MLA In-Text Citations: The Author-Page Rules, With Examples

An MLA in-text citation is the author's last name and a page number, with nothing separating them but a space: (Moore 37). No comma, and no "p." before the number — both of which APA and Harvard use, which is exactly why students who've written a paper in one of those styles tend to add them here out of habit. If you name the author in your own sentence, only the page number goes in parentheses: Moore argues this directly (37).

For a source with two authors, name both: (Moore and Patel 48–50). For three or more authors, MLA doesn't list them all — you name the first author followed by "et al.": (Moore et al. 59). The parenthetical citation goes before the sentence's closing punctuation, not after — the one exception is a block quote, where it follows the period instead.

When a source has no author, MLA's rule is specific: never write "Anonymous" — cite whatever element starts that source's Works Cited entry instead, which is usually a shortened version of the title. A source titled "Sources of Self-Regulation" becomes ("Sources"). If the source is published by an organization that isn't also the source's author, cite the organization's name the same way you would an author.

For a source with no page numbers — a website, an ebook without stable pagination — use whatever numbered division it actually has: a chapter number (Luxemburg, ch. 26), or for something like a play, act-scene-line numbers (Shakespeare 1.2.95). If there's no numbering of any kind, cite the author's name alone with nothing after it. And if you're citing a quote that appears inside another source rather than the original, use "qtd. in": (qtd. in Luxemburg, ch. 26).

A citation generator reliably handles the mechanical part once you give it the source details: dropping the comma and "p." that other styles use, applying the et al. cutoff at the right author count, and matching whatever element you're citing in-text to the correct starting element of the Works Cited entry. StudyPilot's citation generator formats MLA in-text citations and Works Cited entries together, alongside APA, Chicago, Harvard, IEEE, and Vancouver.

What it can't do for you is decide which locator to use on a source with unusual formatting — whether a given PDF's internal numbering counts as "pages" or whether a video needs a timestamp instead — since that depends on the specific source in front of you. Worth a quick manual check on anything that isn't a straightforward paginated book or article before you turn the paper in.