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MLA Style Guide: 8th Edition: Direct Quote

IN-TEXT CITATIONS FOR A...

Direct Quote

Quoted material should be reproduced word-for-word and exactly as it appears in the original source. Unless you indicate a change in brackets or parentheses, changes must not be made in spelling, capitalization, or interior punctuation.

Include the author's last name and page number(s). Only use the page number(s) themselves; do not include any abbreviations for ‘page’ such as ‘pg.’ or ‘p.’

Prose

If the quote is under four lines long, it should be incorporated into the text and enclosed using quotation marks. You may include the author’s name within your text or within the in-text citation:

Author Incorporated into Text

Harper Lee writes as the character Atticus Fitch in To Kill a Mockingbird, giving advice to his young daughter in the famous line, "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view… until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it" (36).

Author After Quotation

"You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view… Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it" (Lee 36).

Poetry

If the quote is part or all of a single line of poetry, it can be incorporated into the text and enclosed using quotation marks. You may also include two or three lines in this same way, but you must use a slash mark (/) with a space on each side to separate the lines. You may include the author’s name within your text or within the in-text citation:

Author Incorporated into Text

In the poem “Song of Myself,” part of the Leaves of Grass collection, Walt Whitman writes, "Do I contradict myself? / Very well then…. I contradict myself; / I am large….I contain multitudes" (1315-1318).

Author After Quotation

"Do I contradict myself? / Very well then…. I contradict myself; / I am large….I contain multitudes" (Whitman 1315-1318).