VCU Writes: A Student’s Guide to Research and Writing

Note: Remember that in-text citations should match exactly the beginning (the first letter/word) of the full citation in your Works Cited list–typically, this will be the author’s last name or the first couple of words of the title (if there is no author). If the Works Cited entry starts with Morrison, use (Morrison) in the essay text. If the Works Cited entry starts with “An Amazing Perpetual Annoyance,” use (“An Amazing”) in the essay text.

Connecting your in-text citations to the first letter/word of the Works Cited entry helps your readers to find the connection to the full citation easily–in case they wanted to find and read more from that source.

There are two ways to cite material in the body of your writing:

1. Include the author’s name in a signal phrase. At the end of the cited material, include the page number (if available) in parentheses:

Max Sexton argued that all magicians are keenly alive to the effects of mise-en-scène as spectacle during a necromantic exhibition (24).

2. At the end of the cited material, include the author’s name and page number in parentheses:

It has been argued that all magicians are keenly alive to the effects of mise-en-scène as spectacle during a necromantic exhibition (Sexton 24).

State an author’s name in full the first time you use it. Thereafter, refer to the author only by last name. The only exception is if there are two authors with the same last name; in this case, always use the authors’ first and last names.

Generally, your parenthetical citation (aka, “in-text citation”) should go at the end of the sentence, as long as it is clear what in the sentence is being cited. However, there are some situations that require putting the in-text citation at a different point in the sentence, or in multiple places:

1. When you are quoting multiple ideas/phrases from a source and inserting your own ideas in between, you need to keep the page numbers with the matching quoted material.
2. When you have information from two or more different sources in the same sentence (whether the information is quoted or paraphrased), you need to cite each source at the moment you mention it to avoid confusion.
3. If you continue with your own ideas after a quotation or paraphrase, put the citation directly after the source info so that it does not appear that your ideas are part of the source’s ideas.

In certain instances, you do not need to cite information. This is called the “common knowledge rule.” If a fact is widely and generally known (e.g., the sun rises in the east and sets in the west), you do not need to cite. Information widely available in reference works such as biographical information or basic facts about an historical event also fall under this category.

Common knowledge can in some cases be audience-specific, however; research scientists writing to their peers can assume a different level of common knowledge on their subject than when writing to a younger, less educated audience, for example.

If the information is debatable or you think your reader will want to find out more about the topic, citing your sources is recommended. And of course, if you are ever in doubt as to whether you should cite a piece of information, ask your professor or a Writing Center consultant.

If you just reference the title of a work or the name of an author briefly without any specific reference to specific ideas from the work or author, you do not need to cite the source. For example, if you simply mention that your favorite movie is The Lord of the Rings, you have not quoted any lines from the movie, referenced a specific scene, or used the movie to support an idea. You have just shared an opinion in a general way, which is a passing mention. No citation is needed in this case.

When you use a well-known phrase or oft-repeated quotation in passing for effect, you generally do not need to cite the original source. For example:

His speech was “full of sound and fury,” but in reality it had no meaning.

The choice was before her: should she take the red pill and discover the truth, or the blue so she could live in contented bliss?

An epigraph is a quotation used at the beginning of a work to set the tone or a major theme for the work. These should be used rarely, but if used they do not require a citation. Any quotation used this way is more for stylistic effect; it should not be discussed in the body of the work.

Formatting for epigraphs is as follows: Do not use quotation marks, and in the line below the quotation mention the author and title of the work from which the epigraph comes. No further documentation is needed, and the work should not be included in the Works Cited list.

Include the author’s name in a signal phrase and the page number in parentheses at the end of the sentence. The parentheses should always follow the quotation mark ending the quotation:

As Oscar Wilde writes, “We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely” (2).

Include both authors’ names as well as the page number, either as part of the signal phrase or in parentheses at the end of the sentence:

As Adam Arico and Don Fallis argue, “Before it is concluded that the traditional definition completely captures the moral wrongness of lying, we need a greater understanding of the moral status of these other features of lies” (31).

OR

“Before it is concluded that the traditional definition completely captures the moral wrongness of lying, we need a greater understanding of the moral status of these other features of lies” (Arico and Fallis 31).

Include the first author’s name and “et al.” to represent the other authors:

When considering lying in everyday life, Bella DePaulo et al. wrote, “Pronouncements about deceit are staggeringly varied not only because of the nature of the beast, but also because the debate on deceit has in some important ways proceeded virtually unconstrained by data” (979).

If there is no author’s name given for the work, include the full title of the work in your signal phrase, or a shortened version of the title (the first two to three words) in the in-text citation along with the page reference:

“A Dangerous Standoff in Venezuela” asserts that “the latest confrontation between the government and the opposition began with regional court rulings that tossed out signatures supporting the referendum on grounds that some were gathered fraudulently” (83).

OR

“The latest confrontation between the government and the opposition began with regional court rulings that tossed out signatures supporting the referendum on grounds that some were gathered fraudulently” (“A Dangerous” 83).

If you use more than one work by the same author, include the first two or three words of the title you reference within the in-text citation:

Scott Lynch’s novels invariably open in the middle of conflict. In his first book’s first line, we meet our main character as the object of a transaction: “At the height of the long wet summer of the Seventy-seventh Year of Sendovani, the Thiefmaker of Camorr paid a sudden and unannounced visit to the Eyeless Priest at the Temple of Perelandro, desperately hoping to sell him the Lamora boy” (Lynch, The Lies 9). In his second, “Locke Lamora stood on the pier in Tal Verrar with the hot wind of a burning ship at his back and the cold bite of a loaded crossbow’s bolt at his neck. He grinned and concentrated on holding his own crossbow level with the left eye of his opponent; they were close enough that they would catch most of each other’s blood, should they both twitch their fingers at the same time” (Lynch, Red Seas 9).

When the author you are reading (e.g., Sutton in the example below) quotes another author (e.g., Martinez and Mead), you need to cite both authors: First cite the original author and then cite the author that you are reading. Here is an example:

Martinez and Mead showed that “students whose parents had graduated from college were three times as likely to own a computer than students whose parents had not completed high school” (qtd. in Sutton 479).

In the Works Cited page, list the author you are reading (and not the original author):

Sutton, Rosemary E. “Equity and Computers in the Schools: A Decade of Research.” Review of Educational Research, vol. 61, no. 4, 1991, pp. 475-503.

SAGE Journals, https://doi.org/10.3102/00346543061004475.

If a source does not have page numbers, but it has other types of numbering (for example, paragraph, line, or section number), then use the numbering that the source offers. Example:

In “Fire and Ice,” Robert Frost succinctly compares the power of fire and ice and asserts that “for destruction ice is also great and would suffice” (lines 7-9).

Works Cited:

Frost, Robert. “Fire and Ice.” New Hampshire: A Poem with Notes and Grace Notes, 1923, p. 80. Representative Poetry Online, 1998, https://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/content/fire-and-ice.

Many sources do not have numbering: lectures, presentations, audio files, and video games are a few examples. Some may have limited or inconsistent numbering, such as slide decks. If a source does not have any numbering at all, then simply cite the author (or title for works without authors). Do not count page, paragraph, line, or section numbers yourself, only include them if they already exist. For how to reference these sources in your end citations, see the relevant end citation format for your source type.

When quoting a source that is time-based, like audio or video recordings, cite the time during which the quoted/paraphrased material occurred in the recording. Provide the hours, minutes and seconds displayed and separate the numbers with colons. Example:

Sir Ken Robinson contends that “all kids have tremendous talents, and we squander them” (Robinson 00:02:48).

Works Cited:
Robinson, Sir Ken. “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” Ted.com, June 2006, https://www.ted.com/talks/sir_ken_robinson_do_schools_kill_creativity