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How to Make In-Text Citations

Chapter 8 /  Lesson 5   Transcript
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  • 0:03 Citations
  • 2:47 MLA Citations
  • 4:43 APA Citations
  • 5:49 Citation System
  • 6:24 Lesson Summary
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Lesson Transcript
Instructor: Monica Wemyss
With this lesson, you'll get to know the basics of creating in-text citations. We'll go over both MLA and APA style parenthetical citations and how to use them to cite different types of sources.

Citations

When you are writing, sometimes you want to use a fact that you didn't find out for yourself. For example, you might want to use the fact that the planet Earth is 238,855 miles from the moon, but you're not super-thrilled about the idea of building your own spaceship and flying up to check for yourself. That's where citations come in.

In academic writing, you can look up someone else's measurement of the distance between the earth and the moon, and then use it in your own work with a citation. A citation tells the reader where you got information or an idea from. It's a way to credit other people for putting in the hard work of actually flying to the moon to check so you don't have to. Here are some example sentences that could be in your paper:

  • According to NASA, the earth is 238,855 miles from the moon (NASA Space Place).

  • Experts in astronomy agree that the moon and the earth are ''really far apart'' (NASA Space Place).

You have to cite every fact in your paper that you found out from someone else, unless the fact is common knowledge. For example, you don' have to cite the fact that Washington, D.C., is the capital of the USA: everyone knows that. But, you do have to cite the fact that Congress first met in Washington, D.C., on November 17, 1800, because most people don't know that. When in doubt - cite. You will never get in trouble for citing something unnecessarily, but you can get in trouble for not citing when you should have.

Also, use citations any time you quote someone else's words or use someone else's ideas. Here are some more examples:

  • Winston Churchill has a very high opinion of the Duke of Marlborough, referring to his ''genius…in the field and his sagacity in counsel'' (Churchill 38).

  • Winston Churchill strongly approved of Queen Anne's decision to place the Duke of Marlborough in supreme command of her armies (38).

Academic books can have thousands of citations, so everyone wants to keep them short. So, we've come up with several ways to squeeze all the information you need into short, easy-to-read citations. In this lesson, you'll learn two major ways to cite sources: APA style and MLA style. It does feel really nitpicky at first, and it's kind of annoying to pay attention to, but it's important to give other people credit for their ideas.

In both MLA and APA styles, you'll have a bibliography at the end of your paper. The bibliography lists every single source you took facts or ideas from, with enough information that the reader can find the exact same source. Then, in your in-text citations, refer readers to particular works in the bibliography and tell them where to look within each work.

MLA Citations

MLA stands for the Modern Language Association. MLA citations use parenthetical citations with the author and page number. These short citations tell the reader which source in your bibliography to look up and where to look in the source. Here's an example:

  • One historian praises Godolphin as the ''able Lord Treasurer'' (Churchill 41).

If you mention the author in the sentence, you can just give the page number:

  • Churchill praises Godolphin as the ''able Lord Treasurer'' (41).

If your readers want to look up that quote, they can just go to your bibliography, look up the Churchill book, and find the quote for themselves.

If you have a source that doesn't have a single author, like a website, you can replace the author's name with any identifying phrase, like the title of the website. If you have a source without page numbers, like a painting, you can simply leave them out.

But, what if you have two books by Winston Churchill? This quote is from his book History of the English-Speaking Peoples, but maybe you are writing a whole paper on Winston Churchill, so you're also citing his book Marlborough: His Life and Times. No problem, just use a shortened version of each source title to tell the reader which book you mean:

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You are viewing lesson Lesson 5 in chapter 8 of the course:

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English 104: College Composition I

11 chapters | 102 lessons | 10 flashcard sets

Ch 8. Using Source Materials
Ch 9. Composition Best Practices: Theory...

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