C ITING Q UOTATIONS MLA Requirements and Examples

W HY WE CITE SOURCES High schools and colleges typically follow MLA guidelines for citing research in the language arts and humanities. MLA is the Modern Language Association Requirements can be found online. The best sources is OWL – Purdue University’s Online Writing Lab Noodletools follows MLA style requirements for Works Cited pages and Bibliographies.

I N -T EXT C ITATIONS FROM A BOOK S OURCE MLA requires the author’s last name and the page number to be provided in the sentence with the quotation. Notice where the “” marks are and where the () are. Examples from OWL: Wordsworth stated that Romantic poetry was marked by a "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" (263). Romantic poetry is characterized by the "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" (Wordsworth 263). Wordsworth extensively explored the role of emotion in the creative process (263).

I N -T EXT C ITATIONS FROM A WEB SOURCE MLA requires the use of the first field from the bibliography citation. If there is an author listed, that is the first field. If there is no author, then the first field is typically the title of the article. There is no page # requirement for web documents. Avoid using the URL in the text of a paragraph. Example from OWL: During the presentation, Jane Yates stated that invention and pre-writing are areas of rhetoric that need more attention. This example directs the reader to look for this author’s name on the Works Cited page at the end of the paper. Note: It is always fine to add another field as well, like the author and the article title, for clarity.

M IXING SOURCES – HOW MUCH TO CITE ? Within 1 paragraph, a source must only be cited once. For example, in a paragraph about your book, you will have 2 quotes. Each will have a different page number in () at the end, but you only need to identify the author the first time you quote the book. (Unless you have another source mentioned that comes between the 2 book quotes.) Use good transition words to connect sentences that are from the same source: Example: Later in the book… If you identify 2 different sources in one paragraph, each must be completely cited.

W HEN I N D OUBT – LOOK IT UP OR ASK! T HERE ARE MANY PLACES TO FIND THE ANSWER TO CITATION QUESTIONS. T HIS IS AN EXPECTATION THROUGHOUT HIGH SCHOOL AND COLLEGE – NOT JUST IN E NGLISH CLASS. HAPPY RESEARCHING!!