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Jim Roth’s
Website
Link to MLA Website
Link to OWL (Purdue's Online Writing Lab)
Working
with Words from a Source--MLA Style—7th
Edition with 8th Edition Notes
(click
here for APA
Style)
To begin, always keep in mind
that other writers’ words are their property, so it is
critical to learn how to use these borrowed words accurately and
legally in your writing.
When should you use another writer’s words?
·
When something
is aptly said. (The writer really “nailed it.”)
OR
·
When your ideas
need authoritative support. You sense that your reader might need corroboration.
Otherwise,
use your own words and ideas in your essays.
NOTE:
Typically only 20% of an essay is someone else’s words or ideas. The rest of the words and ideas
come from you.
Please note: Always
try to keep quotations as short as possible. We’ll work on ways to shorten long
quotations later.
The Basics (MLA style)
Let’s assume we want to work
with the following article:
The article’s title is “Diplomacy in the 21st
Century,” written by Susan Barrett.
Let’s also assume that we found this essay in the
January 27, 2012 issue of the magazine Modern Diplomacy and
that Barrett’s article appeared on pages 40 through 46 of the
magazine.
The first thing to do is to create a proper MLA
works cited entry so we can include this source on the Works Cited
page at the end of our essay.
According to MLA guidelines, the proper MLA works cited page
entry would be
Barrett, Susan. “Diplomacy in the 21st
Century.” Modern Diplomacy. 27 Jan. 2012: 40-46.
Please Note: MLA 8th Edition uses "p." and
"pp." before page numbers. The above entry would be
Barrett, Susan. “Diplomacy in
the 21st Century.” Modern Diplomacy. 27 Jan. 2012:
pp. 40-46.
Please
Also Note: In MLA
8th Edition, the Works Cited entries use "p" and
"pp" but the in-text citations do not use those
abbreviations--just the page numbers in parentheses. (41)
Please
note: Works Cited page
entries are double-spaced and, if longer than one line of type, the
second and subsequent lines are indented five spaces.
Author Tags and Signal Phrases
Now let’s assume that we want to include the
following sentence written by Barrett in our essay. Let’s also assume this sentence
appeared on page 43 of the magazine.
Here’s the sentence:
“In order for diplomacy to be successful, it will have
to follow very different rules from the past.”
The best way to blend these words with our own is to
write a lead-in
or signal phrase, sometimes called an author tag. The reason we need one is if we
place the other writer’s words directly into our essay with no
introduction or lead-in, our reader may wonder why words in quotation
marks have suddenly appeared. Please note that I have written a
three or four word lead-in for each example:
Example#1:
I will use the words “According to one expert” as a signal phrase:
According to one expert, “in order for diplomacy
to be successful, it will have to follow very different rules from
the past” (Barrett 43).
Please note
that in Example #1 above, I must include both the author’s last name and
page number in the parentheses so that my reader will know which
source to look for on my Works Cited page.
Also please note that MLA format does NOT use ‘p’ or ‘pp’ to denote page numbers, just the
number by itself. Also, if you
need to give the author’s last name along with the page number
(example #1), only a space separates the author’s name and the page
number.
Example#2
Now my signal phrase will be “Barrett
claims that.”
Barrett claims that “in order
for diplomacy to be successful, it will have to follow very different
rules from the past” (43).
Example#3
Next I will add the signal
phrase at the end. My words
are “writes Susan Barrett, a noted expert in the field.”
“In order for diplomacy to be
successful, it will have to follow very different rules from the
past,” writes Susan Barrett, a noted expert in the field (43).
Please note
in examples 2 and 3,
I needed to include only the page number because it was clear to my
readers who the owner of those words was.
Example#4
I
can also put the signal phrase within
the quotation: In the example
below, my words are “according
to Barrett.”
“In order for diplomacy to be successful,” according
to Barrett, “it will have to follow very different rules from the
past” (43).
Example #5
I can write a half-and-half sentence using a
quotation. In the sentence
below, the words “Successful diplomacy must”
are mine:
Successful
diplomacy must “follow very different
rules from the past” (Barrett 43).
Review: If
it is clear to your reader who the author of the information is, you
need include only the new page number in parentheses.
Important:
After giving your reader the author’s full name,
subsequent references to the author should be last name
only. This may seem rude, but it is the convention we use.
Important:
MLA format does NOT use ‘p’ or ‘pp’ when giving page
numbers. Further, only a
single space separates the author’s last name and page number.
Correct: (Barrett 42) INCORRECT
in MLA: (Barrett, p. 42) or (Barrett, 42).
Punctuation Note: The
period and comma are always placed before the closing quotation mark.
Correct: “I
really thought the soap was food.”
Bob said, “please find my
zebra,” and then he left.
Using an ellipsis
Knowing how to use an ellipsis is very
useful (and very cool). First,
an ellipsis, also called an “ellipsis mark,” is a series of three
spaced periods: . . . To create one, hit the period
key, then the spacebar, then the period key again, then the spacebar
again, and then the period key one last time. If you use an ellipsis at the end
of a sentence, all you need to do is add another space and period to
end the sentence . . . .
Before
we see how an ellipsis is used, let’s refer again to the first “Please note.”
Please note: Always
try to keep quotations as short as possible.
That’s
right: an ellipsis is most often used to shorten quotations, and I
can shorten any quotation as long as the words I leave out do not
change the quotation’s meaning.
As an example, let’s assume we want to work a bit
more with Barrett’s words. On
page 43 of the magazine, we read . . .
“In order for diplomacy to be successful, it will have
to follow very different rules from the past. We can no longer rely on our
traditional friends and historical enemies to lend us diplomatic
structure. The world today is
fluid, not fixed as it was from the end of World War I to the fall of
communism, so our diplomatic strategies must be far more responsive
than before. Because of this
new paradigm, we will need to create diplomatic structures that are
elastic so they can be adjusted quickly when needed.”
This quotation is way too long to plop into my essay,
so here’s how to shorten it.
Notice I have spliced together words from the first sentence
and the last sentence:
“In order for diplomacy to be successful . . . we will
need to create diplomatic structures that are elastic so they can be
adjusted quickly when needed” (Barrett 43).
In this next example, I omit the center of one of
Barrett’s sentences to make it leaner:
Barrett advises that “the world today is fluid . . .
so our diplomatic strategies must be far more responsive than before”
(43).
I can also end a sentence with an ellipsis:
“The world today is fluid, not fixed as it was from
the end of World War I to the fall of communism . . . ” (Barrett 43).
And, yes, I can begin a sentence with an ellipsis:
Barrett claims that “. . . we will need to create
diplomatic structures that are elastic so they can be adjusted
quickly when needed” (43).
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