An MLA quote citation has two parts: an in-text citation right after the quote, giving the author’s last name and page number like (Morrison 58), and a matching full entry on the Works Cited page. The in-text citation points to the Works Cited entry through the author’s name. This is MLA 9th edition.
Here is exactly what goes in each part, and how to cite a quote when the source has no author or no page number.
What does an MLA in-text citation for a quote look like?
The basic form is the author’s last name and the page number in parentheses, with no comma between them: (Morrison 58). It goes after the closing quotation mark and before the period.
If you name the author in your sentence, the parentheses hold only the page number:
Morrison describes the house as “spiteful” from its first line (3).
That is the whole rule for a standard quote. The name in the citation must match the first word of the Works Cited entry so a reader can connect the two.
How do you cite a quote with no page number?
Web pages and many digital sources have no page numbers. Cite the author’s last name alone: (Okafor). Do not substitute a URL, a screen position, or a guessed number.
If the source has stable numbered paragraphs or sections, you can cite them with a label: (Okafor, par. 6) or (Okafor, sec. 2). Use these only when the source itself supplies the numbering.
How do you cite a quote with no named author?
When a source has no author, cite a shortened form of its title in the same place the author’s name would go. Put titles of short works in quotation marks and titles of long works in italics.
For an article titled “The Cost of Convenience,” the in-text citation is (“Cost” 12) or (“Cost”) if there is no page number. The shortened title must begin with the word the full Works Cited entry is alphabetized under.
What is the Works Cited entry for a quoted source?
Every quote needs a full entry on the Works Cited page. MLA 9 builds entries from a set of “core elements” in a fixed order: author, title of source, title of container, contributors, version, number, publisher, publication date, location.
A book quote entry looks like this:
Morrison, Toni. Beloved. Alfred A. Knopf, 1987.
An entry for an article in an online publication looks like this:
Okafor, Amara. “The Cost of Convenience.” The Atlantic, 14 Mar. 2024, www.theatlantic.com/example.
The first word of the entry, the author’s last name, is what the in-text citation points to.
Short quote vs block quote citation
For a short quote (four lines or fewer), keep the quotation marks and put the period after the parentheses: “…” (Morrison 58).
For a block quote (more than four lines), drop the quotation marks, indent the block half an inch, and put the period before the parentheses. The citation format is otherwise identical. See block quote MLA for the layout.
FAQ
Does the page number need “p.” in MLA?
No. MLA in-text citations use the bare number: (Smith 42), not (Smith, p. 42). The “p.” abbreviation is APA, not MLA.
What if a source has two or three authors?
For two authors, name both: (Smith and Lee 30). For three or more, name the first followed by “et al.”: (Smith et al. 30).
Do I cite a quote differently if I name the author in the sentence?
Yes. If the author’s name is in your sentence, the parentheses hold only the page number. You never repeat the name in both places.
How is an MLA quote citation different from APA?
MLA uses author and page: (Smith 42). APA uses author, year, and page for a direct quote: (Smith, 2020, p. 42). See APA quote citation for the APA format.
Leave a Reply