in-text citations the basics

Duke has a great guide to parenthetical citations with MLA – and as a KU alum it’s hard to praise Duke. St. Cloud U. Writing Center also has a guide which points out how to cite when the author’s name is mentioned in the text.

Something that bugs me – when I see the long and drawn-out slow wind up. It isn’t concise. It amounts to filler. For example

Stephen Krashen, a world authority on No Child Left Behind and author of “Remarks on Race to the Top,” wrote an interesting article. In it he said, and I think correctly, “Students from well-funded schools who come from high-income families score outscore all or nearly all other countries on international tests.”

This is too wordy. The end text citation will give me the title of the article, and appeals to authority should be carefully used. Krashen is popular, but not the authority you might expect among serious scholars. It’s better to frame the quote for your purposes, and let the parenthetical citation do much of the work for you.

Testing may not be the solution to our problems in education, but fighting poverty. “Students from well-funded schools who come from high-income families score outscore all or nearly all other countries on international tests ” (Krashen).

It’s shorter, and conveys much more information. Note: the above came from a web source. If it’s a pdf, or paginated source – such as print – insert the page number after the author’s last name but without commas. The two links above to a great job explaining that.