. 82-91. Academic Search
Complete.
An article found on a website is cited as above, but replace the database name with the URL:
Coates, Ta-Nehisi. "Letter to My Son." Atlantic, vol. 316, issue 2, 2015, www.theatlantic.com/
politics/archive/2015/07/tanehisi-coates-between-the-world-and-me/397619/.
Document such as a blog from a website:
Finch, Annie. “Winter Poetry.” Poetry Foundation, 22 Dec. 2009, www.poetryfoundation.org/features/
articles/detail/69458.
Video from a website:
"A Conversation with Author Zadie Smith." Charlie Rose, hosted by Charlie Rose, 25 Aug. 2005, PBS,
www.charlierose.com/view/interview/721.
Articles found in printed sources, not online:
Williams, Linda. “Of Kisses and Ellipses: The Long Adolescence of American Movies.” Critical Inquiry,
vol. 32, no. 2, 2006, pp. 288-340.