Some basic MLA Documentation information

There are two basic keys to writing a good English paper.  The first is to have a strong thesis statement.  If you can’t tell a friend the basic argument of your paper in two or three sentences, you don’t have a strong thesis statement.  The second is to pay close attention to the text (quoting from it and so on).  Think of the text as your data; your job is to use the data to prove your point.

MLA format: I prefer parenthetical citation and will give you examples of that format; please refer to the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers for other possibilities.

Example:  When Lear tells Regan to “reason not the need!  Our basest beggars / Are in the poorest thing superfluous,” he argues that human desire is based less on need than on the possibility of using a resource (King Lear 2.4.264-5).

Notes:

1)Embed quotations into the context of your sentences so that your reader will have a sense of both the situation in the work AND of how the quotation works as evidence in your argument.

2) Show verse lineation by using a slash (/) between lines and capitalizing the first word of the next line.  If you have quotations of 3+ lines, you will want to set the quotation off by using a margin change (in which case you reproduce the verse as it looks on the page, starting your left margin with two tabs, or, in WordPerfect 6.0+ you can use the F7 key.  For prose, you need to set off the whole quotation two steps in from the left; in WordPerfect 6.0+, you can do this easily with the F7 key, which you use at the beginning of the first line of a paragraph to indent the whole paragraph).  You need not change the right margin.  

3) The first time I quote from the play, I give the title.  If it will be clear to my reader that I am quoting from the same play (either through context, the fact that your paper only talks about one play, or whatever), then I wouldn’t need to give the title every time, but would only give Act, scene and line numbers.  If my readers will know what scene I’m quoting from, I can give only line numbers.  Make sure that your reader will be able to find the quotation easily.  

4) See that my comma went INSIDE the quotation marks.  The period goes outside the last parenthesis.  The general rule for punctuating around quotation marks in the US is: Periods and commas go inside; semi-colons go outside.  Exclamation and question marks go inside if they are part of the quotation, and outside if they are part of your sentence.

 

MLA citation format: 

1) An edition of a play:  Shakespeare, William.  Titus Andronicus.  Ed. Nicholas Brooke.  New York: Oxford UP, 1990.

[Give: Author’s Name (if known).  Title.  Ed. Editor’s Name.  Place of Publication: Press (UP=University Press), Year of Publication.]