MLA Style Guide - 7th Edition

If you are citing two or more works written by the same author, include a shortened version of the title in your citation.

Wallace claimed to have prior knowledge ("Thoughts from Dallas" 2009).

or:

Some precedent has been established on this topic (Wallace, "Thoughts from Dallas" 2007).

Citing the Bible? The rules are a bit different.

See this page on citing the Bible for detailed instructions on in-text citations.

Give credit in the text to exact quotations as well as paraphrases of information and ideas.

Common examples of in-text citations:

1. Statements followed by cite in parentheses.

• (Paraphrase) There has been a great disagreement between physicists and musicians about music (Taylor 37). 
• (Exact Quote) "Music has come a long way since […] But it will never supplant the sounds of traditional instruments" (Taylor 37).

2. Include the author(s) in the statement with the page number in parentheses.

• According to Taylor, physicists and musicians now have a more amicable relationship (39).

3. Include the author(s) and the year in statements.

• In a 1991 article, Taylor blamed physicists for the … (36).

4. If you are citing one of two or more works by the same author, identify the work with a shortened version of its title in parentheses along with the page number.

• Northrop Frye has called King Lear a "comedy of the grotesque" (Anatomy 237).

If a work has no known author, the in-text citation should include a shortened version of the title and page number.

For example, if you were citing the following:

"The Impact of Global Warming in North America." GLOBAL WARMING: Early Signs. 1999. Web. 23 Mar. 2009.

Your in-text citation would look like this:

We see so many global warming hotspots in North America likely because this region has "more readily accessible climatic data and more comprehensive programs to monitor and study environmental change . . ." ("Impact of Global Warming" 6).

Note that in the shortened title, you will remove a, an and the from the beginning of the title, and include only a few important words from the title itself; there is no need to include the entire title. The goal is simply to let your reader know to which source on your Works Cited page you are referring.

Put the title in quotation marks if referring to a short work (such as an article); omit the quotation marks and italicize instead if using a longer/complete work (such as a book).

Thanks to Purdue OWL for the examples in this section.