Citations 101

What Is a Citation?

A citation is what allows your readers to check your sources.

Citations always have two parts:

I. A works cited page or a sheet at the end of the paper that has all the information about
your various sources.
II. In-text Citations, which means that right after you give the fact in your paper you use
(parenthesis) to tell the reader which source you got it from.

For example, if you were writing a paper on the Hunger Games movie, your MLA citations might
look like this:

Your in-text citation would look like this:

The Hunger Games was one of this decades biggest blockbusters.

Released on March 23, 2012 by Lionsgate Entertainment (Johnson), The
Hunger Games is the story of...

The information in your works cited page would look like this:

Johnson, Matt. "The Hunger Games." IMBD.com. Wed. 22 Feb. 2012.

How to Cite Perfectly

To do the in-text citation correctly, simply put the authors name in parenthesis directly after the
information you got from that source. The parenthesis go before the period. If the author is not
given, please write the title of the source. If there are multiple authors, list them all.

How to format a citation in the works cited page depends on the type of source. To learn how to
correctly cite any type of source either go to OWL or a citation maker like EasyBib and type in
MLA, which is the type of citation we are doing, and the type of source (like magazine or
website). Then follow its directions for formatting.

Why Are Citations Important?

Citations are useful for a lot of reasons, including:

They allow the reader to find your sources so they can see if they are reputable
They give credit to those who did the work finding the facts
They are required for nearly everything you do in high school and college, meaning it is
worth learning how to do them right now
When making a Works Cited page, please follow these steps:

!Make a heading called Works Cited that is centered ONE INCH from top of page (NOT bold or larger
font)
!Put the citations in ALPHABETICAL order by the authors last name (or the first letter of the entry).
!First line of each entry is at the left margin, NOT INDENTED; all other lines of the entry (2, 3, 4) are
indented five spaces.
!The entire document should be Times New Roman, 12 point font.
!The entire document should be double spaced WITHOUT extra line spaces between entries.
!Remember, to get details on exactly how to cite something, please type OWL MLA Citation
__________ into Google or use EasyBib.
!Use example below as your guide: Your formatting must match EXACTLY!

Works Cited Example

Works Cited

"Blueprint Lays Out Clear Path for Climate Action." Environmental Defense Fund.

Environmental Defense Fund, 8 May 2007. Web. 24 May 2009.

Clinton, Bill. Interview by Andrew C. Revkin. Clinton on Climate Change. New York Times.

New York Times, May 2007. Web. 25 May 2009.

Dean, Cornelia. "Executive on a Mission: Saving the Planet." New York Times. New York Times,

22 May 2007. Web. 25 May 2009.

GlobalWarming.org. Cooler Heads Coalition, 2007. Web. 24 May 2009.

An Inconvenient Truth. Dir. Davis Guggenheim. Perf. Al Gore, Billy West. Paramount, 2006.

DVD.

Leroux, Marcel. Global Warming: Myth Or Reality?: The Erring Ways of Climatology. New

York: Springer, 2005. Print.

Milken, Michael, Gary Becker, Myron Scholes, and Daniel Kahneman. "On Global Warming and

Financial Imbalances." New Perspectives Quarterly 23.4 (2006): 63. Pr