Here’s the deal. When you have two authors, you just smush their names together with the word “and.” Seriously, that’s 90% of the magic. For example: (Smith and Jones 42).
Notice I didn’t use an ampersand (&). In MLA, we’re fancy, but not that fancy. The ampersand is reserved for APA, which is like the grumpy neighbor down the street. Stay in your lane, MLA.
So, if you’re writing a sentence and want to mention these two scholarly BFFs, you’d write: Smith and Jones argue that pineapple belongs on pizza (42). Or you can put them in parentheses at the end: It’s a fact that pineapple belongs on pizza (Smith and Jones 42). Easy peasy.
