MLA Citation Style for Newspaper Articles

This PDF document provides examples of how to properly format newspaper article citations in a Works Cited list. (To view this document, you will need the Adobe Reader software - a free download available from http://www.adobe.com .)

In-text Parenthetical References

A standard in-text parenthetical reference for a newspaper article includes the author's last name and the section and page number. The period goes after the reference. For example,

"Wearing an adult seat belt cut a child's risk of injury by 38 percent, but using a booster seat with a belt cut it by 78 percent" (Wald A25).

If you use a signal phrase that includes the author's name, the in-text parenthetical reference would list only the section and page number. For example,

According to Matthew Wald, "Wearing an adult seat belt cut a child's risk of injury by 38 percent, but using a booster seat with a belt cut it by 78 percent" (A25).

For a newspaper article with	you will use	Your in-text parenthetical reference would look like this:
two authors	both authors' last names.	(Leary and Durbin B21)
three authors	all three authors' last names.	(Gardiner, Taves, and Bartlett A2)
more than three authors	the last name of the first author followed by "et al."	(Schmidt et al. C14)
no author	the title of the article (if brief) or the first word/few words of the article title in quotation marks.	("Man about Town" D8) ("Progressions" A12)
no page numbers (such as HTML full-text articles from databases)	a paragraph number.	(Durand, par. 5)

Formatting Long Quotes MLA Style

If a quote you are using in your paper is longer than four lines, you need to insert it as a block quote. On a new line, indent one inch from the left margin (two tabs). Double space the quote and do not include quotation marks. Place the in-text parenthetical reference at the end of the last line of the quotation. Insert the period before the reference. Below is an excerpt from a research paper that includes a block quote.

When a child has outgrown his/her car seat, what's next? Should the child use an adult seat belt or what's referred to as a "booster seat?" A recent study indicates that booster seats are the safer choice.

In a car crash, a child in a booster seat has less than half the risk of injury of a child wearing only an adult seat belt, a study of more than 3,600 crashes has found. The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, covered more than 4,200 children who were too big for child car seats but too short for adult seat belts. Wearing an adult seat belt cut a child's risk of injury by 38 percent, but using a booster seat with a belt cut it by 78 percent. (Wald A25)

Not only will using a booster seat keep a child safe in the event of an accident, but it will also keep the driver of the vehicle out of trouble with the law.

Back to MLA Citation Style

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Last Updated 03/29/2007 09:57 AM