The Classroom » Higher Education Prep » How to Properly Write a Parenthetical Citation for Your Research Paper in MLA Style; How to Properly Write a Parenthetical. Why we include parenthetical / in-text citations: Researchers include brief parenthetical citations in their writing to acknowledge references to other people’s work. What is a parenthetical citation? This is a method of citing sources in MLA style that enables students to cite works within the text of the paper. Research Paper Help; Parenthetical Citations. include a reference to the specific work either within the paper or in the parenthetical citation. MLA (Modern Language Association) style is most commonly used to write papers and cite sources within the liberal arts and humanities. This resource, updated to. Why we use parenthetical / in-text citations Researchers place brief parenthetical descriptions to acknowledge which parts of their paper reference particular sources. In your Bibliography, Works Cited, or References page, you must include all of the above parenthetical citations. See sample below. Concept. A bibliographic citation is a reference to a book, article, web page, or other published item. Citations should supply detail to identify the item uniquely. [6] In MLA style, in-text citations, called parenthetical citations, are used to document any external sources used within a document (unless the material cited is. EasyBib Pro Features. APA, Harvard, Chicago, and 7,000 additional formats; No advertisements! Unlimited cloud backup of all your citations.