If you follow these 5 guidelines for every reference to sources other than your own experience or observation, your paper will be properly documented.

1. Always signal clearly both the beginning and end of every use of a source reference/citation, including paraphrases and summaries as well as direct quotations. Readers will, as a result, be able to distinguish these source references from your own commentary, synthesis, analysis, and ideas. It is insufficient to place a name and page at the end of the citation. Instead, clearly indicate in a coherent and clear manner where each citation begins (usually with the name of the person or work being cited--see examples) and ends (usually a page reference or a date). Sometimes the language of the paragraph makes the beginnings and ends of citations clear.

2. Include in each reference the name of the source from which the information was taken.
• For people, give the full name for the first text reference and the last name alone for subsequent text references; use the last name alone within parentheses. Usually, the name of the source, especially a person, appears in the text to signal the beginning of the citation rather than in the parenthetical reference.
• If more than one author or editor should be credited, include all names up to three. When citing more than three names, use the abbreviation et al. for all but the first (see example). As a result, you will have credited (attributed) the material properly, a courtesy as well as a convention of scholarship.
3. Include in your in-text reference sufficient information for readers to locate the item on your bibliography page—whatever information is first in the listing there, usually the last name of the first author or the title of the work when no author is listed.
• If this information is in parentheses in your text, use last names only or a short form of the title, properly punctuated. Information already in the text should be excluded from the parenthetical reference.
• The in-text citation must clearly repeat the first word of the listing on the Works Cited page, except for articles (a, an, the).
4. Include in the parenthetical reference the exact page number or page numbers on which the reference material can be found in the book or article. This parenthetical reference usually appears at the end of the entire citation but sometimes elsewhere for clarity.
• If no pages are given, mentally number the pages (for example, unnumbered newsletters and pamphlets).
• For most sources without pages, select an appropriate substitute for the page, for example, the date of the interview or email, the date of copyright or production, or the microfiche number, if you need to provide a signal of the end of the citation. For Web pages, a date or, for short pages, paragraph numbers (pars. 3-7) can be used.
• Be sure that the end of the citation is clear by the way you word the next sentence, in particular, if the citation ended without a parenthetical reference.
5. Include a complete Works Cited in MLA format as your bibliography. See Works Cited and Acknowledgments.