Parenthetical Documentation (In-Text Citation)
Purpose: To credit or acknowledge the source of materials (books, websites, author) that are used in a research paper.
To enable the reader to verify statistics or facts.
To give authority to the paper, making a paper stronger.
Writing Parenthetical Documentation (In-Text Citation):
- Put the parenthetical documentation directly after the quote or at the end of the last sentence or idea taken from that author.
- Enclose the author’s last name and the page number in parentheses.
Note: Do not include the letters p. or pg. before the page number. Do not use punctuation before the page number. The end period goes after the parenthesis.
EXAMPLE: (Wilson 182).
(The rest of the information – author’s full name, title of the book or website, etc. – is on your works cited page at the end of your paper.)
- If the source has no author, use the title or a shortened for of the title instead of an author’s last name.
EXAMPLE: (“Lottery”45).
- If there are two or more sources by the same author, a shortened title of the work is used after the author’s last name.
EXAMPLES: (Jones, Turtles 46).
(Smith, “Turtle’s Habitat” 32).
Note: Italicize the title if the source is a book; use quotation marks if the source is an article.
How the Works Cited page and the Parenthetical Documentation Work Together
Works Cited
Morse-McNeely, Pat, and Dave Oland. "Are Uniforms a Good Way to Improve Student Discipline and Motivation?" NEA Today Apr. 2002: 20.
"Public School Dress Codes Growing More Popular." BlueSuitMom.Com. 2007. BSM Media. 7 Jan. 2008.
Ritchie, Donald A. Our Constitution. New York: Oxford UP, 2006.
Paper – with Parenthetical Documentation
According to a study in the online article, “Public School Dress Codes Growing More Popular,” eighty-eight percent of parents believe that uniforms reduce teasing among students. Unfortunately, students make mean comments about what other students wear. “‘School kids are usually ridiculed if they aren’t wearing the right brand of peer-approved clothes,’ notes family therapist Carleton Kendrick of familyeducation.com” (“Public” online). This reinforces the fact that school dress codes are beneficial to the common good; everyone benefits. People need to remember that the “right to free speech is not absolute…the government may restrict obscenity” and words that cause violence (Ritchie 141).