In-text citation has largely replaced footnotes and endnotes in research papers. Including the reference in parentheses within the body of your paper allows your reader to see exactly where you found the material that you have used for support. You must credit your source if you use another's words, ideas, or facts. You might use this information in a direct quote, a paraphrase, or a summary. Write as fluently as possible, trying to incorporate the support material as though it were your own writing.
Tips to Remember:
- Include the last name of the author and the page number where you found your information in your citation. Do not put a comma between the author's last name and the page number.
- Include the citation immediately after the reference, regardless of where it falls in the sentence.
- Put commas and end punctuation after the closing parenthesis.
- If there is no author listed, use the title of the work and page number.
- If you refer to the author in your sentence, you need to include only the page number in the citation.
- If you use material that is already quoted within your source, write the citation by working the name of the original author into your sentence and including the phrase qtd in in your citation. Use single quotes within double quotes.
- If you use only part of a sentence or a passage in a direct quote, use ellipses to indicate to your reader that you have left some things out.
- Place the quotation within the body of your paper as long as it does not total more than 3 typed lines of text. If it is longer than 3 lines, change your font size to 10, indent and single space the quotation.
For more information about particular types of sources and additional examples, go to Capital Community College's Research Site.
Examples
Using a quotation from an outside source:
Even as a child, George Mallory was willing to take great risks as a climber, and "when there were no trees, Mallory climbed buildings"(Jenkins 44).
Using a paraphrase from an outside source:
Eighteenth-century conduct books defined female modesty largely in terms of silence; women were not encouraged to voice their opinions or to question the authority of their male protectors (Sulloway 162).
Referring to the author of an outside source in the sentence:
Mark Jenkins suggests that Mallory was so involved in climbing because it "was the physical counterbalance to a vigorous intellectual life"(44).
Referring to the text of a work of literature:
In Jane Austen's novel, Pride and Prejudice, Mr. Bennet admires Elizabeth because "she has something more of quickness than her sisters"(10), a quality that brings her in line with the definition of his own personality, which is composed of "quick parts, sarcastic humour, reserve, and caprice"(11).
Using material already quoted in an outside source:
Climbing Mt. Everest would be a significant accomplishment for Mallory, but it would also be a significant commitment of time and resources. At base camp at the end of the second expedition, Mallory wrote, " 'Frankly the game is not good enough; the risks of getting caught are too great; the margin of strength when men are at great height is too small'"(qtd. in Jenkins 46).
Using ellipses:
It is impossible to determine whether or not Mallory and Irvine made it to the summit. At some point, they fell. "They did not fall far. . . .We know this because Mallory has told us himself, by the nature of his injuries . . .his injuries are not severe enough for there to be any other explanation"(Simonson, Hemmleb, and Johnson 74).
Indenting long quotations:
George Mallory was willing to take risks when he climbed from the time he was a young boy:
When there were no trees, Mallory climbed buildings. As an adolescent he would slip out of windows and traverse tight-mortared British brick -"buildering," three generations before the word was coined. He free-climbed the tower of the Abbey of Romsey and the tower of the Chamber Court of Winchester. Years later, on a trip to America, he was photographed climbing the fire escape of a New York skyscraper upside down (Jenkins 44).