Citing your sources is an important habit to develop as a scholar. It allows you to properly join a scholarly conversation and the scholarship of a field at large. On this page, you can find examples of in-text citations as well as reference entries for electronic, non-print, and print materials in MLA.
The following are examples from Purdue Owl that show different ways you can format your in-text citations:
Author’s name in text (page number):
Wordsworth stated that Romantic poetry was marked by a "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" (263).
Author’s name in reference (page number):
Romantic poetry is characterized by the "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" (Wordsworth 263).
No known author:
We see so many global warming hotspots in North America likely because this region has "more readily accessible climatic data and more comprehensive programs to monitor and study environmental change . . ." ("Impact of Global Warming").
Note: Use an abbreviated version of the title of the page in quotation marks to substitute for the name of the author
Citing authors with same last names, provide the first initial:
Although some medical ethicists claim that cloning will lead to designer children (R. Miller 12), others note that the advantages for medical research outweigh this consideration (A. Miller 46).
Work by Two Authors:
The authors claim that surface reading looks at what is “evident, perceptible, apprehensible in texts” (Best and Marcus 9).
Work by Three or More Authors:
According to Franck et al., “Current agricultural policies in the U.S. are contributing to the poor health of Americans” (327).
Two Works by the Same Author:
Lightenor has argued that computers are not useful tools for small children ("Too Soon" 38), though he has acknowledged elsewhere that early exposure to computer games does lead to better small motor skill development in a child's second and third year ("Hand-Eye Development" 17).
Electronic Source:
One online film critic stated that Fitzcarraldo "has become notorious for its near-failure and many obstacles" (Taylor, “Fitzcarraldo”).
Indirect Quotation:
Ravitch argues that high schools are pressured to act as "social service centers, and they don't do that well" (qtd. in Weisman 259).
