 This video explains how to cite your sources according to the 7th edition of the MLA Handbook. Whenever you use a direct quotation or paraphrase another source, you must cite it both within your paper and in your work cited list at the end of your paper. This video only covers how to cite works of prose. To cite poetry or plays, different rules may apply. Please watch our video, How to cite poetry, song lyrics, and plays in MLA style. If you are using a direct word-for-word quotation, it must be in quotation marks. But you also need to cite your original source if you are paraphrasing or putting it in your own words. In your paper, you refer to the original source you're quoting or paraphrasing by the author's last name and the page number. You can put both the author's last name and page number in parentheses at the end of the sentence. Notice that the period goes outside the parentheses. Or you can incorporate the author as part of your sentence and just put the page number in parentheses. If you are using a quotation that would take up more than four lines of your paper, you should use a block quote. Start the block quote on a new line and indent the entire quote one inch. Block quotes should be double spaced. Two more differences with block quotes. You don't need to use quotation marks and the period goes before the parentheses. Sometimes you might not have all of the required information. For example, what if you're using an online source or referring to a film so you don't have page numbers? Or if your source doesn't have an author's name listed. When the original source doesn't have any page numbers, it's often better to identify the author in your sentence and not use parentheses at all. However, you can still put the author's name in parentheses if you prefer. Both examples are correct. If you don't have an author, use the title instead. It's often better to refer to the title in your sentence. In parentheses, unless the title is very brief, three words or less, use a shortened title. A shortened title is the first word of the title only. Use quotation marks around the titles of articles, chapters, short stories, poems, or documents or pages on a website. Italicize the titles of journals, books, entire websites, newspapers, magazines, or plays. At the end of your paper, you should also have a work cited list containing full citations for all of the sources you referred to or quoted in your paper. How you format your citations for your work cited list and what type of information you need to include will depend on the type of source you're citing. Thanks for watching. For specific information on how to format citations, watch our videos on how to cite a book, e-book, journal article, newspaper or magazine, graphic novel, or web page. Or visit the Munn Libraries web page to check out our MLA style guide or chat live with library staff.