The purpose of a parenthetical reference is to document a source briefly, clearly, and accurately. Brevity can be accomplished in two ways.
Cite the author's last name and the page number(s) of the source in parentheses.
One historian argues that since the invention of television, the news has been transformed into bits of show business (Postman 3-4).
Use the author's last name in your sentence, and place only the page number of the source in parentheses.
Postman points out that since the invention of television, the news has been transformed into bits of show business (3-4).
Postman, Neil. Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. New York: Penguin-Viking, 1985.
To avoid unnecessary clutter in sentences, MLA recommends placing the parenthetical references at the end of the sentence but before the final period. (Notice that there is no punctuation mark between the author's name and the page citation).
In the nineteenth century, the supposed golden age of American education, "College faculties acted as disciplinary tribunals..." (Graff 25).
Graff, Gerald. Professing Literature: An Institutional History. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1987.
Frequently, you will need to cite sources that are not as straightforward as the examples given above. In those cases, you will need to modify the standard format according to the variations illustrated below. Each example is followed by the appropriate entry that would appear in the list of works cited.
If your list of works cited contains two or more titles by the same author, place a comma after the author's last name, add a shortened version of the title and then supply the page.
Once society reaches a certain stage of industrial growth, it will shift its energies to production services (Toffler, Future 221).Toffler argues in The Third Wave that society has gone through two era's (agricultural and industrial) and is now entering the information age (26).
Toffler, Alvin. Future Shock. New York: Random, 1970.
---. The Third Wave. New York: Morrow, 1980.
When your list contains two works by author's with the same last name, supply the first initial in the parenthetical reference. In the works cited, list them alphabetically according to the first name.
Critics have often debated the usefulness of the psychological approact to literature (F. Hoffman 317).Others argue that folklore and myth provide valuable insights for literary critics (D. Hoffman 9-15)
Hoffman, Daniel. Form and Fable in American Fiction. New York: Oxford UP, 1961.
Hoffman, Frederick J. Freudianism and the Literary Mind. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1945.
When citing a work by two authors supply their names in the parenthetical reference. If you are citing a book by three or more authors you may use the first authors last name plus et al. ("and others").
The Declaration of Independence was Thomas Jefferson's attempt to list the grievance of America against England (Boller and Story 62).Other Historians view the Declaration of Independence as Jefferson's attempt to formulate American policy (Norton et.al. 141).
Boller, Paul F. and Ronald Story. A More Perfect Union: Documents in U.S. History. Boston: Houghton, 1988.
Norton, Mary Beth, et. al. A People and a Nation: A History of the United States. Boston: Houghton, 1986.
Works by anonymous authors are alphabetizied according to the first main word in the title. The articles a, an, andthe are not counted. A shortened version of the title may be used in the parenthetical reference.
The recent exhibit of nineteenth century patents include an improved creeping doll and the life-preserving coffin ("Talk").
"The Talk of the Town." New Yorker. 16 July 1984: 23.
If you need to include two or more works in a single parenthetical reference, document each reference according to the normal pattern but seperate each citation with a semicolon:
(Oleson 59; Trimble 85; Hylton 63)
Hylton, Marion Willard. War in the Western World 1914-1918. New York: Abrams, 1987.
Oleson, Carole. The Dawn of Trench Warfare. Boston: Harvard UP, 1991.
Trimble, Martha Scott. Women in the Labor Force: The British Arms Industry. Boise: Boise State Col., 1990.
Timmer, Joesph F. A Guide to MLA Documentation. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1989. (pp. 10-16)
