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Research Writing

A guide to assist you with Research Writing at Bay College.

In-Text Citations

MLA format uses in-text citations and a Works Cited page at the end of the paper to provide proper documentation of your sources. In the text of your paper, you must document all direct quotations, paraphrases, statistics, and ideas that you have borrowed from another source. Use these tips when creating in-text citations.

  • In-text citations should be used whether quoting or paraphrasing.
  • In-text citations should be placed at the end of sentence after any quotation marks, in parentheses, before the final punctuation mark.
  • If you don’t mention the name of the material’s author or source, you must include this information in parenthetical citation.
  • Type the first word of the Works Cited entry for your source, and include the page number(s) in which you found the information.
  • This could be the author's last name or the first word(s) of the article.
  • Follow the first word of the bibliographical citation with the page number(s) on which the information can be found.
  • If you mention the author's name or the source information in your text, you need only list the page numbers in parentheses.

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