The purpose of the in-text citation is to briefly give readers the identity of the information you are citing, and allow them to find the information you provide in the reference list that enables readers to locate the exact piece of literature you used.
For each text citation there must be a corresponding citation in the reference list and for each reference list citation there must be a corresponding text citation.
Each in-text citation will, at a minimum, refer to an author's name or authors' names. If the original source is paginated, you'll also include the page number specific information was pulled from. If there isn't an author, your in-text citation will refer to the first couple words of the article title.
The moon is made of green cheese (Carter 47). The moon is made of green cheese (Carter and Sousa 47).
Experts agree that "the moon is comprised of green cheese" (Sousa and Thompson 43).
Lunar geologist Dr. Margaret Carter reports that the moon is made of cheese. Carter also notes that it is probably a blend of cheddar and gruyère (47).
If you mention that author's name in your actual sentence, you must contextualize who they are. Putting them in your narrative indicates they're important, so you need to clarify why. Conversely, if the author is not someone significant, don't name them in-text: use a parenthetical citation instead.
Others argue that the moon is actually made up of various rocks (Stark et al.). The SSR researchers Carter, Sousa, Thompson, and Dooley further reveal that these rocks are inedible (88). Everyone is disappointed by this development (Stark et al. 198).
In MLA, when there are 3 or more authors, you can abbreviate their names to just the first author "et al." ("and the others") in your Works Cited and your in-text citations. However, if you're going to name the authors in-text, you must instead write out all their names the first time you reference them -- no "et al."
If you refer to them in-text again later on, you could then say Carter et al. since you previously established who is in that group. Of course, you need to make sure you don't have any other citations that could be a "Carter et al."
Experts agree that "the moon is comprised of green cheese" ("Moon Analysis").
Your in-text citations are, essentially, an abbreviation of your full reference that makes it easy for your reader to very quickly find the citation by skimming the left margin. Author names are typically the first part of the citation, but if you have a source with no named author, the article title becomes the first part. This is what you'll put in parentheses in your paper. You don't have to use the full title -- just the first word or two will be sufficient.
Caveat: an unnamed author is one thing, but if you also cannot locate publisher info or a date, chances are you have a bad choice of article to use in your research. If you don't know who's creating the information, how do you know whether you should trust them?
|Electronic Source, no page numbers||
She defused the antimatter cannon and closed the wormhole (Rogers ch. 15).
Rogers emphasizes the character's development by echoing a conversation from earlier in the book (ch. 2, ch. 10).
If there aren't any page numbers, or the numbers aren't reliable (like an e-book, which can grow or shrink based on the reader's preference in font size, line spacing, etc), look for other landmarks, like section headings, chapter numbers, line numbers, or paragraph numbers. If these aren't available, oh well! You'll just omit that part of the citation. Don't start counting the paragraphs yourself.
The heroes renew their resolve to escape the moon following a tense conversation (Stark 00:54:30-01:03:00).
If your source has a runtime rather than page numbers, you'll go by the time stamps of particular scenes or quotes.
Experts agree that "the moon is comprised of green cheese" (Sousa and Thompson 43).
Sousa supports this theory but adds that "the core could be made of white cheddar" as well ("Deeper" 374).
Lunar geologist Dr. Carter reports that the moon is made of cheese (47). Carter's colleague Dr. Slate has further evidence that is made of brie and gouda in particular (Moon and Crackers 174, 176).
A study done by a team of geologists led by Dr. Underwood casts doubts on the moon being made of cheese (qtd. in Sousa and Carter 153).
This is what you'll use when you've read an article that mentions another study. You want to use the info that other study mentions, but you can't find a copy of the full original. Instead, you will cite the article you've actually read in your Works Cited (which means your in-text citation will be based on that), but you'll name-drop the other study in your paper.
To be clear: the Works Cited citation for the above would be Sousa... not Underwood... (because your Sousa article that you actually read is just citing Underwood, same as you citing the Sousa source in your paper).
|Two Different Authors, One Sentence||
Several recent studies indicate that ancient humans believed in the moon's rockiness (Underwood; Ladrian and Harms).
In this example, there are no page numbers because we're referring to the overall/main idea of the authors' works rather than specifically citable information, which is typically what you're doing when using multiple sources at once. A semicolon ( ; ) separates the authors of the different sources from each other.
A further example:
Other studies have shown the composition of the moon to include silicon, magnesium, and iron ("What is"; Underwood 16; Ladrian and Harms 53-4).
In this second example, we're citing 3 sources at once:a no-author article, an Underwood article, and a Ladrian and Harms article. Page numbers were included because of the more specific nature of the info given.
Lunar geologist Dr. Carter remains convinced that the moon is made of cheese ("Theories" 68) and has further evidence that is made of brie and stilton in particular (Moon and Crackers 174, 176).
Sousa supports this theory but adds that "the core could be made of white cheddar" as well ("Deeper" 374). No evidence of crackers or charcuterie is available (Sousa "Accompaniments").
Our Works Cited page for this sentence would have two different articles written by the same author at different times. To distinguish which one provided which information in-text, we include a snippet of the title. It doesn't matter if you're referencing the articles at the same time (first example sentence) or apart from each other (second example sentence): you have to make this distinction.
|Same Name, Different People||
Childrens' fairy tales give us the idea of the moon being of cheese (S. Rogers 37). This idea has persisted through modern imaginings like certain claymation features (B. Rogers 52).
If two different authors have the same last name, you need to include their first initials to keep them distinct from each other. If they happen to have the same first initials, even, include their full first names:
Childrens' fairy tales give us the idea of the moon being of cheese (Steve Rogers 37). This has persisted through modern imaginings like certain claymation features (Shmeve Rogers 52).
Though written essays are kind of the default format -- or at least, incredibly common -- you do still need to worry about citations when creating presentations, movies, infographics, or other types of works! The only thing that doesn't apply is all the 'Times New Roman size 12 double-space' formatting rules.
You do also have more flexibility in how and where you include citations, too!
You can use traditional parenthetical citations, especially if you've used multiple sources on one slide.
You can also go less formal [unless your professor has said otherwise!] by tucking the citation into the corner of the slide (Greene). You even have the flexibility to include extra info that MLA wouldn't normally allow but can help contextualize the source (Green, NPR Morning Edition).
You must also include a Works Cited slide! We could create hanging indents, but it's not strictly necessary. A bulleted list might also work in this situation.
You can add a formal parenthetical citation at the appropriate times in your video in some corner of the video.
Recommendation: wherever you place it, keep it consistent! E.g. if the first one is the bottom-left corner, make all the citations in the bottom-left corner. This helps your reader know where to look as well as to know what that pop-up means each time it appears.
There's no rules about size/font/format! Just pay attention to how it contrasts to your video's background.