Works Cited Help

Citing-In-Text Basic Rules

Sometimes you will build someone else's work into yours. For instance, when copyright allows, you might insert pictures made by someone else into your work. Or you might use someone else's ideas or even use that person's words in your work.

When that happens, you must CITE the source of the other person's creation.  It's simplest to cite in-text.

In MLA style this is done by using what is known as parenthetical citation. It's easy. All you do is put information in parentheses right after the other person's material.

The information in parentheses must point clearly to just one entry in your Works Cited page. Nothing is clearer than to use the very first word(s) from the matching entry in the Works Cited page.

An example follows: 

After making sure she had the right to do so, the writer copied a picture into her report. To do that correctly, she cited her source in-text. Doing so satisfies the photographer's requirement that the picture's source is attributed by anyone else who uses it.

In the example the citation, in parentheses, comes right after the picture. It is only one word, because that single word points to the beginning of only one entry in the student's Works Cited page. To make this clear, the matching Works Cited entry is given right after the excerpt from the student's report.

Smashing Pumpkins is the group I love most, and that is mostly because I started listening to them with my father when I was little girl. Every time he drove me somewhere, the Pumpkins were on the sound system. Those early years of car-ride listening can really take over your imagination.

Like other people who have a strong interest in certain music, I also have a strong interest in the musicians themselves. For me, the most important member of Smashing Pumpkins is Melissa Auf der Maur. She's a great bassist and singer.

She left the Pumpkins to join Hole, and eventually went on to release two solo albums. At the same time, she has become journalist and photographer, and it seems that over time, she will have to make a decision as to which career path should get most of her effort.

My interest in Auf der Maur has led to a study of other wonderful bassists. It has taken me all over the world of music. Studying the work of

Edgar Meyer has convinced me that rock is not the only worthy part of the music world. He composes and records classical music, jazz, bluegrass, Appalachian folk, and many other kinds of music, including what can only be termed "experimental" forms and sounds. He is a genius.