PLUG-INs Information Literacy @ Fujairah Colleges
PLUG-INs Information Literacy @ Fujairah CollegesIN-TEXT
CITATIONS for Direct QuotesMLA Style
What is an in-text citation?What is a direct quote?What is MLA
style ?
Why are honeybees in this presentation?Why not, theyre cute.And,
they make delicious honey.
Anyway, MLA means Modern Language Association, a group of
language teachers. They decided on a way to format citations.It
identifies the source of information in the body of your
writing.What is an in-text citation?
A direct quote or quotation is when you use the exact words from
a book or other source in your own writing.You must use quotation
marks around these words to indicate the source of them.If you do
not, it is plagiarism or stealing the words.
Remember, plagiarism is cheating. Students get in big trouble
for cheating at HCT.Fortunately, it is easy to format direct
quotations. Lets see how.
After the quotation marks, you must show where the words came
from. Do it like this : (Author page)You put it in the body of your
writing, not at the bottom of a page or at the end.
Blah blah blah di di di tran tran tran.
Open parenthesis markPage numberAuthors last name onlyClosed
parenthesis mark No comma. One space only (Author page #)
The complete citation (full author name, title, city, publisher,
year & pages) must be in the Bibliography or Cited References
List at the end of your paper.
If the authors name appears as part of your text, write only the
page number.For example : Smith has said that by 2010 Dubai will be
the most interesting city in the world (23).Here is a different
situation.
But, the authors name and page number must appear in
parentheses.Words words words words words words words words words
words words wordsWords words words words words wordsWords words
words words words wordsWords words words words words wordsWords
words words words words wordsWords words words words words
wordsWords words words words (Smith 23).
What about very long quotations, more than 40 words?You must tab
over and create a block. No quotation marks are needed around this
block.
What if you dont need all the words and want to omit some words
in a quotation?
Use . . . for the words you omitted. This is called an ellipsis.
words words
What if the grammar does not make sense when you add the quote?
Or, you need to add a word?
Use square brackets to show that the word was not in the
original.She [Lady MacBeth] suffered from guilt.
What if the source is a website?
Write the author and page number. If there is no page number,
write the author only.
If there is no author, write the first 1 or 2 words that appear
in the Bibliography at the end of your paper.
For different examples, look in a book like this.It is on the
library shelf at LB 2369.G53 2003Or, enter MLA in a title or
keyword search of the library catalogue to find similar books.
I hope this helps you understand how to write MLA in-text
citations for direct quotes. Ask your teacher or your friendly
librarian if you have any questions.
HAPPY WRITING !Thank you for listening .
