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MLA Biblographic Style Guide

Guide of the University Library of the University of Alicante about the MLA citation style (9th edition) created by the Modern Language Association and used in Linguistics and Humanities

How to cite within a writing

 

  • If a quotation runs no more than four lines and requires no special emphasis: put in quotation marks and incorporate it into the text with a parenthetical citation that includes the author’s name and the page number from which you have taken the quotation. You can place these together or separately and outside or inside parentheses, depending on how you are working on your text.

 

The author may be included in the sentence:

According to Naomi Baron, reading is "just half of literacy. The other half is writing” (194). One might even suggest that reading is never complete without writing.

Or the author may not be included in the sentence:

Reading is “just half of literacy. The other half is writing” (Baron 194). One might even suggest that reading is never complete without writing.

  • If a quotation extends to more than four lines when run into your text or requires special emphasis, set it off from the text as a block indented half an inch from the left margin. (1,25 cm. approximately).

At the conclusion of  Lord of the Flies, Ralph, realizing the horror of his actions is overcome by:

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)

    

 

 

 

  • Through an indirect quotation you can refer to an author's ideas without having to reproduce them verbatim. In this case, you have to mention their arguments in your own words and introduce a citation that includes the author’s name and the page number to identify the source of information.

To do this, in the appropriate place in the text, you should include the author's surname and the page number of the work in parenthesis, separated by a space.

          While reading may be the core of literacy, literacy can be complete only when reading is accompanied by writing (Baron 194).

  • If the author is part of the text, you only need to insert the page number in parenthesis.

While reading may be the core of literacy, Naomi Baron argues that literacy can be complete only when reading is accompanied by writing (194).

 

 

 

 

Other situations may arise when quoting within the text, both in the case of literal and indirect quotations:

  • A work by several authors

 If the entry in the works-cited list begins with the names of two authors, include both last names in the in-text citation, connected by “and”.

(Dorris and Erdrich 23)

If the source has three or more authors, the entry in the works-cited list begins with the first author’s name followed by “et al."

(Burdick et al. 42)

  • Corporate author

When the work cited is by a corporate author who has a long name, it is advisable to make it part of the text so that the reading is not interrupted by a long reference in parenthesis.

Según un estudio patrocinado por el Consejo Nacional de Investigación de los Estados Unidos de América, la población china ha ido incrementándose más de 15 millones desde 1990 (15).

However, if you decide to insert it in parenthesis, you should abbreviate those terms that are commonly known.

(ONU, Comisión para África 79-86).

  • A work referenced by title

When and entry in the works-cited list begins with the title of the work, either because the work is Anonymous, you must include its title in italics or in inverted commas, depending on the type of source (see section "How to write entries of works-cited list”).

(Impact of Global Warming 6)

("Mandarin" 27)

  • Multiple works by the same author

In a citation of multiple works by the same author, you must include the titles of these works in a parenthetical citation, either in italics or in quotation marks, depending on the type of source (see section "How to write entries of works-cited list").

(Frye, Anatomy 237)

(Frye, "Double vision" 85)

  • Multivolume work

If you borrow from more than one volume of a multivolume work, include a volume number as well as a page reference in the in text-citation, separating the two with a colon and a space.

(Wellek 2: 1-10)

If you refer parenthetically to an entire volume of a multivolume work, place a comma after the author’s name and include the abbreviation “vol.”

(Wellek, vol. 2)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  • Whenever you omit a word, a phrase, a sentence or more from a quotes passage, you must mark the omission using three periods with a spaced before each and a space after the last.

"La objetivación del conocimiento ... define la accesibilidad del mismo."

In surveying various responses to plagues in the Middle Ages, Barbara W. Tuchman writes, “Medical thinking ... stressed air as the communicator of disease, ignoring sanitation or visible carriers” (101-02). 

  • Occasionally, you may need to add “sic” to assure readers that the quotation is accurate even though the spelling or logic might make them think otherwise. If you add "sic" immediately follows the closing quotation mark appears in a parenthesis. If you add "sic" inside the quotation must appear within square brackets.

Shaw admitted, "Notting can extinguish my interest in Shakespear" (sic).

"El 5 de octubre llegaos a la ciudat [sic] de Sevilla".

  • A comment or an explanation that immediately follows the closing quotation mark appears in a parenthesis.

Lincoln specifically advocated a government "for the people" (emphasis added)

A comment or an explanation that goes inside the quotation must appear within square brackets.

"El año pasado [el autor escribe en 1997] las estadísticas mostraron un alarmante incremento en el número de casos"