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MLA In-Text Citations: The Basics

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Guidelines for referring to the works of others in your text using MLA style are covered throughout the  MLA Handbook  and in chapter 7 of the  MLA Style Manual . Both books provide extensive examples, so it's a good idea to consult them if you want to become even more familiar with MLA guidelines or if you have a particular reference question.

Basic in-text citation rules

In MLA Style, referring to the works of others in your text is done using parenthetical citations . This method involves providing relevant source information in parentheses whenever a sentence uses a quotation or paraphrase. Usually, the simplest way to do this is to put all of the source information in parentheses at the end of the sentence (i.e., just before the period). However, as the examples below will illustrate, there are situations where it makes sense to put the parenthetical elsewhere in the sentence, or even to leave information out.

General Guidelines

• The source information required in a parenthetical citation depends (1) upon the source medium (e.g. print, web, DVD) and (2) upon the source’s entry on the Works Cited page.
• Any source information that you provide in-text must correspond to the source information on the Works Cited page. More specifically, whatever signal word or phrase you provide to your readers in the text must be the first thing that appears on the left-hand margin of the corresponding entry on the Works Cited page.

In-text citations: Author-page style

MLA format follows the author-page method of in-text citation. This means that the author's last name and the page number(s) from which the quotation or paraphrase is taken must appear in the text, and a complete reference should appear on your Works Cited page. The author's name may appear either in the sentence itself or in parentheses following the quotation or paraphrase, but the page number(s) should always appear in the parentheses, not in the text of your sentence. For example:

Both citations in the examples above, (263) and (Wordsworth 263), tell readers that the information in the sentence can be located on page 263 of a work by an author named Wordsworth. If readers want more information about this source, they can turn to the Works Cited page, where, under the name of Wordsworth, they would find the following information:

Wordsworth, William. Lyrical Ballads . Oxford UP, 1967.

In-text citations for print sources with known author

For print sources like books, magazines, scholarly journal articles, and newspapers, provide a signal word or phrase (usually the author’s last name) and a page number. If you provide the signal word/phrase in the sentence, you do not need to include it in the parenthetical citation.

These examples must correspond to an entry that begins with Burke, which will be the first thing that appears on the left-hand margin of an entry on the Works Cited page:

Burke, Kenneth. Language as Symbolic Action: Essays on Life, Literature, and Method . University of California Press, 1966.

In-text citations for print sources by a corporate author

When a source has a corporate author, it is acceptable to use the name of the corporation followed by the page number for the in-text citation. You should also use abbreviations (e.g., nat'l for national) where appropriate, so as to avoid interrupting the flow of reading with overly long parenthetical citations.

In-text citations for sources with non-standard labeling systems

If a source uses a labeling or numbering system other than page numbers, such as a script or poetry, precede the citation with said label. When citing a poem, for instance, the parenthetical would begin with the word “line”, and then the line number or range. For example, the examination of William Blake’s poem “The Tyger” would be cited as such:

The speaker makes an ardent call for the exploration of the connection between the violence of nature and the divinity of creation. “In what distant deeps or skies. / Burnt the fire of thine eyes," they ask in reference to the tiger as they attempt to reconcile their intimidation with their relationship to creationism (lines 5-6).

Longer labels, such as chapters (ch.) and scenes (sc.), should be abbreviated.

In-text citations for print sources with no known author

When a source has no known author, use a shortened title of the work instead of an author name, following these guidelines.

Place the title in quotation marks if it's a short work (such as an article) or italicize it if it's a longer work (e.g. plays, books, television shows, entire Web sites) and provide a page number if it is available.

Titles longer than a standard noun phrase should be shortened into a noun phrase by excluding articles. For example, To the Lighthouse would be shortened to Lighthouse .

If the title cannot be easily shortened into a noun phrase, the title should be cut after the first clause, phrase, or punctuation:

In this example, since the reader does not know the author of the article, an abbreviated title appears in the parenthetical citation, and the full title of the article appears first at the left-hand margin of its respective entry on the Works Cited page. Thus, the writer includes the title in quotation marks as the signal phrase in the parenthetical citation in order to lead the reader directly to the source on the Works Cited page. The Works Cited entry appears as follows:

"The Impact of Global Warming in North America." Global Warming: Early Signs . 1999. www.climatehotmap.org/. Accessed 23 Mar. 2009.

If the title of the work begins with a quotation mark, such as a title that refers to another work, that quote or quoted title can be used as the shortened title. The single quotation marks must be included in the parenthetical, rather than the double quotation.

Parenthetical citations and Works Cited pages, used in conjunction, allow readers to know which sources you consulted in writing your essay, so that they can either verify your interpretation of the sources or use them in their own scholarly work.

Author-page citation for classic and literary works with multiple editions

Page numbers are always required, but additional citation information can help literary scholars, who may have a different edition of a classic work, like Marx and Engels's  The Communist Manifesto . In such cases, give the page number of your edition (making sure the edition is listed in your Works Cited page, of course) followed by a semicolon, and then the appropriate abbreviations for volume (vol.), book (bk.), part (pt.), chapter (ch.), section (sec.), or paragraph (par.). For example:

Author-page citation for works in an anthology, periodical, or collection

When you cite a work that appears inside a larger source (for instance, an article in a periodical or an essay in a collection), cite the author of the  internal source (i.e., the article or essay). For example, to cite Albert Einstein's article "A Brief Outline of the Theory of Relativity," which was published in  Nature  in 1921, you might write something like this:

See also our page on documenting periodicals in the Works Cited .

Citing authors with same last names

Sometimes more information is necessary to identify the source from which a quotation is taken. For instance, if two or more authors have the same last name, provide both authors' first initials (or even the authors' full name if different authors share initials) in your citation. For example:

Citing a work by multiple authors

For a source with two authors, list the authors’ last names in the text or in the parenthetical citation:

Corresponding Works Cited entry:

Best, David, and Sharon Marcus. “Surface Reading: An Introduction.” Representations , vol. 108, no. 1, Fall 2009, pp. 1-21. JSTOR , doi:10.1525/rep.2009.108.1.1

For a source with three or more authors, list only the first author’s last name, and replace the additional names with et al.

Franck, Caroline, et al. “Agricultural Subsidies and the American Obesity Epidemic.” American Journal of Preventative Medicine , vol. 45, no. 3, Sept. 2013, pp. 327-333.

Citing multiple works by the same author

If you cite more than one work by an author, include a shortened title for the particular work from which you are quoting to distinguish it from the others. Put short titles of books in italics and short titles of articles in quotation marks.

Citing two articles by the same author :

Citing two books by the same author :

Additionally, if the author's name is not mentioned in the sentence, format your citation with the author's name followed by a comma, followed by a shortened title of the work, and, when appropriate, the page number(s):

Citing multivolume works

If you cite from different volumes of a multivolume work, always include the volume number followed by a colon. Put a space after the colon, then provide the page number(s). (If you only cite from one volume, provide only the page number in parentheses.)

Citing the Bible

In your first parenthetical citation, you want to make clear which Bible you're using (and underline or italicize the title), as each version varies in its translation, followed by book (do not italicize or underline), chapter, and verse. For example:

If future references employ the same edition of the Bible you’re using, list only the book, chapter, and verse in the parenthetical citation:

John of Patmos echoes this passage when describing his vision (Rev. 4.6-8).

Citing indirect sources

Sometimes you may have to use an indirect source. An indirect source is a source cited within another source. For such indirect quotations, use "qtd. in" to indicate the source you actually consulted. For example:

Note that, in most cases, a responsible researcher will attempt to find the original source, rather than citing an indirect source.

Citing transcripts, plays, or screenplays

Sources that take the form of a dialogue involving two or more participants have special guidelines for their quotation and citation. Each line of dialogue should begin with the speaker's name written in all capitals and indented half an inch. A period follows the name (e.g., JAMES.) . After the period, write the dialogue. Each successive line after the first should receive an additional indentation. When another person begins speaking, start a new line with that person's name indented only half an inch. Repeat this pattern each time the speaker changes. You can include stage directions in the quote if they appear in the original source.

Conclude with a parenthetical that explains where to find the excerpt in the source. Usually, the author and title of the source can be given in a signal phrase before quoting the excerpt, so the concluding parenthetical will often just contain location information like page numbers or act/scene indicators.

Here is an example from O'Neill's  The Iceman Cometh.

WILLIE. (Pleadingly) Give me a drink, Rocky. Harry said it was all right. God, I need a drink.

ROCKY. Den grab it. It's right under your nose.

WILLIE. (Avidly) Thanks. (He takes the bottle with both twitching hands and tilts it to his lips and gulps down the whiskey in big swallows.) (1.1)

Citing non-print or sources from the Internet

With more and more scholarly work published on the Internet, you may have to cite sources you found in digital environments. While many sources on the Internet should not be used for scholarly work (reference the OWL's  Evaluating Sources of Information  resource), some Web sources are perfectly acceptable for research. When creating in-text citations for electronic, film, or Internet sources, remember that your citation must reference the source on your Works Cited page.

Sometimes writers are confused with how to craft parenthetical citations for electronic sources because of the absence of page numbers. However, these sorts of entries often do not require a page number in the parenthetical citation. For electronic and Internet sources, follow the following guidelines:

• Include in the text the first item that appears in the Work Cited entry that corresponds to the citation (e.g. author name, article name, website name, film name).
• Do not provide paragraph numbers or page numbers based on your Web browser’s print preview function.
• Unless you must list the Web site name in the signal phrase in order to get the reader to the appropriate entry, do not include URLs in-text. Only provide partial URLs such as when the name of the site includes, for example, a domain name, like  CNN.com  or  Forbes.com,  as opposed to writing out http://www.cnn.com or http://www.forbes.com.

Miscellaneous non-print sources

Two types of non-print sources you may encounter are films and lectures/presentations:

In the two examples above “Herzog” (a film’s director) and “Yates” (a presentor) lead the reader to the first item in each citation’s respective entry on the Works Cited page:

Herzog, Werner, dir. Fitzcarraldo . Perf. Klaus Kinski. Filmverlag der Autoren, 1982.

Yates, Jane. "Invention in Rhetoric and Composition." Gaps Addressed: Future Work in Rhetoric and Composition, CCCC, Palmer House Hilton, 2002. Address.

Electronic sources

Electronic sources may include web pages and online news or magazine articles:

In the first example (an online magazine article), the writer has chosen not to include the author name in-text; however, two entries from the same author appear in the Works Cited. Thus, the writer includes both the author’s last name and the article title in the parenthetical citation in order to lead the reader to the appropriate entry on the Works Cited page (see below).

In the second example (a web page), a parenthetical citation is not necessary because the page does not list an author, and the title of the article, “MLA Formatting and Style Guide,” is used as a signal phrase within the sentence. If the title of the article was not named in the sentence, an abbreviated version would appear in a parenthetical citation at the end of the sentence. Both corresponding Works Cited entries are as follows:

Taylor, Rumsey. "Fitzcarraldo." Slant , 13 Jun. 2003, www.slantmagazine.com/film/review/fitzcarraldo/. Accessed 29 Sep. 2009. 

"MLA Formatting and Style Guide." The Purdue OWL , 2 Aug. 2016, owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/. Accessed 2 April 2018.

Multiple citations

To cite multiple sources in the same parenthetical reference, separate the citations by a semi-colon:

Time-based media sources

When creating in-text citations for media that has a runtime, such as a movie or podcast, include the range of hours, minutes and seconds you plan to reference. For example: (00:02:15-00:02:35).

When a citation is not needed

Common sense and ethics should determine your need for documenting sources. You do not need to give sources for familiar proverbs, well-known quotations, or common knowledge (For example, it is expected that U.S. citizens know that George Washington was the first President.). Remember that citing sources is a rhetorical task, and, as such, can vary based on your audience. If you’re writing for an expert audience of a scholarly journal, for example, you may need to deal with expectations of what constitutes “common knowledge” that differ from common norms.

Other Sources

The MLA Handbook describes how to cite many different kinds of authors and content creators. However, you may occasionally encounter a source or author category that the handbook does not describe, making the best way to proceed can be unclear.

In these cases, it's typically acceptable to apply the general principles of MLA citation to the new kind of source in a way that's consistent and sensible. A good way to do this is to simply use the standard MLA directions for a type of source that resembles the source you want to cite.

You may also want to investigate whether a third-party organization has provided directions for how to cite this kind of source. For example, Norquest College provides guidelines for citing Indigenous Elders and Knowledge Keepers⁠ —an author category that does not appear in the MLA Handbook . In cases like this, however, it's a good idea to ask your instructor or supervisor whether using third-party citation guidelines might present problems.

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• When neither the author nor the page number is mentioned in the body of the sentence, you should include both the author’s last name and the page number in the parenthetical citation.

Colleges and universities need to create policies that foster inclusion for low-income students (Jack 24).

• When the author’s name is mentioned in the sentence, you should include only the page number in your parenthetical citation.

As Anthony Jack argues, colleges and universities need to create policies that foster inclusion for low-income students (24).

• If the source you are writing about does not have page numbers, or if you consulted an e-book version of the source, you should include only the author’s name in the parenthetical citation:

Colleges and universities need to create policies that foster inclusion for low-income students (Jack).

• If you mention the author in the body of the sentence and there is no page number in the source, you should not include a parenthetical citation.

As Anthony Jack argues, colleges and universities need to create policies that foster inclusion for low-income students.

• If you are referring to an entire work rather than a specific page, you do not need to include a page number.

In The Privileged Poor, Anthony Jack describes many obstacles that low-income students face at selective colleges and universities.

• If you are referring to a source that has no listed author, you should include the title (or a shortened version of the title) in your parenthetical citation.

Harvard College promises “to educate the citizens and citizen-leaders for our society” (“Mission, Vision, & History”).

• If you are referring to a source that has two authors, you should include both authors in your parenthetical citation.

The researchers tested whether an intervention during the first year of college could improve student well-being (Walton and Cohen 1448).

• If you refer to a source that has more than two authors, you should include the first author’s name followed by et al. ( Et al. is an abbreviation for et alia which means “and others” in Latin.) When you use et al. in a citation, you should not put it in italics.

The researchers studied more than 12,000 students who were interested in STEM fields (LaCosse et al. 8).

• If you refer to more than one source by the same author in your paper, you should include the title (or a shortened version of the title) in your parenthetical citation so that readers will know which source to look for in your Works Cited list. If you mention the author’s name in the sentence, you only need to include the title and page number. If you mention the author and title in the sentence, you only need to include the page number.

Colleges and universities need to create policies that foster inclusion for low-income students (Jack, Privileged Poor 24).

According to Anthony Jack, colleges and universities need to create policies that foster inclusion for low-income students ( Privileged Poor 24).

As Anthony Jack writes in Privileged Poor, colleges and universities need to create policies that foster inclusion for low-income students (24).

• If you want to credit multiple authors for making the same point, you can include them all in one parenthetical citation. 

Students who possess cultural capital, measured by proxies like involvement in literature, art, and classical music, tend to perform better in school (Bourdieu and Passeron; Dumais; Orr).

• If you refer to a source that includes line numbers in the margins, numbered paragraphs, numbered chapters, or numbered sections rather than page numbers, you should include the number in your parenthetical citation, along with “line,” “ch./ chs.,” or “sec./secs.”   You can include stable numbering like chapters even when there are no stable page numbers (as in an e-book). You should separate “line” or other designation from the work’s title or author’s name with a comma.  If the source does not include this type of numbering, you should not include it either.

We learn that when he went to the store to buy clothes for his son, “a frantic inspection of the boys’ department revealed no suits to fit the new-born Button” (Fitzgerald, ch.2).

• If you are citing a play, you should include the act and scene along with line numbers (for verse) or page numbers, followed by act and scene, (for prose).

Guildenstern tells Hamlet that “there has been much throwing about of brains” (Shakespeare, 2.2. 381-382).

Chris is in this mindset when he says, “a couple minutes, and your whole life changes, that’s it. It’s gone” (Nottage, 13; act 1, scene1).

• If you are referring to a video or audio recording that contains time stamps, you should include the time in your parenthetical citation to make it easy for your readers to find the part of the recording that you are citing.

In the Stranger Things official trailer, the audience knows that something unusual is going to happen from the moment the boys get on their bicycles to ride off into the night (0:16).

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Purpose and Overview of In-text Citations

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• Annotated Sample Student Paper Here's a sample paper provided by APA. For every style rule, there is a comment highlighted in the paper that tells you where to find the discussion of the rule in the APA Style Manual.

APA follows an author and date of publication model for citing sources in your research paper and are presented as either narrative or parenthetical citations.  The formatting does not vary due to format type, however it may deviate from the norm due to factors such as: number of authors, organization instead of individual author, lack of author, or lack of date.  By providing the standard author and date within your paper, the reader will be able to link the information presented easily to the full citation provided in the reference list.

View examples and explanations on this page or visit the In Text Quick View for more examples.

APA encourages paraphrasing over using direct quotes.  Use direct quotes when:

• Reproducing an exact definition
• Author has said something memorably or succinctly
• When you want to respond to exact wording

When creating a citation for a direct quote, provide author, year and page number for both narrative and parenthetical citations.

Ex.  University of Southern California (2020) "direct quote from author" (p. 4)  OR  "direct quote from author" (University of Southern California, 2020, p. 4).

How to cite specific parts of a source:

Single page  =  p. #

Multiple pages  =  p.p. #-#

Paragraph number  =  para. #

Multiple paragraphs  =  paras. #-#

Presentation  =  Slide #

Table or Figure  =  Table # or Figure #

Multimedia/Audiovisual timestamp  =  hour:minute:second or minute:second

Heading or section name  =  name of section

Select the scenarios below for formatting instructions and examples

One work, One Author

Author named in text:

Social historian Richard Sennett (1980) names the tendency to come to terms with difficult experiences a "purification process" whereby "threatening or painful dissonances are warded off to preserve intact a clear and articulated image of oneself and one's place in the world" (p. 11).

Author named in parentheses:

The tendency to come to terms with difficult experiences is referred to as a "purification process" whereby "threatening or painful dissonances are warded off to preserve intact a clear and articulated image of oneself and one's place in the world" (Sennett, 1980, p. 11).

These examples © Duke University Libraries http://library.duke.edu/research/citing/within/apa.html

More than one way to cite:

Flynn (1999) stated in her treatise In a recent treatise on services (Flynn, 1999) In a 1999 treatise, Flynn stated

Subsequent references to same study in same paragraph:

In her treatise on services, Flynn (1999) stated her evaluative methods…Flynn also described

One work, multiple authors

When a work has two authors, always cite both authors' names in your text:

        Significant findings in a study of Los Angeles (McCroskey & O'Keefe, 2000)

When a citation has 3 or more authors, include the last name of the first author, followed by et al. (not italicized), and the year.

        (Nishimoto et al., 1998)

For narrative citations, use the word "and" to separate authors, for parenthetical citations, use an ampersand:

         McCroskey and O'Keefe (2000) studied Los Angeles...          (McCroskey & O'Keefe, 2000)

Groups as authors

When a group or organization is created as the author, use the group's name. If that group or organization is known by a recognizable acroynum, provide the organization’s full name the first time it is cited with it’s acronym. For narrative citations, the acronym will appear in parentheses with the date. For parenthetical citations, the acronym follows the group name in brackets. Once the first citation from the group includes the full name and acronym, all subsequent citations should only include the acronym.

First narrative citation: National Association of Social Workers (NASW, 1987)

Subsequent narrative citation: NASW (1987)

First text citation: (National Association of Social Workers [NASW], 1987)

Subsequent text citation: (NASW, 1987)

Works with no author

Works with no authors

Cite the work in your text using the first few words of the reference list entry (usually the title). Put double quotation marks around the title of an article or chapter, and italicize the title of a periodical, book, brochure or report:

The policy stated in the article (“Services for Disabled Children,” 1992)

The policy stated in the book Access to Services for Children (1995)

Specific parts of a source

Indicate the page, chapter, figure, table, or equation at the appropriate point in your text. Give page numbers for quotations, and use the abbreviations for the words page and chapter:

(Aranda & Knight, 1997, p. 344)

(Ell & Castaneda, 1998, chap. 5)

Personal communications

This format applies to emails, messages from nonarchived discussion groups, electronic bulletin boards, personal interviews, telephone conversations, etc. Do not list personal communications in your reference list as they are not recoverable by your reader. In your text, provide initials and surname of communicator and as exact a date as possible.

(M. Flynn, personal communication, September 20, 1999)

Mulltiple works by the same author in the same year

Sometimes you'll have multiple works by the same author in the same year. For instance, you may reference a number of tax documents from the same year, which would all be cited with (Internal Revenue Service, 2012).  So how do you differentiate?

In those instances, differentiate sources with a letter after the year. From the example above, the 990 form might be (Internal Revenue Service, 2012a) and the 1040 form would be (Internal Revenue Service, 2012b). Just make sure the letters stay consistent in your reference list.

Citing Indirect Sources

Sometimes, you will use a source that you didn't yourself read.  In those cases, the original source came from a secondary source you did read.  APA states that you should use secondary sources sparingly and may occur when "the original work is out of print, unavailable, or available only in a language that you do not understand."

When using secondary sources, indicate it by included "as cited in" as part of your in-text citation

Johnson argued that...(as cited in Smith, 2003, p. 102). (Johnson, 1984, as cited in Smith, 2003, p. 102).

Your reference list should include the secondary source. In this example, Smith appears in your reference list and Johnson does not.

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What Is In-Text Citation?

In APA, in-text citations are inserted in the text of your research paper to briefly document the source of your information. Brief in-text citations point the reader to more complete information in the Reference list.

When using APA format, follow the author-date method of in-text citation. In the author-date method, the writer includes the author and date within the body of the paper and includes a corresponding reference in the Reference list. This method allows the reader to identify sources used in the paper by reviewing the author and date within the text of the paper, and then easily locate the corresponding reference in the alphabetical Reference list.

Create an in-text citation whenever you quote another work, or whenever you paraphrase another work in your own words.

In-text Citations Have Two Formats

• Parenthetical - the author name and publication date (or equivalent information) appear in parentheses. For example: Falsely balanced news coverage can distort the public's perception of expert consensus on an issue (Burnside, 2016).
• Narrative - the author name appears in running text and the date appears in parentheses immediately after the author name. For example: Burnside (2016) noted the dangers of falsely balanced news coverage.

If you are referring to an idea from another work (paraphrasing or summarizing) but NOT directly quoting the material, you only have to make reference to the author and year of publication and not the page number in your in-text reference.

If you are directly quoting or borrowing from another work, you should include the page number at the end of the parenthetical citation. For example, (Burnside, 2016, p. 199).

In-Text Citation Styles

The table below shows several examples of parenthetical and narrative citations.

Paraphrasing and Quoting: What Is the Difference?

There are two ways to integrate sources into your assignment:

• Paraphrasing  is used to show that you understand what the author wrote. You must reword the passage, expressing the ideas in your own words, and not just change a few words here and there. Make sure to also include an in-text citation.
• Quoting is copying a selection from someone else's work, phrasing it exactly as it was originally written. When quoting, place quotation marks (" ") around the selected passage to show where the quote begins and where it ends. Make sure to include an in-text citation.

Signal Phrases

If you refer to the author's name in a sentence, you do not have to include the name again as part of your in-text citation; instead, include the date after the name and the page number (if there is one) at the end of the quotation or the paraphrased section. For example:

Hunt (2011) explains that mother-infant attachment has been a leading topic of developmental research since John Bowlby found that "children raised in institutions were deficient in emotional and personality development" (p. 358).

Short Quotations

If a quotation consists of fewer than 40 words , treat it as a short quotation:

• Incorporate the quote into the text and enclose it within double quotation marks.
• Include the author, year of publication, and page number for the reference.
• For example, Smith (2019) demonstrated how to "..." (p. 112).
• For example, "..." (Smith, 2019, p. 112).

Long (Block) Quotations

If a quotation contains 40 words or more , treat it as a long (block) quotation:

• Do not use quotation marks to enclose a block quotation.
• Start a block quotation on a new line and indent the whole block 0.5 inches from the left margin.
• If there are additional paragraphs within the quotation, indent the first line of each subsequent paragraph an additional 0.5 inches.
• Double-space the entire block quotation; do not add extra space before or after it.
• Either (1) cite the source in parentheses after the quotation's final punctuation, or (2) cite the author and year in the narrative before the quotation and place only the page number in parentheses after the quotation's final punctuation. Do NOT add a period after the closing parenthesis in either case.
• See section 8.27 in the Publication Manual for examples of the block quotation.

Direct Quotation Without Page Numbers

When you quote from electronic sources that do not provide page numbers (e.g., webpages, websites, some e-books), provide readers with another way of locating the quoted passage. Use any of the following approaches that will best help readers find the quotation:

• Provide a heading or a section name.
• Provide a paragraph number (count the paragraphs manually if they are not numbered).
• Provide a heading or section name in combination with a paragraph number.

In-Text Citation for More than One Source

If you would like to cite more than one source within the same in-text citation, simply record the in-text citations as normal and separate them with a semi-colon. List the sources alphabetically by author's last name or first word used from the title if no author is given, in the same order they would appear in the Reference list. For example:

(Jones, 2015; Smith, 2014). 

( Beckworth, 2016;  "Nursing,"  2015).

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