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How to Cite Paragraph Numbers from Short Stories

Citations can seem a bit confusing and overwhelming at times. It's the little bits of information that can throw us off. One such citation that may have you stumped is citing paragraph numbers in a short story. Most short stories don't have paragraph numbers, therefore citing them is unnecessary. If you do run into a scenario where you need to cite paragraph numbers of a short story, break it down: Learn to cite a short story, then learn to cite paragraph numbers.

Instructions

- 1
  Develop a signal phrase that includes the short story's title and author. Short story titles should be in quotation marks:
  
  Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" is the story of a woman's journey into madness (306--319).
- 2
  Cite the page numbers of the source in parentheses. If the author's name was not used in the signal phrase, it should be cited in the parentheses:
  
  "The Yellow Wallpaper" is the story of a woman's journey into madness (Gilman 306--319).
- 3
  Cite the paragraph number in parentheses. This is most commonly done for electronic sources and should be done only if the author inserted paragraph numbers in the story:
  
  The introductory paragraph of Smith's story sets the mood (par. 1).

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