Parenthetical Citations

Citations & Style Guides

Most forms of academic writing are research-based, which means that as a writer, you're frequently citing work by other writers. Because of this, academic disciplines have developed style guides for documenting and citing references to work by other writers. A style guide is simply a set of rules or conventions for formatting a piece of writing that guarantees consistency and ease of use for the readers.

Though there are many style guides in use in various academic disciplines, the two most common are those of the Modern Language Association, commonly referred to as MLA, and the American Psychological Association, known as APA. As the names of these organizations might indicate, MLA is the common style guide for humanities disciplines, such as English, literature, and philosophy. APA, on the other hand, is used in the sciences, not just psychology but also disciplines such as biology and physics.

APA and MLA both have specific sets of rules regarding the documentation and citing of sources, but both use parenthetical citations as the basis of their citation system.

Parenthetical Citation Basics

There are a few basic things to know about parenthetical citations in general before we get into the specifics of APA and MLA. First, it's important to understand the reason that parenthetical citations exist. Parenthetical citations appear in or at the end of a sentence where you have either directly quoted someone else's words or paraphrased someone else's ideas in your own words. They're there to give credit to the original writer in order to avoid plagiarism.

More specifically, parenthetical citations serve as a quick cross-reference to the longer and more complete list of sources at the end of your paper. In MLA, this list of sources is called Works Cited, and in APA, it's known as References, but they're both basically the same thing: a list of sources at the end of your document in which the relevant information is given a specific format. Without a good Works Cited or References page, a parenthetical citation is useless.

To illustrate this, let's look at an example of the typical use of a parenthetical citation in MLA format.

Hamlet is the most frequently produced of Shakespeare's plays (Greenblatt 43).

By itself, that citation of (Greenblatt 43) is meaningless. But, it only exists to guide us to the Works Cited, where we find this entry:

Greenblatt, Stephen. Hamlet in Purgatory. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001.

Now we know where that piece of information came from and can look it up ourselves, if need be.

Parenthetical Citations in MLA

Our previous example contains the most basic and common form of MLA parenthetical citation, consisting of an author's last name and page number. The last name leads us quickly to the entry in the Works Cited since authors' last names are the first things listed, and the page number directs us specifically to the place in the text where the information comes from.

This format works for most traditional academic sources, such as books and scholarly journal articles. However, sometimes sources don't have authors. In that case, the first thing listed in the Works Cited will be the title of the work, like this:

''Ten Causes of the Economic Crash.'' The Economist. 5 Jan. 2009. 57-59.

But, since the parenthetical citation only exists to direct readers to the Works Cited page, the same principle applies. Instead of the author's name, we'll use the title of the work. If the title is longer than two or three words, use an abbreviated title with only the first couple words, like this:

(''Ten Causes'' 58).

But, what if there are no page numbers in the original text as often happens for online texts? No problem, just leave that part out.

Parenthetical Citations in APA

Parenthetical citations in APA style function very similar to those in APA, with a few wrinkles. Here's a typical APA parenthetical citation:

The recent studies of cancer in mice (Watson, 2013; James et al., 2014; Graham, Lucas, & Roberts, 2015) have all shown similar results.

So, let's break down what's happening here. First, you'll notice the citations don't appear at the end of the sentence, but right after the relevant information. Second, you'll notice that multiple citations can appear in the same parentheses. This is because in the sciences, writers are often citing multiple reports and studies that have all worked on similar topics. Because of this, you're allowed to cite multiple sources in the same citation.

Next, you'll notice the use of dates. This is because in the sciences, dates matter. A scientific study published in 2015 is going to be different, and often more valid, than one published in 1955. Also, you'll notice the lack of page numbers. Unless you're directly quoting, which happens rarely in APA, you don't need to include a page number.

And finally, there are names. In MLA, you'll occasionally encounter a book or journal with two authors. But, in the sciences, it's not unusual for studies to have anywhere from three to ten authors. If there are five or fewer, you should list them all, but if there are more than that, you should put the first one and then abbreviation 'et al.' to signal the rest.

However, while these parenthetical citations look different, they serve the same purpose. If readers want to know more about the research on cancer in mice, they can flip to the References page and quickly find the studies by Watson and the others.