Style Sheet: MLA (Modern Language Association) Style Citations

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If the work you are making reference to has no author, use an abbreviated version of the
work’s title. For non-print sources, such as films, TV series, pictures, or other media, or
electronic sources, include the name that begins the entry in the Works Cited page. For
example:
The UC Berkeley Campus Code of Student Conduct defines plagiarism as “the use of
intellectual material produced by another person without acknowledging its source” (Style
Sheets for Citing Resources).
Sometimes you may have to use indirect quotation. An indirect quotation is a quotation that
you found in another source that was quoting from the original. For such indirect quotations,
use “qtd. in” to indicate the source. For example:
Miller himself said that “the story of Salesman is absurdly simple! It is about a salesman
and it’s his last day on the earth” (qtd. in Bigsby 104).
For works with more than two authors or editors use first author’s name and “et al.” (Latin: et
alii = and others).
Quotations
To indicate short quotations (fewer than four typed lines of prose or three lines of verse) in
your text, enclose the quotation within double quotation marks and incorporate it into your
text. Punctuation marks such as periods, commas, and semicolons should appear after the
parenthetical citation. Questions marks and exclamations marks should appear within the
quotation marks if they are a part of the quoted passage (then you still need a period after the
parenthetical citation!) but after the parenthetical citation if they are a part of your text.
“Incorporating” short quotations into your text means that you must be careful that the
grammatical forms and the sentence structure are correct. Therefore, it is sometimes necessary
to add or omit words or even change forms. All these changes must be indicated by using
brackets and ellipsis marks. For example:
Harold Bloom argues that “His [i. e. Graham Greene’s] more celebrated novels fade already
into the continuum of literary tradition” (8).
-> The additional information is given in square brackets.
-> A capital letter (His) is used with the first word of a direct quotation of a whole sentence.
-> Do not use a capital letter with the first word of a direct quotation of part of a sentence.
According to Lawrence we are all relieved that not everybody is as deluded as Willy “When
Biff says […] that his father ‘had the wrong dreams’” (57).
-> If you omit a word or words from a quotation you must indicate the deleted word(s) by
using ellipsis marks surrounded by square brackets.
-> For a quotation within a quotation you should use single quotation marks.
When Joachim tells Hans Castorp that Behrens is annoyed by patients who aren’t willing to
die, Hans Castorp says, “Daß [sic] geht nicht, daß man ihn so mir nichts, dir nichts –”, but
he can’t finish the sentence because he bursts out laughing (Mann 80).
-> Use [sic] (Latin = “so”, “thus”) to indicate that a mistake is in the source you are quoting
and not your own.