8 EP USH/Civil War/Spring: In-Text Citation Directions

Where do you put an in-text citation?

In the body of your paper, a short citation goes in parentheses just after the place where you have written the facts or information.

When do you need to use an in-text citation?

You need to add an in-text citation whenever you:

• refer to someone else's work
• summarize someone else's work
• paraphrase someone else's work
• or quote directly from a source

What does an in-text citation look like and what should you include?

In parenthesis after the information, you will include:

• the author's last name if available
• if there is no author, use the first words in the full citation
• the copyright date or last updated date of your source, or, if that is not available, the date you looked at it
• and if relevant, the page number

In-Text Citation Examples: 

General rules:

• Use whatever words are at the left margin in your final bibliography 
• Add the publication year
  • Note: if there is no publication year, use the access year
• Add the page number
  • Note: Leave off the page number if the source does not have any page numbers

From a source with one author, use: (author's last name copyright year, page #)

Example for a book with 1 author:

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., became well known when he became a leader of the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955 (Weston 2021, 22).

From a source without an author, use: ("title of the work or website" copyright year, page#)

Example for a database article without page numbers:

Example for a website: