Parenthetical Citation – MLA Style

Parenthetical citations are used within the body of the research paper to refer to resources and the ideas of others.

• The list of works cited at the end of your paper acknowledges what sources you used to write your paper. This list alone does not provide sufficient documentation.
• You must also indicate within your paper exactly what information was obtained from each source and exactly where you found the information.
• You do this by inserting a parenthetical citation wherever you use another person’s words, ideas, or facts.
• Your parenthetical citation matches the corresponding information in your list of works cited. You will usually write the author’s last name and page number(s) within your paper. If the source has no author and is listed by title, use the title and page number(s).

Examples:

Marx has explained this point (145-150).

This point has already been explained (Marx 145-150).