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English Language & Literature

A subject guide to library resource in English.

MLA Citation Style (9th Edition)

Text Citations
A typical in-text citation is composed of the author's name and page number (54). 

One author: The citation for a paraphrased idea should be placed as close as possible after the borrowed container, at a natural pause in your sentence, so the flow is not disrupted (57). Ex: (Baron 194)
No author: If the the author is anonymous or an organization, your in-text citation contains the title, in entirety within the text or abbreviated before the page number in parenthesis (56). Ex: (Reading 3).
Multiple authors: 

Two authors: Include both last names in the in-text citation, connected by and (116). Ex: (Dorris and Erdrich 23) 
Three or more authors: The in-text citation begins with the first author's name followed by et al. (116). Ex: (Burdick et al. 42)

Works Cited
Format the Works Cited list so that the second and subsequent lines of each entry are indented half an inch from the left margin. 

Book (111): 

Last name, First name. Title of Book. Publisher, Publication Date.

Ex:

Gillespie, Paula, and Neal Lerner. The Allyn and Bacon Guide to Peer Tutoring. Allyn and Bacon, 2000.

 

Web page (167,195): 

Last name, First name. "Title of source." Title of container, Other contributors, Publisher, Year, URL. Date of access.

Ex: ​

California Department of Fish and Game. "Coho Salmon." Fisheries Branch, 2017, https://www.wildlife .ca.gov/Conservation/Fishes/Coho-Salmon. Accessed 20 June 2018.

 

Journal article

Author(s). "Title of Article." Title of Journal, Volume, Issue, Year, pages.

Example of print article (178): 

Hetherington, Jaclyn A. and Janet M. Stoppard. “The Theme of Disconnection in Adolescent Girls’ Understanding of Depression.” Journal of Adolescence, Vol. 25, no. 6, 2002, pp. 619-629.

Example of article from an online database (194): 

Bockelman, Brian. "Buenos Aires Boheme: Argentina and the Transatlantic Bohemian Renaissance, 1890-1910." Modernism/Modernity, vol.23, no.1, Jan. 2016, pp.37-63. Project Muse, https://doi.org/10.1353/mod.2016.0011.

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