What is proper MLA parenthetical format for online interview?

March 28, 2008 7:12 AM

MLA Style Filter: I'm citing an interview that was published online. I know how to set up the entry on the Works Cited page, but the MLA Handbook offers no suggestions on how to format the parenthetical in-text reference. If John Doe told Jane Reporter, "I love cats," how do I cite that? Like this? "I love cats" (Doe, Reporter interview). There is no page number, as this was published online. Thanks!
posted by jackypaper to education (6 comments total)

Maybe try this from the Bedford Manual, but exclude the page number.
posted by cog_nate at 8:02 AM on March 28, 2008

The point of a citation is to let other people verify you're being honest and accurate. The point of the page number is to make that verification process easier — it's a pain in the ass to search an entire book for a single fact or line of text.

But on the web, it's trivial to search a file for any text you want — just use the find command in your browser.

That means that, from a practical point of view, as long as you've quoted directly ("I love cats") rather than indirectly (Jane Doe claims to be a cat-lover) you should be fine with just a URL. Anyone who wants to check up on you will go to the URL, do a find for the string "I love cats," and VOILA there it is.

But I'm not an editor. I don't know if there's a "proper" way of doing this that trumps those practical considerations.
posted by nebulawindphone at 8:11 AM on March 28, 2008

The important thing, as cog_nate's example shows, is that the name inside the parentheses needs to point readers to the full reference on your "Works Cited" page. So, you want that name in the parentheses to be that of the interviewer, since that's how it will be listed in alphabetical order on your works cited page.

I think that whether you use "qtd. in" is a bit of a judgment call here. Personally, I think it would be ok if you just put the last name of the reporter/interviewer in the parentheses and left it at that.
posted by washburn at 9:19 AM on March 28, 2008

I use the MLA style and this is what I would do:

- either use the quote and then put the name the quote came from and where it came from:

"I love cats" (Doe, Reporter name)

- or say who the quote is from, use the quote, and then where is came from in the paretheses:

John Doe recently said "I love cats" (Reporter name)

I would use the reporter's surname in the paretheses, as this is what I would begin the corresponding entry with in the bibliography/ works cited - i.e. I would treat it as an article by the reporter which is online. As nebulawindphone pointed out, you don't need to worry about pages or line numbers as the name of the reporter in the parentheses will direct the reader to the source on the works cited page which they can then search to find your quote if they wish.
posted by schmoo at 9:22 AM on March 28, 2008

I've come across the same problem recently. What I did was to just put the author's last name in parentheses. So it would look like:
"I love cats" (Reporter).
None of my professors have corrected me when I've done that, and one of them was really harsh on finding every little punctuation and grammatical error.
posted by blueskiesinside at 9:53 AM on March 28, 2008

IANAL(ibrarian), but I realized in college that there was no one standard. Even within MLA, two seemingly-expert sources would do it differently.

The rule of thumb I learned is that the parenthetical cite should match up with how you start your citation. Don't do "I like cats" (Reporter) if your Works Cited reads, Smith, John. Quoted in LA Times, Pg. A4, Nov. 17, 2005. Reporter, The....
posted by fogster at 12:29 PM on March 28, 2008