A Guide to MLA Style Documentation in Research Papers

The common documentation style taught in Comp. I is the style developed by the Modern Library Association of America as presented in the 7th edition of the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. This handbook offers complete guidelines for the basic format of your paper as well as formatting for documentation of sources in the body of the paper as well as the “Works Cited” page.

This handout outlines citation styles for the most commonly used types of sources. If you have a source not illustrated here, or if you have questions or concerns about proper page formatting, consult the MLA Handbook (LB2369.G53 2009) on the Ready Reference Shelf in the Reference Alcove.

Avoid plagiarism which is defined as using someone else’s ideas or way of phrasing an idea and presenting it as your own. This is intellectual theft and is morally and ethically wrong. Failure to properly credit the original works can lead to a charge of plagiarism, resulting in not just a failing grade for that assignment, but a failing grade in the class, and even a disciplinary action by the university.

Formatting Your MLA Works Cited List MLA uses an author/page style of in-text source recognition, or note. A Works Cited list must appear at the end of your paper. All sources cited in

text must be included. List the works cited using the author’s name, last name first, as it appears on

the title page. If there is no author, list the work by title. Works Cited information must be accurate and should include the author, title

of the work, publishing information, year, and format. (i.e. Print, DVD, Web, etc.)

Arrange the list alphabetically, letter by letter, word by word. “Brown, John” comes before “Browning, Robert” because “Brown” is a complete word, even though “i” comes before “j” alphabetically. Arrangement has nothing to do with the format of the work being cited (i.e. book and journal articles are arranged together not separately).

If the author’s name is unknown the title of the work appears first, and is alphabetized in the list by the first significant word in the title (disregard A, An and The).

The Works Cited list should be double spaced between the lines of an entry and double spaced between entries.

A hanging indentation (first line flush to the left margin and all successive lines of a reference indented one tab) is used at the beginning of each entry.

Each entry is double spaced, with a double space between each entry. Capitalize all significant words in a title. Titles of books, journals, etc. are in italics. Titles of articles or essays etc.

within a collection are in regular font surrounded by quotation marks. Surround the title of an article from a newspaper, magazine, encyclopedia or

dictionary with quotation marks. Give the medium of the source; e.g. Print, Microform, Web, etc. If the source

was accessed on the Web, give the date accessed as well.

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Watch your punctuation. Follow the punctuation in this guide or check the MLA Handbook to be sure you are placing commas, periods, colons and brackets in the proper places.

Legal and sacred texts have their own citation styles. Consult the handbook for these.

A sample Works Cited list appears on page 8 as illustration.

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Works CitedMLA pp. 123-212

BooksMLA pp. 148-181

These citations usually have the following parts:1. Author, editor, compiler or translator. Give as it appears in the book, placing the last name first. Leave out titles and degrees that precede or follow the name but include suffixes such as Jr. or VI. If more than one author, editor, etc. is given, give the second author’s name in normal order, not last name first.2. Title. Italics should be used for the title of any book, magazine, newspaper, journal or database. Capitalize the first letter of all significant words in the title and subtitle. 3. Publishing information. This is usually found on the front and back of title page of any of any print book. City of publication. Indicate the state using the common two letter abbreviation, only if The city is not well known (Englewood Cliffs, NJ) or to clarify if two or more cities have the same name Kansas City, MO as opposed to Kansas City, KS). Drop any beginning articles (A, An, The), descriptive words (Publishers, Books, House, etc.), and business abbreviations (Co., Corp., Inc., Ltd.) as well as first names or initials if the name is that of a person (W.W. Norton, Henry Holt, etc.) If the publisher is a University press, abbreviate “U” for university and “P” for press (U of Missouri P). Use the most recent copyright date given for the book. This is usually on the back of the title page. If more than one place of publication is given, use only the first one listed. If no place of publication is given, use “N.P.” of no publisher is given, use “n.p.”

If only a part of a book is cited, i.e. only one chapter pertains to your subject, follow the date with the inclusive page numbers for that part.

EXAMPLES* One author:Arendt, Hannah. The Human Condition. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1958. Print.

* Two authors: (keep the names in the order given on source)Stephenson, Richard, and Harry C. Bredemeier. The Analysis of Social Systems.

New York: Holt, 1962. Print.

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* Two authors with the same last name:Lamb, Charles, and Mary Lamb. Tales from Shakespeare. New York: Macmillan, 1965.

* More than three authors: (name first author listed)Kadis, Adler, L., et al. A Practicum of Group Psychotherapy. New York: Harper,

1963. Print.

* More than one entry by the same author:O’Neill, Eugene. Long Day’s Journey into Night. New Haven: Yale UP, 1956. Print.

---. Mourning Becomes Electra, a Trilogy. New York: Norton, 1931. Print.

* Corporate Author:American Medical Association. The American Medical Association Encyclopedia of Medicine. New

York: Random, 1989. Print.Note: Cite the corporate author, even if the work is published by that entity. For Government Documents, see pp. 174-176 of the Handbook.

* Republished book: (Give original publishing date, immediately following the title)Doctorow, E. L. Welcome To Hard Times. 1960. New York: Viking-Penguin, 1996. Print.

* Book with a publisher’s imprint: (examples: Anchor Books, Perennial Library, Vintage)Morrison, Toni. Sula. 1973. New York: Plume-Penguin, 2002. Print.

* Books with two or more publishers:Duff, J. Wright. A Literary History of Rome: From the Origins to the Close of the Golden Age.

Ed. A. M. Duff. 3rd ed. 1953. London: Benn. New York: Barnes, 1967. Print.

* Book accessed online:Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1850; Bartleby.com, 1999.

Bartleby.com. Web. 22 Sept. 2009.

* An edited collection or anthology:Bradly, Thomas, et al., eds. The American Tradition in Literature. New York: Grosset, 1987.

Print.

* A multivoume work:

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Churchill, Winston S. The Age of Revolution. New York: Dodd, 1957. Vol. 3 of A History of the

English-Speaking Peoples. 4 vols. 1956-58. Print.

* An authored essay or article in a collection or anthology:Lazard, Naomi. “In answer to Your Query.” The Norton Book of Light Verse. Ed. Russell Baker.

New York: Norton, 1986. 52-73. Print.NOTE: This illustrates two other possibilities: a work with both an author and editor, and inclusive pagination.

* A dictionary entry or encyclopedia article with no author given:“Freedom.” Encyclopedia Americana. 1985 ed. Print.

“Loneliness.” Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary. 1993. Print.

* An encyclopedia authored article:Mohanty, Jitendra M. “Indian Philosophy.” The New Encyclopaedia Britannica: Macropaedia.

15th ed. 1987. Print.

* A specific definition in a dictionary:“Noon.” Def. 4b. The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. 1989. Print.NOTE: There are no pages, or editors given. If there is not edition statement, give the date as the edition.

Periodicals; also known as Newspapers, Magazines and Professional Journals

MLA 190-193; All FormatsFollow the format for books, except:

1. Surround the title of the article with quotation marks, follow that with the title of the periodical, underlined and the date of its issue, day (if given), month, year. 2. For a magazine/journal give the volume number with the year in parenthesis followed by a colon and the pagination.

If there is no volume, give the date of issue without parenthesis. If the publication is unpaged, use “n. pag.”If it is continuous give the inclusive pages (44-53).If it skips pages give the initial page with a plus sign (10+).

3. For a newspaper give the date of issue, edition (if known) page and section. If the article continues to another page give the initial page with a plus sign (D1+)

4. Give the format that was used to view the article. If the format is a publication independently on the web, give the medium in

italics (Web) and date of access (day, month, year). If the article was found in an online database (i.e. EBSCOhost), give the title of

the database, in italics, medium, in italics (Web), and date of access (day, month, year).

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5. Microform versions are referred to by their specific format.For articles viewed on microfilm, give the full information as you would for the

print version, with the word Microfilm at the end of the citation.For microfiche, give the full information as you would for the print version, use

the word fiche (lower case), and give the grid information.

ExamplesIf there are two or more authors, format the author information as given in the examples on page 2.* Newspaper article, page & section:Greeley, Andrew. “Todays Morality Play: The Sitcom.” New York Times 17 May 1990: 3A.

Microfilm.

* Newspaper article, no page number:Gould, Elaine. “Troubled Teens.” USA Today Dec. 1995: n. pag. Print.

* Anonymous article:“A Traffic Ban Drives Rome Crazy.” Newsweek 16 Mar. 1987: 47+. Microfilm.* Newspaper article on microfiche:Chaple, Don. “Child Protection Laws Needed.” Star-Ledger [Newark, NJ] 14 Jan. 1990: n. pag.

Newsbank: Welfare and Social Problems (1990): fiche 1, grids A9-12.

* Newspaper article in an online database (Newsbank)Leiser, Ken. “AA Slashes Operations Here: Airport Authority Freezes Spending Runway Work

Goes on.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch 17 July 2003. Newsbank. Web. 22 Sept. 2009.

* Article in an online newspaper or newswire:Loven, Jennifer. “Obama Urges Israeli, Palestinian Sides to Do More.” St. Louis Post

Dispatch. n. pag. stltoday.com.. Web. 22 Sept. 2009.

* Magazine/ journal article, without volume, discontinuous pages:Perry, Patrick. “Pancreatic Cancer—Family Ties.” Saturday Evening Post Nov./Dec. 2001: 36+.

* Magazine/journal article, with volume given and continuous pages:Craner, Paul M. “New Tool for ancient Art: The Computer and Music.” Computers and the

Humanities 25 (1991): 303-13. Print.

* Magazine/journal article accessed through an online database (EBSCOhost, Gale Cengage Collection, etc.)

Tolson, Nancy. “Making Books Available: The Role of Early Libraries, Librarians and Booksellers

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in the Promotion of African American Children’s Literature.” African American Review 32

(1998). Academic Search Elite. Web. 22 Sept. 2009.

* Article in an online magazine:Walsh, Joan. “Is Race Really Catnip to the media.” Salon.com. Web. 22 Sept. 2009.NOTE: For loose leaf reprint services, abstracts, reviews, editorials, letters to the editor, special issues, and serialized articles, see pp. 188-193.

Non-Print SourcesMLA pp. 194-200

* Film, in its entirety:It’s a Wonderful Life. Dir. Frank Capra. Perf. James Stewart, Donna Reed, Lionel Barrymore,

and Thomas Mitchell. RKO, 1946. Film.

* Film, if citing the contribution of a specific individual:Chaplin, Charles, dir. Modern Times. Perf. Chaplin and Paulette Goddard. United Artists, 1936.

Film.

* Video, DVD, etc., slide program or film strip:Alcohol Use and Its Medical Consequences: A Comprehensive Teaching Program for Biomedical

Education. Prod. Project Cork, Dartmouth Medical School. Milner-Fenwick, 1982.

Slide program.

* Video, DVD, etc., slide program or film, contribution of a specific individual:Hitchcock, Alfred, dir. Suspicion. Perf. Cary Grant and Joan Fontaine. 1941. Turner, 1995.

Videocassette.

* Live performance:Hamlet. By William Shakespeare. Dir. John Gielgud. Perf. Richard Burton. Shubert Theatre,

Boston. 4 Mar. 1964.

* Live performance, contribution of a specific individual:Rigg, Diana, perf. Medea. By Euripides. Trans. Alistair Elliot. Dir. Jonathan Kent. Longacre

Theatre, New York, 7 Apr. 1994. Performance.

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* Television program, broadcast:“The Buccaneers”. By Edith Wharton. Adapt. Maggie Wadey. Perf. Mira Sorvino, Alison Elliot,

and Carla Gugino. 3 episodes. Masterpiece Theatre. Introd. Russell Baker. PBS,

WGBH, Boston, 27 Apr-11 May, 1997. Television.

* Radio program, broadcast:“Death and Society” Narr. Joanne Silberner. Weekend Edition Sunday. Natl. Public Radio.

WUWM, Milwaukee. 25 June 1998. Radio.

* Recorded television or radio program, if primarily the work of an individual:

Adams, Douglas. “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” Perf. Martin Benson, Peter Davidson,

Sandra Dickenson, David Dixon and Simon Jones. n.d. BBC Studio. BBC Warner, 2005.

DVD.

* Musical sound recording, medium other than CD:Ellington, Duke. cond. Duke Ellington Orch. First Carnegie Hall Concert. Rec. 23 Jan. 1943.

Prestige, 1977. LP.

Marsalis, Branford. Romances for Saxophone. English Chamber Orch. Cond. Andrew Litton.

Audiocassette. CBS, 1986NOTE: Refer to reel-to-reel tape as audiotape.* Specific song or composition on a recording:Bartoli, Cecilia. “Les filles de Cadix.” By Pauline Viardot. Chant d’amour. London, 1996. CD.

* Spoken word recording:Burnett, Frances Hodgson. The Secret Garden. 1911. Read by Helena Bonham Carter.

Penguin-High Bridge, 1993. Audiocassette.

* Specific work on a recording:Whitman, Walt. “America.” In Their Own Voices: A Century of Recorded Poetry. Rhino, 1996.

CD.

* Digital file

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Hudson, Jennifer, perf. “And I’m Telling I’m Not Going.” Dreamgirls: Music from the Motion

Picture. Sony BMG, 2006. MP3 file.NOTE: In the place reserved for the medium of publication, give the format followed by the word file.

For musical compositions, visual art (paintings, sculptures, photographs, etc.), interviews, maps or charts, cartoons or comic strips, advertisements, musical scores or librettos, oral presentations (lectures, speeches, readings, etc.), manuscripts or typescripts, and letters or memos, see pages 199-204.

Internet Sources

MLA pp.207-224; 229-235The Internet is a good source of information, although you must be cautious and use good judgment in selecting the information you wish to use. Once more, follow the basic citation format and use the word Web to indicate an Internet source followed by the date of access.

Example Authorship of the material presented on the typical website is virtually never available. These sites usually don’t give page or paragraph numbers either.

* General website; no person of responsibility (author, editor, etc) given:What Causes Bronchitis? 2003. American Lung Assoc. Web. 17 Nov. 2003.

Annotated CitationsMLA pp. 145

Simply add a sentence or two describing or evaluating the source to your standard citation for the type of source: Thompson, Stith. The Folktale. New York: Dryden, 1946. Print. A comprehensive survey of the

most popular folktales, including their histories and their uses in literary works.

The next page is a sample Works Cited page. Please note that each entry is arranged alphabetically, regardless of the format or medium of the source.

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Works Cited

Arendt, Hannah. The Human Condition. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1958. Print.

Burnett, Frances Hodgson. The Secret Garden. 1911. Read by Helena Bonham Carter.

Penguin-High Bridge, 1993. Audiocassette.

Churchill, Winston S. The Age of Revolution. New York: Dodd, 1957. Vol. 3 of A History of the

English-Speaking Peoples. 4 vols. 1956-58. Print.

“Death and Society” Narr. Joanne Silberner. Weekend Edition Sunday. Natl. Public Radio.

WUWM, Milwaukee. 25 June 1998. Radio.

Gould, Elaine. “Troubled Teens.” USA Today Dec. 1995: n. pag. Print.

Loven, Jennifer. “Obama Urges Israeli, Palestinian Sides to Do More.” St. Louis Post

Dispatch. n. pag. stltoday.com.. Web. 22 Sept. 2009.

Stephenson, Richard, and Harry C. Bredemeier. The Analysis of Social Systems.

New York: Holt, 1962. Print.

Tolson, Nancy. “Making Books Available: The Role of Early Libraries, Librarians and Booksellers

in the Promotion of African American Children’s Literature.” African American Review 32

(1998). Academic Search Elite. Web. 22 Sept. 2009.

“A Traffic Ban Drives Rome Crazy.” Newsweek 16 Mar. 1987: 47+. Microfilm.

Sample only

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Citations in Text: Parenthetical Documentation

MLA pp. 213-231

When you refer directly to another person’s idea, or quote a source in your paper you must refer to the source of the idea/quote. This reference must point clearly to the source in your Works Cited list. This reference is placed in parenthesis where a natural pause would occur, preferably at the end of a sentence, as near as possible to he idea/quote The reference should contain the author’s last name and the inclusive pages where the idea/quote appears in the work. If the author’s name is in the text of your work, only the inclusive pages should appear in parenthesis. For more detail see the section of the Handbook cited above.

Examples

* Author’s name in text:Tannen has argued this point (178-85)

* Author’s name in reference:This point has already been argued (Tannen 178-85)

* Two to three authors in text:In the opinion of Jakobson and Waugh (210-15) this may not hold true and warrants further study.

* Two to three authors in reference:Yet this phenomenon may not hold true, and warrants further study. (Jakobson and Waugh, 210-15)

* More than three authors in text:According to Kadis et al., the comfort of each individual determines the flow of communication during the session. (87)

* More than three authors in reference:The comfort of each individual determines the flow of communication during the session (Kadis et al., 87)

If the idea/quote comes from a work with a corporate or agency author it is usually much easier to include the agency name in the text, although you can put the full name in parenthesis.

* Corporate author in text:In a study by the Public Agenda Foundation, it was apparent that by 1992 the American healthcare system needed to be seriously modified (4)

* Corporate author in reference:By 1992 it was apparent that the American health care system needed to be seriously modified (Public Agenda Foundation, 4)

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If the source doesn’t give an author, cite the title. This can be shortened, but always include the first word by which it is alphabetized in the Works Cited list. If the title is for a book, underline it. If it is an article in a periodical or an essay, or story, etc. in a collection, place the title in quotes the parenthesis.

* Title in text:According to “Decade of the Spy”, international espionage was as prevalent as ever in t he 1990s.

* Title in reference:International espionage was a prevalent as ever in the 1990s. (“Decade”)

If you are referring to an entire work, whether it is print or non-print (electronic, video, audio, etc.) it is best to cite the work in text, avoiding the parenthesis.

* Title in text:McRae’s The Literature of Science includes many examples of this trend.

If an electronic source has page or paragraph numbers, or distinctive slides, such as a power point presentation cite the specific part of the work, just as you would a print source.

* Internet site document, no page or paragraph numbersMost scholars agree that Nefertari was probably the daughter of a government minister named Backenkhos, but some scholars believe that she was a Nubian princess. (“Great Kings and Queens”)

Under certain circumstances a parenthetical reference may not be necessary. Do not assume this is the case. Consult your instructor.

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Direct Quotations of SourcesMLA pp. 92-105

Try to quote only when absolutely necessary, then keep them as short and to the point as possible. Quotations can be boring and distracting from the point of your work if you use too many of them. In prose, they should only be used if the page or paragraph can be referred to directly. Electronic sources should only be quoted if page or paragraph numbers are available, otherwise work the idea into the body of the text as show in the example above. The rules for poetry, and drama are illustrated following the rules for prose below.

* In quoting prose, if you have four lines of text or less and you require no special emphasis, put it in quotation marks and work it into your text:

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” wrote Charles Dickens of the eighteenth century (3).

* Sometimes you may just want a phrase to express the idea:

For Charles Dickens the eighteenth century was both “the best of times” and “the worst of times” (3).

* If the quote comes from an electronic source with paragraph numbers rather

than page numbers, cite the paragraph:

“The debut of Julius Ceaser” according to Sohmer, “proclaimed Shakespeare’s Globe a theater of courage and ideasa place where an audience must observe with the inner eye, listen with the inner ear.” (par. 44)

* If there is a quote within the quote, change the marks around the internal quote to single quotation marks:

He stated “The ‘placebo effect’ disappeared when behaviors were studied in this manner” (Smith, 276).

* If a quote is longer then four lines, end the line of your text with a colon, drop to the next line, tab once from the left margin, and type the quote, keeping the quote indented. Do not use quotation marks:

At the conclusion of Lord of the Flies, Ralph and the other boys realize the horror of their actions:

The tears began to flow and sobs shook him. He gave himself up to them now for the first time on the island; great shuddering spasms of grief that seemed to wrench his whole body. His voice rose under the black smoke before the burning wreckage of the island; and infected by that emotion, the other little boys began to shake and

sob too. (186)

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* If you quote more than one paragraph, indent the first line of each paragraph an additional ¼ inch. If your quote begins in the middle of a paragraph, that first line stays at the first tab, while the beginning of the following paragraph indents ¼ inch.

The following rules for quoting poetry and drama emphasize the importance of maintaining their artistic forms.* A single line of a poem may be quoted in text, or up to three lines if they are separated by a slash (/) with a space on either side. Enclose the quote with quotation marks. References in parenthesis are to the lines of the poem:

Bradstreet frames the poem with a sense of mortality: “All things within this fading world hath end” (1).

Reflecting on the “incident” in Baltimore, Cullen concludes “Of all the things that happened there / That’s all that I remember” (11-12).

* If the quote is longer than three lines of verse, begin on a new line and indent one inch, unless the poem uses unusual spacing. As with prose, the longer quote does not use quotation marks, unless they appear in the original:

Elizabeth Bishop’s “In the Waiting Room” is rich in evocative detail:It was winter. It got darkearly. The waiting roomwas full of grown-up people, arctics and overcoats,lamps and magazines. (6-10)

The parenthetical reference is placed at the end of the last line unless it doesn’t fit, then it goes to the next line, flush to the right margin. If lines of the poem are too long to fit as they are intended, they can be taken to the next line an additional indented ¼ inch. If the lines will fit with a narrower margin, on the left, you can make the margin narrower.

* For poetry with unusual spacing, try to reproduce it as accurately as possible. That spacing is part of the expression of the piece. If the quote begins in the middle of a line, start the quote in the location it occurs in the full line, not flush to the one inch indent:

I rememberhe glanced at me in just that way, independentand unabashed, the handsome sidelong look that went around and about but never directlymet my eyes, for that would betray his soul.he was not being sly, only careful. (43-48)

IMPORTANT INFORMATION: some word processing programs will automatically capitalize the first lines in poetry, because that is the traditional, accepted style. Sometimes this function can be turned off in the software. If you don’t know how, ask for assistance from a lab supervisor or library technology staff.

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* Quotes from drama require a dialogue format, starting with the usual 1 inch indent. The name of each speaking character is all caps when identifying the speaker (HAMLET) followed by a period, not a colon. If the character’s speech takes more than one line, indent additional lines another ¼ inch. Follow the spacing as it appears in the copy of the play you have at hand:

GONERIL. Hear me my Lord. What need you five-and-twenty, ten or five, To follow in a house where twice so many Have a command to tend you?REGAN. What need one?LEAR. O, reason not the need! (2.4.254-58)

Parenthetical references refer to act (2), scene (4), and lines (254-58).

Use of the Ellipsis, Added Emphasis and Clarification Within a Quote

If you leave out a word, phrase or sentence(s), from a quoted passage, you must indicate this with an ellipsis, which is a series of three periods separated by one space between each (. . .) When an elipsis comes at the end of a sentence, or indicates a break midsentence but continues with the beginning of another sentence, the elipsis consists of four periods separated by one space each (. . . .) The following examples show how to do this under varying circumstances:

Examples

*If you leave out a phrase or word in the middle of a sentence:

In surveying various responses to plagues in the Middle Ages, Barbara Tuchman writes,

“Medical thinking . . . stressed air as the communicator of disease, ignoring sanitation

or visible carriers. (101-02).

*If you end the quote with an ellipsis:

In surveying various responses to plagues in the Middle Ages, Barbara Tuchman writes,

“Medical thinking, trapped in the theory of astral influences, stressed air as the

communicator of disease . . . .” (101-02).

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*If you leave out a one or more sentences from a quote:

In discussing the historical relation between politics and the press, William L. Rivers

notes, “Presidential control reached its zenith under Andrew Jackson, the extent of

whose attention to the press even before he became a candidate is suggested by the fact

that he subscribed to twenty newspapers . . . . For a time, the United States Telegraph

and the Washington Globe were almost equally favored as party organs, and there were

fifty-seven journalists on the government payroll” (7).

*If you jump from the middle of one sentence to the end of another:

In discussing the historical relation between politics and the press, William L. Rivers

notes, “Presidential control reached its zenith under Andrew Jackson . . . . For a time,

the United States Telegraph and the Washington Globe were almost equally favored as

party organs, and there were fifty-seven journalists on the government payroll” (7).

*If you jump from the middle of one sentence to the middle of another:

In discussing the historical relation between politics and the press, William L. Rivers

notes that when presidential control “reached its zenith under Andrew Jackson, . . .

there were fifty-seven journalists on the government payroll” (7).

*If you think the quote is unclear due to sentence construction or grammar, or if a word in the quote is misspelled in the source, do not correct these perceived errors, but indicate that the quote is accurate from the source by placing the word “sic” in parenthesis:

Shaw admitted “Nothing can extinguish my interest in Shakespear” (sic).

*You can also add emphasis to make a point from the within a quote by underlining a word or phrase within the quote and indicating that this is your emphasis:

Lincoln specifically advocated a government “for the people” (emphasis added).*You can place a comment or explanation within the quote, using brackets:

He claimed he could provide “hundreds of examples [of court decisions] to illustrated the

historical tension between church and state.”

Milton’s Satan speaks of his “study [pursuit] of revenge.”

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Basic Punctuation

*If a quote is formally introduced it is preceded by a colon, whether it is in text or set off:

Shelley held a bold view: “Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the World” (794).

*If the quote is an integral part of the sentence structure, it should be preceded by no punctuation or a comma depending on the sentence structure:

Shelly thought poets “the unacknowledged legislators of the World” (794).

“Poets,” according to Shelley, “are the unacknowledged legislators of the World” (794).

*Most of us were taught to place punctuation within the quotation marks:

Joseph Conrad writes of the company manager in Heart of Darkness, “He was obeyed, yet he inspired neither love nor fear, nor even respect.”

Under certain circumstances a quote may not require a parenthetical reference. Do not assume this is the case. Check with your instructor.

*If there is a parenthetical reference, do not place a period at the end of a quoted sentence. Close the quote, type the reference, and place the period after the reference:

Shelley held a bold view: “Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the World” (794).

* Only expressive punctuation original to the quote (a question mark or exclamation point) should go inside the quotation marks. Follow this with the reference and a period:

He declared, “I believe taxation without representation is tyranny!” (32).

*If there are multiple quotation marks, punctuate within the mark:

“Read ‘Kubla Khan,’” he told me.

Most examples came from the 7th and earlier editions of the MLA Handbook, MLA Style Manual, or the Pattonville Student Writer Handbook, By Barbara Brooks. Many thanks to Ms. Mary Pier, Ms. Nancy Popkin, and Ms. Najah Haqiqah for their assistance. Much of the text in this handout is also quoted directly from the many editions of the Handbook.

Rev. 9/2009 lo

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