MLA In-Text Citations
Anytime you quote OR use information from an outside source, you include an in-text citation, or sometimes referred to as a parenthetical citation, at the end of that sentence to signify where that information came from.
Basic MLA In-Text Formatting:
Include the authors last name and page number in parenthesis at the end of the sentence:
(Last Name Page #) ⮕ (Stover 56)
Or, introduce direct quotes with the author and title within the sentence or paragraph, then include the page number(s) at the end of the quote in parentheses:
While Stover does this for a lot of the main characters, as Paul Hidalgo mentions, it comes across as the most impactful with Anakin Skywalker because readers get “extensive internal viewpoints exploring the psychological underpinnings to [his] character actions" (126).
I'm Citing A. . .
You only need the author's last name and the page number.
Example: (Stover 145)
Connect both authors' last names with and, and include the page number.
Example: (Koneswaran and Nirenberg 580)
Use the first author's last name and et al., and include the page number.
Example: (Franck et al. 327)
If you have no author, you place the article name in your citation instead.
Example: ("How Star Wars Revolutionized Entertainment")
If you have no page number, which often happens with sources from Google, just don't put a page number. You'll just have the author's last name.
Example: (Baver)