Published on
November 25, 2024
by
Nicole Routh, M.Ed
Revised on
December 18, 2024
When you quote or paraphrase the Bible, APA requires in-text citations and a reference page entry.
APA in-text citations for the Bible include the Bible Version in Italics and Title Case, the year of publication, the Book Name, and the chapter and verse numbers separated by a colon.
APA reference page entries for the Bible include the Bible Version in Italics and Title Case, the year, the Publisher, and (if accessed online) a URL.
When citing a classic version of the Bible that’s been reprinted, include the original and current publication dates in the reference entry and in-text citations.
In the reference entry, include the reprinted date after the version title. At the end of the entry, include in parentheses “(Original work published year).” In-text citations for reprinted versions should include the original year and the reprinted year, separated by a slash.
APA Bible citations examples
In-text citations
Reference list entry
The preacher’s sermon referred to “a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance” (King James Bible, 1769/2024, Eccles. 3:4).
The examples below will help you format APA Bible citations correctly, or you can try QuillBot’s free APA Citation Generator. Also, QuillBot’s Notepad can help you take notes online to keep track of relevant source information.
Published on
November 20, 2024
by
Nicole Routh, M.Ed
Revised on
December 23, 2024
Many scholarly sources that are available online and relevant to APA writing come in PDFs. This file format is common for journal articles, government reports, and other sources because the formatting and layout stay consistent on different devices.
Source formats like PDFs don’t affect APA reference page guidelines. Instead, the source type (e.g., book or journal article) determines the reference entry content. For some source types, the reference entry ends with a URL for the PDF.
PDFs do impact APA in-text citations when you’re quoting online sources. For example, if you use an exact quotation from a journal article in a PDF, the in-text citation should include the author, year, and page number. (Page numbers aren’t required when you’re paraphrasing.)
APA PDF citation examples
In-text citation
Reference list entry
The Alzheimer’s Association (2024) explained, “To support people living with dementia in their homes and communities, as well as their caregivers, greater dementia-related knowledge, skills, and competencies are needed in the workforce beyond health care” (p. 67).
Alzheimer’s Association. (2024). 2024 Alzheimer’s disease facts and figures. https://www.alz.org/media/documents/alzheimers-facts-and-figures.pdf
(When an organization is both the author and publisher, omit the publisher slot of the reference entry.)
The examples below show the APA citation guidelines for source types that you’re most likely to access via PDF. You can also try QuillBot’s free Citation Generator to create clear and accurate APA citations. Additionally, QuillBot’s Notepad can help you take online notes to keep track of the sources you consult.
Published on
November 20, 2024
by
Nicole Routh, M.Ed
Revised on
January 14, 2025
Long quotations are sometimes necessary in MLA writing, especially when you’re analyzing a text and need examples of the author’s technique. MLA requires block format for long quotations, which are defined as follows:
Passages of prose that are five or more lines of text in your document
Poetry quotations that are four or more lines in the original source
Block quotations should be double spaced and indented ½ inch. MLA 9th edition also has special requirements to cite a quote in block format.
In-text citations for MLA block quotes go after the end punctuation. Every source you quote or paraphrase should have a Works Cited entry. QuillBot’s free MLA Citation Generator can help you create accurate in-text citations and Works Cited entries.
MLA block quotation example
In Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver uses functional fragments to make the first-person point of view more relatable and compelling.
Aunt June was the opposite of Emmy. She gave us our own special bowls for snacks we could eat any time we wanted. She finally got her days off, and took us all over: a trampoline park, putt-putt golf, the hospital. The zoo, where we spent a whole day. Tigers, giraffes, and all like that. Monkeys, which Maggot and I figured out how to get all riled up until Aunt June said knock if off or we were going straight home. (25)
This style of prose helps readers feel as if the narrator is speaking to them face-to-face.
Published on
November 20, 2024
by
Nicole Routh, M.Ed
Revised on
January 15, 2025
MLA essays always include dates, especially in the main heading on the first page and in Works Cited entries. Dates can also be used in the main text of an essay to give context about an event or an outside source.
In MLA Works Cited entries, write dates in day-month-year order. Abbreviate months that are more than four letters long (e.g., 20 Oct. 2022). Also use day-month-year order for the main heading on the first page, but don’t abbreviate the month (e.g., 7 November 2024).
In the main text, use either day-month-year or month-day year order, but stay consistent with the same format throughout the document. Months in the main text shouldn’t be abbreviated.
MLA date format examples
Main text
Works Cited entry
In a September 18, 2023, article, Peter Yeung and Melanie Péréz Arias describe a fog-catching technology that can address water shortages in remote areas affected by droughts.
Yeung, Peter, and Arias, Melanie Péréz.“The Backyard Farmers Who Grow Food with Fog.” Reasons to Be Cheerful, 18 Sept. 2023, www.reasonstobecheerful.world/lima-fog-catchers-water-scarcity-irrigation/.
An abstract is a short paragraph that summarizes the entire contents of a research study or journal article. It’s not the same as an introduction, which begins an essay or article and prepares readers for the body paragraphs.
In an academic database or print journal, readers skim the abstract first to decide if they should read the article. For example, when you’re exploring scholarly sources to use in an essay, abstracts help you make informed decisions about which articles might be relevant.
APA does not require abstracts for school assignments, but instructors occasionally assign them. They’re mostly necessary when you’re writing a dissertation or submitting an article to an APA publication. The guidelines below will help you read and write abstracts more strategically.
MLA in-text citations for movies usually have the title and, in some cases, a timestamp.
Works Cited entries for movies begin with a title and also include the director, distributor, year of release, and streaming app or URL (if applicable).
MLA movie citation examples
In-text citation
Works Cited entry
During the final battle in the 2021 film version, Macbeth and Macduff are surrounded by fog that obscures the background (The Tragedy of Macbeth 01:37:40–01:39:45).
The Tragedy of Macbeth. Directed by Joel Coen, Apple Original Films, 2021. Apple TV+ app.
Published on
November 13, 2024
by
Nicole Routh, M.Ed
Revised on
December 18, 2024
Journal articles are common scholarly sources in APA writing because they focus on original research studies and/or highly-specific aspects of an academic discipline.
APA requires two forms of documentation for journal articles:
In-text citations that include the author and publication year
Reference list entries that include the author, year, article title, journal title, volume and issue number, page range (with an en dash), and the DOI (a series of numbers that identifies the article and links to additional publication details)
Use the examples below to learn about the APA citation format for journal articles, or try QuillBot’s free Citation Generator to create in-text citations and reference list entries.
How to cite a journal article APA examples
In-text citation
Reference list entry
Lowery (2024) argued that book bans hinder opportunities to learn about minoritized individuals and their experiences.
Lowery, R. M. (2024). But these are our stories! Critical conversations about bans on diverse literature. Research in the Teaching of English, 58(1), 34–47. https://doi.org/10.58680/rte202332608
Published on
November 13, 2024
by
Nicole Routh, M.Ed
Revised on
January 6, 2025
Journal articles are common scholarly sources in MLA writing because they’re written by academic experts. Academic journals focus on very specific aspects of history, sociology, art, literature, and other academic disciplines.
MLA requires two forms of documentation for journal articles:
Works Cited entries that include the author, article title, journal title, volume number, issue number, publication date, page range, the academic database (if applicable), and a DOI or stable URL
Use the examples below to learn about the MLA citation format for journal articles, or try QuillBot’s free Citation Generator to create in-text citations and Works Cited entries.
How to cite a journal article MLA examples
In-text citation
Works Cited entry
Chakravarty writes, “When EDM originated in parts of Europe and the USA, these were underground rave parties meant for the collective union of a cohort that had shared values and interests centred around both production and audienceship of the music” (119).
Chakravarty, Devpirya. “Popular Musics of India: An Ethnomusicological Review.” Journal of Ethnic and Cultural Studies, vol. 6, no. 3, Dec. 2019, pp. 111-22. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/48710235.
Works Cited entries that include the author, article title, website name, publication date, and URL
In-text citations for websites are unique because sometimes there are pages to cite, and sometimes there aren’t.
Use the examples below to learn about the MLA citation format for different types of websites, or try QuillBot’s free Citation Generator to create in-text citations and Works Cited entries.
How to cite a website MLA examples
In-text citation
Works Cited entry
Currin writes, “Late that summer, the band embarked on a series of drive-in gigs, with Rust Belt fans tailgating as Strings and his quintet dazzled onstage.”
Currin, Grayson Haver. “Billy Strings, 21st Century Rock Star, Is Trying Very Hard to Be Good.” GQ, 26 Sept. 2024, https://www.gq.com/story/billy-strings.
If you’re taking a literature course, you’ll probably write essays with MLA citations for poetry.
Sentences that quote or paraphrase a poem need in-text citations. Each source that you cite also needs a Works Cited entry.
Because poems are published in a variety of ways, MLA poetry citations have various guidelines.
The examples below will help you learn how to cite poems in MLA format. You can also use QuillBot’s free Citation Generator to write in-text citations and Works Cited entries for poems.
MLA poetry citation examples
In-text citation
Works Cited entry
Frost writes, “The woods are lovely, dark and deep, / but I have promises to keep.”
Frost, Robert. “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” 1923. Penguin Anthology of 20th-Century American Poetry, edited by Rita Dove, Penguin, 2011, p. 20.
How to quote poetry in MLA
Quotations are common in essays about poems because they show where and how the poet uses literary devices. For each line that you quote, use the same capitalization, punctuation, and styling as the original text. (Sometimes poets use creative spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and spacing.)
If you’re quoting one line, place quotation marks on either side of it. If you’re quoting multiple lines, MLA has additional formatting requirements.
2-3 lines
When you’re quoting 2–3 lines from the poem, use a forward slash to mark each line break. If there is a stanza break between the lines, use double forward slashes.
MLA quotation 2-3 lines examplesIn the poem “Redbird Love,” Joy Harjo writes, “Their minds are busy with sticks the perfect size, tufts of fluff / Like dandelion, and other pieces of soft.”
Heaney’s imagery becomes especially vivid before the last stanza: “Our hands were peppered / With thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard’s. // We hoarded the fresh berries in the byer.”
4+ lines
If you quote four or more lines of a poem, use the block quotation format. Introduce the block quotation with a sentence that ends with a colon. Then, start the quotation on the next line, and indent the block quotation ½ inch. Block quotations should not have quotation marks.
If you need to cite a page or line number, place it in parentheses after the last line of the quotation. If the last line you’re quoting has end punctuation, the parentheses goes after that (rather than before end punctuation like in-text citations for regular quotations).
MLA block quotation examples: In the third stanza, Tibble uses the Māori word for Mother Earth:
MLA also has special guidelines for in-text citations of poetry. Sometimes you only need an author, and other times, you might need page numbers or line numbers.
Authors in MLA poetry citations
The first time you mention a poem in an MLA document, use the author’s full name and the title of the poem in a complete sentence, like this example:
Tayi Tibble’s poem “Lil Mermaidz” describes the experiences of Māori adolescents.
After that, the guidelines for citing the author depend on how and why you’re using evidence from the poem.
Always cite the poet’s name when it would otherwise be unclear who you’re quoting or paraphrasing. For example, if the essay discusses multiple literary works, the poet’s name should be in narrative or parenthetical citations. These citations may also need pages or lines depending on other factors (covered in the next section).
If you cite the poet in a signal phrase and you’re citing pages/lines, put the locator information in parentheses at the end of the sentence. If you didn’t cite the poet in a signal phrase, put the poet’s last name in parentheses at the end of the sentence (along with locator information if relevant).
You can omit the poet’s name in these situations:
The entire essay is about one poem, so citing the name repeatedly would be redundant. (Do use the poet’s name in signal phrases and transitions periodically.)
The essay is about multiple poems by the same poet, which means you can sometimes omit the author but should cite each poem’s title for clarity.
The previous sentence cites the same poet, and it’s clear you’re still talking about the same poem.
Authors in MLA poetry citations examplesWordsworth uses allusions to Greek mythology in lines such as “Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea.”
In the third stanza, Hunter uses alliteration: “Sparks of fluttering rings / as she shows the shape of the smoke” (35).
The fourth stanza includes images of a beach and a parking lot (Smith 15–16).
Line numbers vs page numbers
MLA guidelines for citing locator information also depend on different factors. Some in-text citations should omit locator information and cite an author only. Others need the line number(s) or a page number. The following chart shows when to cite lines or pages.
MLA poetry lines vs pages examples
What to cite
MLA Guideline
Example
No locator information
The poem is on a website without numbered pages or line numbers, or the poem is from a book where it’s on a single page.
Rebecca Faulkner begins “Iron Lung” with the lines, “She is a better gambler than friend always late / her fiery pony-tail swinging gatecrashing the party.”
Line number(s)
The poem’s lines are numbered in the margins (whether the poem is from a website, book, or any other container).
Use the word “lines” in the first in-text citation. After that, you only need the number(s).
Eliot’s poem begins, “April is the cruelest month, breeding / Lilacs out of the dead land” (lines 1–2).
Images of shadows are prevalent in Eliot’s second stanza: “Your shadow at morning striding behind you / Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you” (27–29).
Page number
The poem spans two or more pages of a book, and the lines are not numbered.
Hunter writes, “Man on a marble lawn looks up at / singing of sorts shading into murmur” (67).
MLA Works Cited entry for a poem
The Works Cited format varies depending on where a poem was published or where you accessed it. The first part of each Works Cited entry is always the poet’s last name, first name. Include a middle name or middle initial if the poet’s byline has either of these.
Works Cited entries for all sources have a hanging indent (all lines after the first are intended ½ inch). Some common variations for poems are illustrated below.
Poem in a book
Many poets publish collections of their poetry in books. If you access a poem this way, the Works Cited entry follows the format below.
MLA poem in a book examples
MLA format
Works Cited entry
Author. “Poem Title.” Book Title, Publisher, publication year, page range.
Hunter, Robert. “Sonnets in Stone.” Sentinel, Penguin, 1993, pp. 67–68.
Poem in a journal or magazine
Poems are also sometimes published in academic journals or literary magazines. If you access the journal or magazine from an academic database, include the database name and a stable link, as in MLA journal article citations. Otherwise, omit these details.
MLA poem in a journal or magazine examples
MLA format
Works Cited entry
Author. “Poem Title.” Journal Title, vol. #, no. #, month/season year, pp. xxx-xx. Academic Database, DOI or stable link.
(MLA permits omitting “http” or “www” when it improves the visual appeal of a Works Cited entry.)
Poem in an anthology
You might also access a poem in a literature anthology, especially if you’re writing about the poem for a literature course. These Works Cited entries include the anthology title, editor, and other details (just like MLA book citations for other short works in edited anthologies). If the poem’s original publication year is relevant, include it after the poem title.
MLA poem in an anthology examples
MLA format
Works Cited entry
Author. “Poem Title.” original publication year. Book Title, edited by Editor’s First and Last Name, Publisher, year, page number(s).
Frost, Robert. “Mending Wall.” 1914. Penguin Anthology of 20th-Century American Poetry, edited by Rita Dove, Penguin, 2011, p. 17.
Poem on a website
When you access a poem on a website, include the name of the website and the URL in the Works Cited entry, just as you would for other MLA website citations. Also include the publication date (in MLA date format) if the website provides it or a date of access if not. If the poem’s original publication year is relevant, include it after the poem title.
