How to Put a Quote Into MLA Format

Commonly used in the liberal arts and humanities, MLA style demands that individuals quote and cite sources in a very specific way. The Modern Language Association's guidelines for quotations cover punctuation, margins, spacing and citation. There are two different ways of correctly inserting a quotation into your research paper. The first way applies to short quotations with fewer than three lines of verse or four lines of prose. The second applies to longer quotations.

Instructions

  1. Short Quotations

    • 1

      Place double quotation marks at the beginning and ending of the quotation. Do not put any commas or periods before the closing quotation mark. If your quotation ends with a question mark or exclamation point, this punctuation goes inside the closing quotation mark.

    • 2

      Cite your source. MLA uses parenthetical references with author and page number. These elements are not separated by a comma. If you specifically mention the author's name in the sentence that contains the quotation, you can omit the author's name from the parenthetical reference.

    • 3

      Place the punctuation after the closing parentheses. An example of quotation formatted correctly in MLA style would be the following: For many Parisians, "defeat was also felt as a personal loss" (Weber 106). Should you choose to incorporate the author's name into the sentence, the correct format would be: For many Parisians, according to Weber, "defeat was also felt as a personal loss" (106).

    Long Quotations

    • 4

      Begin the quotation on a new line, separated from the text that precedes it.

    • 5

      Press the "Tab" key to indent the quotation. If you are going to quote multiple paragraphs from the same source, hit the "Tab" key twice. Each paragraph of the quotation should be indented twice, and the other lines of the paragraph should be indented once.

    • 6

      Double-space the quotation.

    • 7

      Place the final punctuation of the quotation. Longer quotations must end with a period, question mark or exclamation point.

    • 8

      Add the parenthetical reference.

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