Skip to Main Content

John Gray Park '28 Library
Toggle main navigation

Citation and Writing

Citation Rules

  1. Include the author’s last name and page number(s) in parentheses at the end of the sentence that contains his words or ideas, like a summary, paraphrase, or quotation.
  2. Or cite the author by naming him in the lead-in to the source; finish by putting the page numbers in parentheses at the end of the sentence that contains the borrowed words or ideas. This conveys to the reader that everything between the author’s name and the parenthetical citation is from the cited source. 
  3. If no author is listed, use the title instead; however, whatever signal word or phrase you use (within the text or parenthesis) must be the first word(s) that appear in your corresponding Works Cited entry.
  4. Write the page number without a p. in front of it. You may omit the page number if a source lacks page numbers and/or if the source is a website.
  5. If you’re quoting from a poem, use line numbers instead of page numbers.
  6. If you’re quoting Shakespeare, use act, scene, and line numbers instead of page numbers.  (Cite modern plays by page number.)

How to Cite a Summary

1) Lead into the summary by naming the author. (If no author is listed, use the title instead. If no title is listed, use the name of the individual page of the website. )

2) Finish the summary by providing the page number(s) in parentheses.

This conveys to the reader that everything between the name of the author and the parenthetical citation is a summary of the cited source. (If you don’t name the author at the beginning, it looks as if only the last sentence derives from the cited source.)

 

EXAMPLE:

            According to Nicholas Lemann, experts on terrorism seek to understand the root causes of terror. Instead of viewing terrorists as brainwashed or crazy, analysts regard them as sane people who make rational choices based on the inducements and disincentives confronting them. For example, one researcher found that the Taliban in Afghanistan pays its followers several times what the US-financed government pays local soldiers and police officers (73).

In-Text Citations

You must include citations in the body of your paper. An in-text citation includes the author’s last name and page number(s) in parentheses at the end of the sentence that contains his words or ideas, or cite the author by naming him in the lead-in to the source; finish by putting the page numbers in parentheses at the end of the sentence that contains the borrowed words or ideas.

Examples of In-Text Citations

             Today many Americans are fed up with industrialized food that undermines health.  Economist Grant Houston lays the blame on bad government policy:  “subsidies to corn growers keep the price of corn artificially low” (122).   Food manufacturers then add cheap corn syrup to everything from marinated pork to breakfast cereal (Houston 124).  “The health conscious are reducing their consumption of processed food” to avoid the increased risk of heart disease and diabetes of this high-sugar diet (Krueger A1).  They are shopping at local farmers’ markets and cooking from whole foods (“How to Make Vegetarian Tacos”).  They are ridding their children’s schools of soda dispensers (Sanchez, “PTA Focuses on Food,” 15).

The above are examples of the correct in-text citation forms for a book (Holthaus), a newspaper (Krugman), an individual webpage with no author listed ("How to Make Vegetarian Tacos"), and a magazine article that is one of two sources by the same author (Sanchez).

 

Examples of in-text citation from the same source:

Economist Grant Houston lays the blame on bad government policy:  “subsidies to corn growers keep the price of corn artificially low” (122).   

or

Recent studies show that “tariffs on imported sugar unfairly subsidize US sugar growers” (Houston 248).