MLA “In-Text” Citations

1. MLA “In-Text” Citations How to Incorporate Quotes and Transition Into Your Research

2. Why Use MLA Format? • Allows readers to cross-reference your sources easily • Provides consistent format within a discipline • Gives you credibility as a writer • Protects yourself from plagiarism Purdue University Writing Lab

3. Why Use MLA Format? • The correct citation of your sources is serious business! • If you plagiarize, even inadvertently, you may flunk your class or be expelled. • Plagiarism in your professional career can result in being sued, fired, and publicly embarrassed. Purdue University Writing Lab

4. MLA Style: Two Parts • Works Cited Page • Parenthetical Citations Purdue University Writing Lab

5. Works Cited Page • A list of every source that you make reference to in your essay • Provides the information necessary for a reader to locate and retrieve any sources cited in your essay. • Each source cited in the essay must appear on the works cited page, and vice versa--cross-referencing! Purdue University Writing Lab

6. A Sample Works Cited Page • Works Cited • Dickens, Charles. Bleak House. 1852-1853. New York: Penguin, • 1985. • ---. David Copperfield. 1849-1850. New York: Houghton Mifflin • Company, 1958. • Miller, J. Hillis. Charles Dickens: The World and His Novels. • Bloomington: U of Indiana P, 1958. • Zwerdling, Alex. “Esther Summerson Rehabilitated.” PMLA 88 (May • 1973): 429-439. Purdue University Writing Lab

7. Works Cited Most citations should contain the following basic information: • Author’s name • Title of work • Publication information Purdue University Writing Lab

8. When Should You Use Parenthetical Citations? • When quoting any words that are not your own • Quoting means to repeat another source word for word, using quotation marks Purdue University Writing Lab

9. When Should You Use Parenthetical Citations? • When summarizing facts and ideas from a source • Summarizing means to take ideas from a large passage of another source and condense them, using your own words • When paraphrasing a source • Paraphrasing means to use the ideas from another source but change the phrasing into your own words Purdue University Writing Lab

10. When Do You Cite? Don’t fall into the trap of plagiarism! If the idea or information you are using did not originate in your own mind . . . cite it! Purdue University Writing Lab

11. Handling Quotes in Your Text • Author’s last name and page number(s) of quote must appear in the text Wordsworth stated that Romantic poetry was marked by a “spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” (263). Romantic poetry is characterized by the “spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” (Wordsworth 263). Purdue University Writing Lab

12. Transitions to Incorporate Quotations or Paraphrases • There is nothing more boring than reading the phrase “Jones (author) says…” over and over again. • Try to vary your language by including different transition statements in your paper.

13. Transitions • Jones notes in the November 1971 issue of Psychology Today that “…. • Try other words like: demonstrates, reports, suggests, observes, asserts, emphasizes, declares, argues that, holds, maintains, suggests, etc.

14. MLA “In-Text” Citations • If you use the author’s name in the sentence (signal phrase), you only need to include the page number where the quote/information can be found. • EX: Jones reports in the December 2001 issue of Newsweek that “the September 11th terrorist attacks will prove detrimental to the economy of the United States” (43). • Notice that the quotation mark is located before the parentheses and the period is located AFTER!

15. MLA “In-Text” Citations • If you do not use the author’s name in the sentence, you must provide the information at the end of the phrase. • EX: The September 11th terrorist attacks ultimately changed the country forever and “proved to be detrimental to the economy of the United States” (Jones 43).