Parenthetical Citations at a Glance

 Use parenthetical citations for any information you quote, paraphrase, or summarize.

HOW TO CITE

Give page number and the least information necessary to identify the source (in other words, if the author is clear, only include page numbers).

Paraphrase of a Source

David Wise and Thomas B. Ross suggest that the United States’ leaders used the Cold War as a way to justify not telling the American public what the government was doing (6).

Quotation Ending in a Period

“The Invisible Government emerged in the aftermath of the World War II as one of the instruments designed to insure national survival” (Wise and Ross 348).

Quotation Ending in a Question Mark or Exclamation Mark

 “If there are not rules, or none worth his attention, where is the beginning writer to begin?” (Gardner 17).

Indented Quotation
(no quotation marks and punctuation changes so period precedes parentheses)

 As John Gardner writes,

If the Good seems relative in our dealings with adults, it seems less so in our dealings with children. No one who has worked with children, who has watched healthy and unhealthy families in action, or clearly remembers his own childhood, will be tempted to deny that wanton cruelty, consistent indifference, betrayal, habitual insincerity, and the like do noticeable physical harm. (136)

  WHAT TO CITE

 Author Identified in the Paper

 As John Gardner points out, “Discovering the meaning and communicating the meaning are for the writer one single act” (36).

 Author Identified in the Citation

 “Discovering the meaning and communicating the meaning are for the writer one single act (Gardner 36).

 Two or More Works by the Same Author
(include the title in a shortened form in the parenthetical citation)

 From Judith Butler’s Bodies That Matter
            (Butler, Bodies 23)

From Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble
   (Butler, Gender 49)

  Two Authors With the Same Last Name

            (Daniel Hoffman 47)
            (Frederick Hoffman 103)

 Work With Two or Three Authors

            (Erdrich and Dorris 12)
            (Smith, Jones, and Brown 326)

 Work With More Than Three Authors

            (Norton et al. 144)

Unknown Author (Anonymous Work)

            From “Former State Care Home Will Close” :   (“Former” 1A)