In-text citations (sometimes called 'parenthetical citations' because they are placed within parentheses) should show precisely where you used others' ideas and words. These in-text citations should refer the reader to the source on the Works Cited page and, in most cases, provide the reader the exact location of the idea or quote within the source itself.
For example, in-text citations will list the first part of the Works Cited entry (e.g., an author's last name) and then the location (e.g., a page number).
You can find some specific examples below:
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Author's Name in Text (Paraphrase): |
Posnock is quick to point out that Pater believes in the autonomy of the self (181). |
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Author's Name In Reference (Paraphrase): |
Pater believes in the autonomy of the self (Posnock 181). |
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Author's Name In Text (with Quote): |
Posnock is quick to point out that Pater believes in the autonomy of the self, the “individual in isolation” (181). |
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Author's Name In Reference (with Quote): |
Pater believes in the autonomy of the self, the "individual in isolation" (Posnock 181). |
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Author's Name In Text, with only part of the sentence referencing the author's ideas. |
Just as Pater summons the reader to live by stating, “For our chance lies in expanding that interval [between life and death], in getting as many pulsations as possible into a given time” (153), so, too, does Henry James charge Milly.
*NOTE: Try to place page numbers at natural pauses. This usually happens at the end of the sentence. However, if you are making your own, unique point in part of the sentence (as here), it may not. |
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Author's Name In Reference, with only part of the sentence referencing the author's ideas. |
Milly must squeeze in ". . . as many pulsations as possible into a given time" (Pater 153). |
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A Quote longer than 4 lines. (This example with author's name in text) |
In his letter to Gosse, Henry James addresses and imagines Pater’s continuing potency throughout time:
He reminds me, in the disturbed night of our actual literature, of one of those
lucent matchboxes which you place . . . near the candle, to show you, in the
darkness, where you can strike a light: he shines in the uneasy gloom
—vaguely, and has a phosphorescence . . . . he is not of the little day—but
of the longer time (293).
Thus James continues to play with notions of temporality.
*NOTE: Double-space and indent quotes that are longer than 4 lines within the text. There is no need to place them in quotation marks. Include the page number and author (if not in text) in parentheses at the end. |
| When 2 or more works by the same author are included in the Works Cited page |
Mead puts forth a more permeable social self unlike James's more or less rigid "concrete particular I's and you's" (Principles 226).
Mead puts forth a more permeable social self unlike the more or less rigid "concrete particular I's and you's" (James, Principles 226).
*NOTE: Include a partial title so that the reader knows which one is referred to on the Works Cited page. |
| When a work is listed by title on the Works Cited page |
They aimed to prove the "essential goodness of humanity" ("Transcendentalism" 46). |