MLA

## In-text Citation

When you directly quote the works of others in your paper, you will format quotations differently depending on their length.

After the quote include the author's last name and the location of the quote (page number, paragraph number or line) within parenthesis and no comma: (Conrad 6)

If you only quote one author throughout your essay, then you don't need to include their last name, only the number. Indicate the type of number in the first instance: **pp.** for page number, **par.** for paragraph, and/or **line** for line in a poem.

**Adding or omitting words in quotations:**
If you add a word or words in a quotation, you should put brackets around the words to indicate that they are not part of the original text:

* Jan Harold Brunvand, in an essay on urban legends, states, "some individuals [who retell urban legends] make a point of learning every rumor or tale" (78).

If you omit a word or words from a quotation, you should indicate the deleted word or words by using ellipses, preceded and followed by a space:

* Paul downplays Auggie’s stealing and lying by pointing out that "it was a good deed, … a nice thing [he] did for her" (30).

When omitting words from poetry quotations, use a standard three-period ellipses; however, when omitting one or more full lines of poetry, space several periods to about the length of a complete line in the poem.

### Short Quotations

To indicate short quotations (four typed lines or fewer of prose or three lines of verse) in your text, enclose the quotation within double quotation marks. Provide the author and specific page number (in the case of verse, provide line numbers) in the in-text citation, and include a complete reference on the Works Cited page. Punctuation marks such as periods, commas, and semicolons should appear after the parenthetical citation.

#### Prose

Example: In this case, the first quote of the essay indicates that the numbers referenced are paragraphs. In the subsequent quotes, only the number is needed. The author's last name is the only one included in the Works Cited section.

* ...his peculiar routine of taking “a single color photograph of precisely the same view” (par. 4) every day. He decideds to share the pictures with Paul, who reflects upon the work after initially dismissing it: “If you don't take the time to look, you'll never manage to see anything” (6).

#### Poetry

When using short (fewer than three lines of verse) quotations from poetry, mark breaks in verse with a slash, ( / ), at the end of each line of verse (a space should precede and follow the slash). If a stanza break occurs during the quotation, use a double slash ( // ).

Examples:

* In the following sections, the speaker describes the “death’s dream Kingdom,” where “voices are/ In the wind’s singing/ More distant and more solemn” (24-26).
* They try to pray for salvation but are unable to do so: “For Thine is/ Life is/ For Thine is the” (92-94).

### Long Quotations

For quotations that are more than four lines of prose or three lines of verse, place quotations in a free-standing block of text and omit quotation marks. Start the quotation on a new line, with the entire quote indented 1/2 inch from the left margin while maintaining double-spacing. Your parenthetical citation should come after the closing punctuation mark. When quoting verse, maintain original line breaks.

#### Prose

For example, when citing more than four lines of prose, use the following example:

#### Poetry

When citing long sections of poetry (four lines of verse or more), keep formatting as close to the original as possible.

## Works Cited Section

In your citation, the elements should be listed in the following order and followed by the indicated punctuation mark:

1. Author**.**

* Begin the entry with the author’s last name, followed by a comma and the rest of the name, as presented in the work. End this element with a period.

2. Title of source**.**

* Depending upon the type of source, it should be listed in *italics* or "quotation marks".
	+ Books should be in italics: *To the Lighthouse*, *Heart of Darkness*, *The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn*, *Death of a Salesman*
	+ Poems, which are usually part of a collection, should be in quotation marks. The name of the collection (if available), which MLA treats as a "container," should follow in italics: “Not Waving but Drowning.” *Stevie Smith -poems-*

3. Title of container**,**

* The larger wholes in which the source is located. For example, if you want to cite a poem that is listed in a collection of poems, the individual poem is the source, while the larger collection is the container. The title of the container is usually italicized and followed by a comma, since the information that follows next describes the container.

4. Other contributors**,**

* In addition to the author, there may be other contributors to the source who should be credited, such as editors, illustrators, translators, etc. If their contributions are relevant to your research, or necessary to identify the source, include their names in your documentation.

5. Version**,**

* If a source is listed as an edition or version of a work, include it in your citation.

6. Number**,**

* If a source is part of a numbered sequence, such as a multi-volume book or journal with both volume and issue numbers, those numbers must be listed in your citation.

7. Publisher**,**

* The publisher produces or distributes the source to the public.

8. Publication date**,**

* When the source has more than one date, it is sufficient to use the date that is most relevant to your writing. If you’re unsure about which date to use, go with the date of the source’s original publication.

9. Location**.**

* When citing a poem within a collection, include the page number(s). pp. 24.
* The location of an online work should include a URL. Remove any "http://" or "https://" tag from the beginning of the URL. You can also write Web.

**Examples:**

Owen, Wilfred. “Dulce et Decorum est.” *Poems by Wilfred Owen*, Pennsylvania State University, 2007, pp. 24.

Smith, Stevie. “Not Waving but Drowning” *Stevie Smith -poems-*, Poem Hunter, 2004, pp. 25.

Eliot, Thomas Stearns. “The Hollow Men”. Harvard University. 1988. Web.

Van Aelst, Heather. “T.S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men": a Hypertextual Study of Allusion.” *ADUni*. www.aduni.org/~heather/occs/honors/Poem.htm

St. John De Crèvecoeur, J. Hector. “Letter III: ‘What is an American?”. *Letters from and American Farmer…* , Project Gutenberg, 2003. 29-53. Web.

Dickinson, Emily. “712”. *The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson*, edited by Thomas H. Johnson, Little Brown & Company, 1955, p. 350.

Blow, Susan E. “Dante’s Purgatorio.” *The Journal of Speculative Philosophy*. Vol. 19, No. 1, 1885, pp. 61-79.

Twain, Mark. *Tom Sawyer & Huckleberry Finn*. Ware: Wordsworth Classics, 2001. Print.

Auster, Paul. “Auggie Wren’s Christmas Story.” *nytimes.com. The New York Times*. 25 December 1990. www.nytimes.com/1990/12/25/opinion/auggie-wrens-christmasstory.html

## Source

https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research\_and\_citation/mla\_style/index.html