In Text Citations are dispersed within the text of your paper to give credit for specific quotes or ideas. These citations are connected to more complete citations on the Works Cited page. In MLA, these citations take the form of author last name and page(s) cited, surrounded by parenthesis (i.e. (Author Page)). Note that there is no punctuation between the author name and page number. The citation is generally found at the end of the sentence before the punctuation. Remember that you must also include full citations on the Works Cited page to properly credit sources.
You may refer to the author in the text, in which case the page number alone is sufficient.
If the source has no known author, a truncated version of the title is appropriate in place of the author name.
Authors with the same last name should include a first initial to differentiate them (i.e. (F. LastName Page) instead of (LastName Page)).
A source with two authors should list both last names separated by an "and" (Author1 and Author2 Page) but more than that should just include the first author, followed by et.al. (Author1 et. al. Page).
In cases where one author is credited with multiple sources, a truncated version of the source title should be included in the citation.
Online sources do not require page numbers and, since such sources can be murky on author, should be listed in text by the first field filled out on the Works Cited page (more on this in the Citation Guide by Source Type).
Tables are cited within the text, Above the table, write Table 1 (each subsequent table should have a subsequent number), followed on the next line by a description. The table should appear underneath the description. Under the table, write Source: Follow this with the full citation information for the source in which the table was found. For information on how to cite each source type, look in the Citation Guide by Source Type tab on the left side of your screen.
Figures are inserted into the text and can be images, charts, graphs, or photos. To cite a figure, write underneath it Fig. 1. (subsequent numbers should be used for subsequent figures). This should be followed by a description of the figure ending in a colon (:). After the colon, include the citation information for the source in which the figure was found. Click on the Citation Guide by Source Type tab on the left for information for citing your source.
