MLA FORMATTINGMLA FORMATTING

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________•Standard One Inch Margins•First Page ONLY – Upper Left Hand Corner: Your Name, Your Professor’s Name, the Course & Section Number, and the Date (Do not use the Insert Header Function in your Word Processing Program, i.e. Microsoft Word)•Every Page – Upper Right Hand Corner: Your Last Name and the Page Number (Use the Insert Page Number Function in your Word Processing Program)•Title Centered•Double-Spaced•12 Point Font, Times New Roman

AVOIDING DROPPED QUOTES AVOIDING DROPPED QUOTES & INTEGRATING SOURCED & INTEGRATING SOURCED MATERIALMATERIALIntroduce

Establish the Credibility of the Source Material

ExplainReiterate the Quoted Material

for Clarity: “By this…” or “In other words…”

IntegrateShow the Relevance of the

Source Material to Your Thesis/Stance/Claim

DROPPED QUOTESDROPPED QUOTESHemingway was born in Oak Park,

Illinois, and had three siblings. “Hemingway was an abusive drunk.” He eventually moved to Kansas City and worked as a cub reporter. Hemingway then moved to Toronto and then onto Europe, where he met up with his literary counterparts. This is where his excessive drinking habits and violent behavior took form.

Dr. Fenstermaker, a renowned Hemingway expert and tenured professor at Harvard University, said, “Hemingway was an abusive drunk” (Smith 54). By this, he suggests that Hemingway used alcohol not only to incite his bitter rage, but also as a conflagrant to burn the bridges between himself and his mentors. This supports the stance that Hemingway did all he could to break the ties with those who taught him the craft.

Example of a Dropped Quote

Example of an Integrated Quote

STANDARD QUOTESSTANDARD QUOTESStandard quotes are four lines or lessYou should not have more than 3-4

standard quotes on a single page.

EXAMPLE:Dr. Fenstermaker, a renowned Hemingway expert and tenured professor at Harvard University, said, “Hemingway was an abusive drunk” (Smith 54).

BLOCK QUOTESBLOCK QUOTES

A. Must be FIVE lines or more

B. Lead into a Block Quotes with a colon, not a comma

C. Indent the Block Quote in its entirety

D. Do not use Quotation Marks

E. The Period comes before the Parenthetical Citation

F. No more than ONE Block Quote per three pages

B

C

E

D

Parenthetical Citations with Parenthetical Citations with Standard QuotesStandard Quotes

Dr. Fenstermaker, a renowned Hemingway expert and tenured professor at Harvard University, said, “Hemingway was an abusive drunk” (Smith 54).

1.End Quote2.Parenthetical Citation 3.Period

1.

2. 3.

Parenthetical CitationsParenthetical Citations

(Banks 121) Banks is a quick reference to the works cited page.121 is the page that the quoted material is found in Banks’ work.***In order to know what to put in a parenthetical, it is always the first part of a works cited entry:

Banks, Miranda. “Teen Themes.” Television Saturation. Ed. Joseph McCullin. Boston: Pearson, 2013. 118-94. Print.

Parenthetical CitationsParenthetical Citations(Banks, par. 12)

Sometimes sources provide paragraph numbers and not page numbers. In this case, you will use the above parenthetical.

(Banks)Sometimes sources do not provide page or paragraph numbers, which usually indicates an inadequate source. Nevertheless, the parenthetical will look like this one and n. pag. will be found in the works cited entry.

Parenthetical CitationsParenthetical Citations

(“The End is Near” 48-51)Sometimes sources do not provide an author, which can usually be a sign of a bad source. Nevertheless, the parenthetical still follows the same rule.***In order to know what to put in a parenthetical, it is always the first part of a works cited entry:

“The End is Near.” Propagandist Weekly. Ed. Brenda Johnson. New York: Holt Publishing, 2011. 34-95. Print.

In-Text Citations with In-Text Citations with Standard QuotesStandard Quotes

Alex Wright, director or User Experience and Product Research at The New York Times, said, “[O]ral tradition means more than just talking” (357).

When the author of the quote is the same as the author of the article/book from which the quote is found, you do not need to include the last name of the author inside of the parenthetical; all you need is the page number where the quote was found.

Ellipses & BracketsEllipses & Brackets Ellipses are used to show information has been

removed or omitted from a quote, refer to pages 331-33 in the Little, Brown Compact Handbook.

(Example found on Block Quote slide)

Brackets clarify pronoun and noun usage and/or can correct verb tense issues. Page 334 in the Little, Brown.

Original:“He is considered the forefather of modern thought

and the theory of naturalism” (Jones 824).Clarified with Brackets:“[Freud] is considered the forefather of modern

thought and the theory of naturalism” (Jones 824).“He [was] considered the forefather of modern

thought and the theory of naturalism” (Jones 824).

BracketsBrackets

“He is considered the forefathr [sic] of modern thought and the theory of naturalism” (Jones 824).

***As you can see the word “forefathr” is misspelled. When this occurs in the work that you want to quote, you cannot fix it for the original author. However, you also do not want the professor to think that you made the spelling error. In this instance, you will input [sic] after the error to indicate the mistake was published/printed in this manner.

TITLESTITLESThe titles of Longer Works (Books, Films,

Albums, Collections, Anthologies, Sitcoms…) need to be ITALICIZED

Catcher and the Rye

The titles of Shorter Works (Poem, Song, Short Stories, Articles, Journals, Episodes…) need to be in “QUOTES”

“The Story of an Hour”

Capitalize all words in a title except for Prepositions, Articles and Conjunctions, unless the title starts or ends in these types of words.

Works CitedWorks Cited1. Alphabetized(No Numbers or

Bullets)2. Hanging

Indention(The only full line of

text should be the first line of each source; each additional line of a source is indented)

3. Works Cited should head the page

(No Bold, Underline or Quotation Marks, just plain old 12 point Font, Times New Roman)