How to Cite Within the Text of an Essay

One of the basic skills that you will exercise regularly in high school or college is the citation of sources. When you quote directly from or paraphrase a source in the text of your essay, you should adhere to one of the formats most commonly used for citing sources. Two of the most popular are the Modern Language Association (MLA) format or the American Psychological Association (APA) format. Both the MLA and APA publish easy-to-follow guidelines for parenthetical citations within the text.

Instructions

  1. APA In-Text Citation

    • 1

      List the name of the author, followed by a comma.

    • 2

      List the year in which the source you are citing was published, followed by a comma.

    • 3

      List the page number you are citing, preceded by "p."

    • 4

      Place the citation information within parentheses. For example,

      (Jackson, 2009, p. 119)

    • 5

      Position your citation directly after you quote or paraphrase from the source. Your parenthetical citation should precede punctuation such as commas, periods, colons and semicolons. For example:

      At least one observer has argued that Shakespeare "had very little to do with the actual planning of his productions" (Jackson, 2009, p. 119).

      If you use the author's name in the text, omit it from your parenthetical citation. In this case, the year of publication should be positioned after the author's name, and the page number should be positioned after the quotation or paraphrasing. For example:

      Jackson (2009) has argued that Shakespeare "had very little to do with the actual planning of his productions" (p. 119).

    MLA In-Text Citation

    • 6

      List the name of the author, followed by the page number you are referencing. Do not separate the author and page number with a comma or any other form of punctuation.

    • 7

      Place the citation information within parentheses. For example,

      (Jackson 119)

    • 8

      Position your citation directly after you quote or paraphrase from the source. Your parenthetical citation should precede punctuation such as commas, periods, colons and semicolons. For example:

      At least one observer has argued that Shakespeare "had very little to do with the actual planning of his productions" (Jackson 119).

      If you use the author's name in the text, omit it from your parenthetical citation. For example:

      Jackson has argued that Shakespeare "had very little to do with the actual planning of his productions" (119).

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