Determine if you need an in-text citation. If you have directly quoted a source, provided specific numbers or statistics from a source, or paraphrased a specific idea in your own words, you must provide an in-text citation. Common knowledge, such as the current president's name or location of a state or country, does not need to be cited.
Identify which kind of source you are using. There are slightly different rules for citing print sources vs. electronic sources or books vs. magazine articles or journals. The general, standard way to cite a source within the text is to follow up a quote or paraphrase with the author's last name and the page number in parenthesis, as such: (Brown 11). In the case of multiple authors, all are listed in the citation, separated by commas: (Brown, Mallow, and James 34). If the source has more than three authors, first name all authors in the written text and use the first author's name followed by "et al" to indicate the rest of the authors, as such: (Brown et al. 3). Note here that you do not separate the page number with a comma, as is common in other citation styles.
Use either the organization name or title of book or article if your reference does not have an author. Here is an example of a text written by an organization without a specific author: Studies indicate that a third of all students have difficulties with MLA citations (Modern Language Association 24).
If there is no clear author or organization, use the article or book title, as such: Many studies confuse the rules of APA citations with MLA citations ("Student Problems with MLA" 34). Note here that the title of the article is in quotation marks.
If you do not have a page number, as is common for websites, include just the author's last name, organization name, or title. Website citations are generally the same as print publications, though you will less often have a page number. In the case of a website, use the indicated author's name, the organization name, article title, or webpage title. Avoid using the URL in your in-text citation.
Decide whether or not to include the author or organization name in the sentence introducing the quote or information from the reference. If you do this, then you can simplify your in-text citation to include only the page number. For example: Brown states that "many students are confused by MLA formatting" (31). Since the author's name was mentioned leading up to the quote, it does not need to be included in the parenthetical citation. This rule also applies to organization names or the titles of articles without an indicated author.