ENGL 101: Sandin, J. (Spring 2024): MLA citation

What does citing mean?

After you gather information from outside resources to add to your own ideas about a topic, you will quote, paraphrase, or summarize those sources within the body of your paper.

Citing allows you to share with your readers where you got your information so that they can verify what you've written or follow up on an interesting idea, and it protects you from any charges of plagiarism.

There are two parts to an MLA citation:

1. The in-text citation lets your reader know, briefly, where the source information in your paper came from. Usually, this includes the author(s) and page number.
2. The separate Works Cited page lets your reader know, in detail, where that same information came from.

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What is MLA? 

MLA style refers to the rules created by the Modern Language Association for formatting papers, as well as for how to do in-text citations and end-of-paper citations (Works Cited). MLA style is used primarily by authors in the humanities, especially literature.

Purdue OWL Guides: MLA 9th Ed.

MLA Style Handouts 

Here are some handouts (in both .docx and .pdf formats) featuring examples of citations for sources you might find through TCC's Library and the Web. This first handout is for the full works cited page. 

Works Cited

In-Text Citations

Citing Social Media