Quoting Shakespeare MLA Style: The Do’s and “Ohmigosh Please Don’t!”…s

Thou Shall… Put the title of the play in italics: Much Ado About Nothing Talk about the play in present tense: “Don John frowns at Claudio” Always use Arabic numerals to refer to acts and scenes: In 3.1, Hamlet delivers his most famous soliloquy. Put the title in quotes: “Much Ado About Nothing” Talk about the play in past tense: “Don John frowned at Claudio” Use Roman numerals to refer to acts and scenes: In Act III, scene i, Hamlet delivers his most famous soliloquy. Thou Shall NOT…

In-Text Citations: The How-To After the introduction, if it is clear from the context of your paper which play you are quoting from, you need not identify the work by its title. At the end of the quotation, place parentheses, in which you put three numbers, separated by periods. First number is the act (1. Second is the scene (1.2 Third the line numbers, the first one and the last one, separated by dash. If your play has no line numbers, you put page numbers instead. ( ).

Thou Shall… Correctly punctuate citations: Beatrice swears that she will never fall for Benedick’s charms “till a hot January” (1.1.3). Forget periods outside of citations, or have quotation marks around citations: Beatrice swears that she will never fall for Benedick’s charms “till a hot January (1.1.3)” Thou Shall NOT…

Thou Shall… Integrate ALL quotes. Clearly, Benedick did not want to be in Beatrice’s company when he begged Don Pedro send him as far away as possible, even it was to “fetch [Don Pedro] a toothpicker… from the furthest inch of Asia” (2.1.19). Drop quotes like little literary bombs that explode the reader’s concentration: Clearly, Benedick did not want to be in Beatrice’s company. “I will fetch you a toothpicker now from the furthest inch of Asia” (2.1.19). Thou Shall NOT…

Thou Shall… Use quotes as evidence Analyze every quote for significance and how it pertains to your thesis Use quotes as summary Begin OR end a paragraph with a quote Use quotes in conclusion or introduction Thou Shall NOT…

Essay Prompt: Persuasive Is deception always negative? Why or why not? Explain. Use examples from your text Much Ado About Nothing to support your assertion.