Punctuation around quotation marks and Proper MLA Citation
American typographic convention, used throughout the American system of higher education, calls for commas and periods to come before the final, closing quotation mark, not after.
Asked what short story she had read most frequently, she chose “A Rose for Emily”.
I’d like to rework the spelling of the word “squirrel”.
Don’t ask “What your nation can do for you”.
Asked what short story she had read most frequently, she chose “A Rose for Emily.”
I’d like to rework the spelling of the word “squirrel.”
Don’t ask “What your nation can do for you.”
When quoting from another text, the simplest form of MLA citation places the author’s name and page number in a parenthetical citation following the quotation. For quotations within the body of your text, the final punctuation follows the citation. When quoting poetry, provide line instead of page numbers.
Miss Julie Logan, near the climax of J. M. Barrie’s ghost story, speaks to Adam, “Kiss me first, Adam, in case you have to drop me” (Barrie 89). Soon after that she lands in the burn.
The song “Blind Willie McTell” begins with the following words: “Seen the arrow on the door post / sayin’ this land is condemned, / all the way from New Orleans / to Jerusalem” (Dylan 1-4).
When placing quotations within the body of your text, the final punctuation follows the citation. The exceptions to this rule are for quotations that end with exclamation points or question marks. In those cases you double punctuate, as follows:
The elephants snorted through their trunks, “like jazzmen on their favorite horns!” (Smythe 77).
The underlying question seems obvious: “Should papers written and transmitted electronically be called papers?” (Jonyse 2).
When quoting poetry and prose of four lines or more it is standard to extract the quotation from the body of your essay. The quotation is indented approximately 10 lines (it is not centered). If it is verse, use the natural line endings; you don’t need slashes. If it is prose, let it format naturally. Note that quotation marks are not used in extracted quotations; the indentation serves the function of quotation marks. Also note that the end punctuation comes after the final sentence, not the citation.
The poem opens inauspiciously with the following lines:
My verses in Your path I lay,
And do not deem me indiscreet,
If I should say that surely they
Could find no haven half so sweet
As at Your feet.
(Graham, “Dedication” 1-5)
Not all scholars agree that the nineteenth century was the zenith of English bookbinding:
The forty years following the Restoration of King
Charles II to his throne in 1660 were the golden
age of English Bookbinding. The binders of
London, Oxford and Cambridge were not content
— as so often at other times, to imitate the latest
Paris models — but were prepared to develop
their own styles with newly designed tools.
(Nixon 7)
Formal introduction to quotations. In the example below, the introduction is an independent clause; a colon is appropriate punctuation.
Richard Tottel opens his Miscellany with a positive assertion: “That to haue wel written in verse, yea and in small parcelles, deserueth great praise, the workes of diuers Latines, Italians, and other, doe proue sufficiently.”
Introductions to quotations that follow verbs, for example “she said,” “they remarked,” etc., normally end with commas.
Shirley said, “Please pass the toast.”
Samuel Johnson once stated, “No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.”
Shirley spoke to Sam, “Go home to your mother, mama’s boy.”
When quotations or dialogue merge with the sentence itself (other than following verbs as described above) they are punctuated accordingly.
The earth day organizers described the day as “a success beyond all measure.”
He planted the garden in order to live “closer to the land.”
Let not people wonder at John, but join him in asking “not what your country can do for you,” but “what you can do for your country.”
Sentences in Green are incorrect.