Question

which option best revises this sentence to use the correct in - text citation, according to mla standards?
baseball historian danial oday believes that martin
reginald is \the greatest third baseman to ever play for
louisiana technical college\ (oday 199).
a. baseball historian danial oday believes that martin reginald is
the greatest third baseman to ever play for louisiana technical
college\ (oday, 2007, 199).
b. baseball historian danial oday (199) believes that martin reginald
is \the greatest third baseman to ever play for louisiana technical
college.\
c. one baseball historian believes that martin reginald is \the
greatest third baseman to ever play for louisiana technical
college\ (199).
d. baseball historian danial oday believes that martin reginald is
\the greatest third baseman to ever play for louisiana technical
college\ (199).

Explanation:

MLA in-text citation rules state that when the author's name is already stated in the sentence text, only the page number (or year/identifier for non-paginated sources) needs to appear in the parenthetical citation. The original sentence includes the author's name (Danial O'Day) in the sentence, so the parenthetical only needs the number 199, not repeating the author's last name. Option A adds extra, incorrect elements. Option B places the citation incorrectly after the author's name mid-sentence in an unstandardized way. Option C removes the author's name unnecessarily when it was provided in the original context.

Answer:

D. Baseball historian Danial O'Day believes that Martin Reginald is "the greatest third baseman to ever play for Louisiana Technical College" (199).