Essentials of the MLA Format: Quotations and Punctuation

Short Quotations

When you use somebody else's words, you are quoting them. Short quotes must be inside quotation marks. For example:

Victor Hugo once said, "He who opens a school door, closes a prison."

Quoted in "Victor."*

Block Quotations

A quotation longer than 4 lines must be put into a block quote.

For example:

W. E. B. DuBois emphasized education as a fundamental civil right :

Of all the civil rights for which the world has struggled and fought for 5,000 years, the right to learn is undoubtedly the most fundamental... The freedom to learn... has been bought by bitter sacrifice. And whatever we may think of the curtailment of other civil rights, we should fight to the last ditch to keep open the right to learn, the right to have examined in our schools not only what we believe, but what we do not believe; not only what our leaders say, but what the leaders of other groups and nations, and the leaders of other centuries have said. We must insist upon this to give our children the fairness of a start which will equip them with such an array of facts and such an attitude toward truth that they can have a real chance to judge what the world is and what its greater minds have thought it might be (230-231).

Punctuation

For a review of correct punctuation, visit Robert Harris' "Punctuation Reminders" at www.virtualsalt.com/punctu8.htm.

 

*See "Works Cited" for all citations used in this exercise.


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