··· MLA Style: A Quick Overview ···
When using the words or ideas of another person you must properly acknowledge the fact; this applies whether you are quoting creative prose, poetry, or scholarly research. The Modern Language Association (MLA) has developed a system for doing so efficiently; the basics of that system, used widely in the field of literary criticism, follow.
This page, which explains only a couple of basic aspects of MLA style, is adapted from the MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing, Joseph Gibaldi, 2nd edition, (New York: MLA, 1998.) You can also consult the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, also by Gibaldi, 6th edition (2003). The former is available in the Reference section of Lovejoy; the latter is occasionally available for sale in the University Bookstore and is an essential document for English majors or minors; you can order it directly from the MLA or amazon.com.
You can't go to the source for info on MLA style, since the MLA, dominated by arrogant East-Coast professor types hopelessly out of touch w/ the ordinary world, doesn't make its style guidelines available for free, although they do have a brief MLA Style FAQ, including a little info on citing Web resources in MLA style.
There's a good overview of MLA style, with good detail and useful examples, available from the website of the academic publisher Bedford-St. Martin's. Another good online source for more information about MLA style is available here. Another brief overview is available here. Additionally, a number of online citation guides guides are available via the Web, several of which are listed on the English Department web site's "Documenting Sources" page.
| Quoting Poetry | Quoting Prose | Quoting Research |
1) THE MECHANICS OF QUOTING and CITING POETRY:
When quoting poetry you must (1) quote accurately & honestly; (2) indicate line endings; (3) identify the lines quoted (via line numbers). When quoting only two or three lines, and therefore incorporating the quotation into your own text, use slashes (with a space on each side) to indicate line endings. When quoting poetry as a block (or "indented") quote, simply type the lines as they appear on the page. To identify the lines you're quoting, use arabic numerals in parentheses after the quotation.
For block quotes, terminal punctuation precedes the parenthetical citation; for quotes incorporated into your text, terminal punctuation follows the citation.
Block quotation: when quoting 4 or more lines of a poem, set them off as a block quotation: use a ten-space left indentation (no right indentation) and type the lines exactly--letter for letter & space for space--as they appear in the original. Be sure to introduce quotations in such a way that the rules of grammar remain unviolated:
In his poem "Hart-Leap Well," William Wordsworth disavows any interest in writing sensationalist literature:
To curl the blood I have no ready arts;
'Tis my delight, alone in summer shade,
To pipe a simple song to thinking hearts. (97-100)
He here repudiates the use of cheap thrills and declares his interest in a characteristic combination of thought and emotion ("thinking hearts").
Note the indentation of 10 spaces on the left only and the parenthetical citation of line numbers (with no "l" [that's a lower-case "L"] needed) placed two spaces after the period. The repetition of "thinking hearts" so close to its first citation obviates the need to repeat a line number.
Well into "Hart-Leap Well," in fact after the dramatic story of the hunt and the hart's death has been told, Wordsworth tries to pretend that he is not interested in sensational stories, that "'Tis [his] delight, alone in summer shade, / To pipe a simple song to thinking hearts" (99-100). But of course Wordsworth is having it both ways, pretending to be interested only in "simple" tales while in fact having just told the sort of story he claims to dislike.
Note the space before and after the slash (the "/"), and note placement of the period after the parenthetical citation. Note also the use of "his" in square brackets, which shows that I have "edited" the passage by substituting "his" for something else that was there ("my" in this case). This is perfectly acceptable, but must be kept to a minimum, and is usually done only to get the quotation to fit the syntax or grammar of the surrounding sentence. This is crucial: quotations must always fit the
syntax of the sentence that introduces or surrounds them.
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2) CITING PROSE SOURCES
In its simplest form, MLA style requires only that the last name of the author you are citing, followed by the page number of the quote, be put in parentheses after a quoted passage. This is true whether you are referring to an idea or quoting only a few words or phrases (and thus putting the quote into one of your own sentences) or quoting 4 or more lines of text, in which case the quotation is "blocked": indented 10 spaces on the left (none on the right) and separated from the main part of your text by a blank line above and below. Consider the following example:
Here we can clearly see Heathcliff's refusal to acknowledge the bounds of mortal being, the absence of limits on extreme human emotion.
Note that the parenthetical citation follows the final period by two spaces (which show up as only 1 in regular HTML), and that there is no comma between the author's last name and the page number. The above example assumes I am quoting from only one author with the last name "Brontë"; had I also quoted from one of Emily's sisters or her drunken brother, I would have to add "E." before the last name. If I were quoting from another work by the same Brontë, I would have to include a keyword from the title to indicate which work I was citing: (Brontë, Wuthering 229)
When you quote only a short phrase, incorporate the quotation into your own sentence, as follows:
Notice that in this instance the parenthetical citation does not need to include the authors' last names, since they were mentioned in the main part of the sentence; note also that here the parenthetical citation precedes the final period.
Notice also that in both examples, the quotations fit grammatically with the surrounding text, regardless of whether they are incorporated or block quotations. This is important; treat quotations like any other prose when it comes to the rules of grammar. Keep in mind also that you may edit quotations. If you want to omit something, use the ellipsis (3 spaced periods) to indicate you've taken something out; use square brackets to indicate an insertion:
Parenthetical citations are not complete in and of themselves, of course; they are intended only to "point" to the Works Cited page, a separate page following the main text of your essay that provides complete biographical information on the books or articles from which you've quoted or to which you've referred.
Since the Works Cited page requires complete information, be sure to write down all of the information you will need once you've found a source you want to cite (see note below). Again, consult the MLA Handbook for detailed information; there are too many alternatives to cover here.
Here is a sample Works Cited page (which in your papers would be a separate page), using the examples from above plus one or two others:
Brontë, Emily. Wuthering Heights. 1847. Ed. William M. Sale, Jr.
Gilbert, Sandra M. and Susan Gubar. The Madwoman in
Rice, Anne. The Vampire Lestat. New York: Ballantine, 1985.
Roman, Victor. "Four Wooden Stakes." The Dracula Book
Todd, Janet M. "Frankenstein's Daughter: Mary Shelley
Note the order in which this information appears: author's last name, first name, initial (if any); title of article in quotation marks (if any), then title of book or journal (underlined or italicized). For books, you next indicate editor (if any), city of publication, publisher, year published, and page numbers if you are citing only one essay or poem. For scholarly essays and articles, indicate volume, year of publication in parentheses, inclusive page numbers. Follow punctuation and spacing exactly as above; end with a period. Note that the first line of each entry is flush at the left margin; all subsequent lines are indented 5 spaces. "UP" is the accepted abbreviation for "University Press," a common designation; you may leave out of publisher's names terms like "Press," "Inc.," "Ltd.," etc. Notice in the Brontë entry above that "1847" immediately follows the title. This is the year of original publication, and should always be provided when you are using a reprint.
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3) CITING RESEARCH
The rules for quoting research sources are essentially the same as
those for quoting prose texts; the main difference is that you need to
take extra care to include proper bibliographic information when quoting
from journals.
Analyzing the razor imagery in Bender's "Razor Ribbon," William Wilson argues that Bender "mistook violence for ideology, action for meaning, and shrillness for profundity" (284). Although harsh, Wilson's statement does make a valid point about the extreme emotional tone of Bender's work.
2) Block quotation:
Wilson takes Bender's imagery apart, as follows:
Wilson is right in seeing this poem as a kind of celebration of intense, even disturbing imagery.
These examples, taken from a student paper analyzing the poem "Razor Ribbon" by the American poet John Bender, quote from the critic William Wilson, who published his essay in the journal Studies in Contemporary Poetry; Wilson's essay (the only piece by Wilson quoted in this paper) was entitled "Dulled by Overuse: Imagery in Bender's 'Razor Ribbon,'" and was published on pages 279-291 of Volume 23 of Studies in Contemporary Poetry, which was published in 1996.
Note that when you first use a critic's name, you should cite the full name:
When you refer to the same critic later in the same paper, you may use last name only:
Once you find an essay (being sure to write down all bibliographic information, as noted below) and quote from it, you need to make a Works Cited page. This is a separate page at the end of your paper, with the words "Works Cited" (or "Work Cited" if there's only one) centered one inch from the top, without quotation marks. Then list, alphabetically by author's last name, the full bibliographic information for each article you've quoted from. You would also include an entry for the poet & poem you've been analyzing:
Bender, John M. "Razor Ribbon." Collected Poems of John Bender. New York:
Crawling Dog Press, 1987. 45-46.
McFaddis, Jerold. "The Return of Metaphysical Violence: Bender's
Razor Poetry." The Cutting Edge of Poetry Page. 31 April 1999.
U of Northern California. 4 January 2000.
<http://www.unocal.edu/english/cutting/essays/bender.html>
Wilson, William. "Dulled by Overuse: Imagery in Bender's 'Razor
Ribbon.'" Studies in Contemporary Poetry 23 (1996): 279-291.
Note the order in which this information appears: author's last name, first name, initial (if any); title of poem or article (in quotation marks), then title of book or journal (underlined or italicized). For books, you next indicate city of publication, publisher, year published, and page numbers if you are citing only one essay or poem. For scholarly essays and articles, indicate volume, year of publication in parentheses, inclusive page numbers. For Web resources, provide article and site titles, if available; the date the material was posted or updated (if known); the sponsoring organization or institution (if known); followed by the date you accessed the site and the site's URL (Web address). Follow punctuation exactly as above; end with a period. Note that the first line of each entry is flush at the left margin; all subsequent lines are indented 5 spaces.
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