Most literature papers use the documentation system recommended by the Modern Language Association (MLA), as set forth in the MLA Handbook, 8th ed. (MLA, 2016). (For complete details, see MLA-4.)
MLA recommends in-text citations that refer readers to a list of works cited. An in-text citation names the author of the source, often in a signal phrase, and gives the page number in parentheses. At the end of the paper, a list of works cited provides publication information about the sources used in the paper.
mla in-text citation
Finding Butler’s science fiction novel Xenogenesis more hopeful than Frankenstein, Theodora Goss and John Paul Riquelme note that “[h]uman and creature never bridge their differences in Shelley’s narrative, but in Butler’s they do. . . .” (437).
The signal phrase names the authors of the secondary source; the number in parentheses is the page on which the quoted words appear.
The in-text citation is used in combination with a list of works cited at the end of the paper. Anyone interested in knowing additional information about the secondary source can consult the list of works cited. Here, for example, is the works cited entry for the work referred to in the sample in-text citation.
entry in the list of works cited
Goss, Theodora, and John Paul Riquelme. “From Superhuman to Posthuman: The Gothic Technological Imaginary in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Octavia Butler’s Xenogenesis.” Modern Fiction Studies, vol. 53, no. 3, 2007, pp. 434-59.
As you document secondary sources with in-text citations and a list of works cited, you will need to consult the advice in MLA-4.