In MLA style, with a single author, which is the correct in-text citation format?

In MLA style, with a single author, which is the correct in-text citation format?

• A. (Author's Last Name Page Number). Example: (Fitzgerald 45).
• B. (Page Number Author's Last Name)
• C. (Author's Last Name, Year)
• D. (Author's Last Name Page Number). Example: (Fitzgerald 45).

Answer: (A)

In MLA style, when you’re citing a source with a single author, you place the author’s last name and the page number inside parentheses, with a space between them and no comma or year. This format, (Author Last Name Page Number), directly points readers to the exact place in the text and matches the corresponding full entry in the Works Cited list. For example, (Fitzgerald 45) shows that the quote or idea comes from page 45 of Fitzgerald’s work. If the author’s name is already mentioned in your sentence, you would still include a page number in parentheses, but you would omit the author’s name there, like (45). This keeps the citation concise while guiding readers to the precise source. The year is not included in MLA in-text citations (unlike some other styles), and punctuation or ordering that uses a year or places the page number before the author doesn’t align with MLA conventions. So the form (Fitzgerald 45) is the proper MLA parenthetical citation for a single-author source.

In MLA style, when you’re citing a source with a single author, you place the author’s last name and the page number inside parentheses, with a space between them and no comma or year. This format, (Author Last Name Page Number), directly points readers to the exact place in the text and matches the corresponding full entry in the Works Cited list. For example, (Fitzgerald 45) shows that the quote or idea comes from page 45 of Fitzgerald’s work.

If the author’s name is already mentioned in your sentence, you would still include a page number in parentheses, but you would omit the author’s name there, like (45). This keeps the citation concise while guiding readers to the precise source.

The year is not included in MLA in-text citations (unlike some other styles), and punctuation or ordering that uses a year or places the page number before the author doesn’t align with MLA conventions. So the form (Fitzgerald 45) is the proper MLA parenthetical citation for a single-author source.