how to include quotes in an essay mla

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How to Format a Quote in MLA

Last Updated: April 11, 2024 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Annaliese Dunne and by wikiHow staff writer, Jennifer Mueller, JD . Annaliese Dunne is a Middle School English Teacher. With over 10 years of teaching experience, her areas of expertise include writing and grammar instruction, as well as teaching reading comprehension. She is also an experienced freelance writer. She received her Bachelor's degree in English. There are 7 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 53,424 times.

When writing a research paper or other report, you may find that you want to quote directly from a source. The Modern Language Association (MLA) has specific formatting guidelines for including direct quotes in your work. These guidelines differ depending on the length of the quoted material. Additional rules apply if you want to change or omit words from the quoted material so it flows well with your own writing. [1] X Trustworthy Source Purdue Online Writing Lab Trusted resource for writing and citation guidelines Go to source

Including Short Quotations

• If the source text includes material in quotation marks, change those quotation marks to single quotation marks.
• For example, you might write: Freud considered a dream to be "the fulfillment of a wish."

Tip: The length of a quote refers to the length as typed in your paper, not the length as printed in the original source.

• For example, you might write: Freud considered a dream to be "the fulfillment of a wish" (154).
• Remember to include a complete citation to the source in your Works Cited at the end of your paper.

• For example, you might write: "Is it possible that dreams may express "profound aspects of personality?" (Foulkes 184).

• For example, you might write: In his poem, "Harlem," Langston Hughes questioned what happens to a dream deferred, wondering if it might "dry up / like a raisin in the sun" (24).

Creating Blockquotes

• The entire blockquote is indented .5 inches (1.3 cm) from the left margin.
• Maintain double spacing in your blockquote just as in the rest of your paper.

Tip: If you're using Microsoft Word, type the entire blockquote into your paper, starting on a new line. Then highlight the entire quote and press the tab key once to indent it correctly.

• The sentence immediately before a blockquote typically ends with a colon rather than a period.

• As with all blockquotes, indent the first line with the character's name .5 inches (1.3 cm) from the left margin.

• When quoting more than one paragraph, indent the first line of any new paragraph an additional .25 inches (0.64 cm) from the left margin.

• If you're quoting concrete poetry or another form where the spacing is integral to understanding the poem as a whole, it might be better to include a digital image of the poem, rather than trying to replicate it yourself.

• As with short quotations, if you included the author's name in your introduction to the blockquote, there's no need to include the author's name in the parenthetical citation. Just include the page number or page range where the quoted text can be found.
• When quoting poetry, place the parenthetical citation at the end of the last quoted line, regardless of the punctuation. If the line doesn't have any closing punctuation, there's no need to add any either before or after your parenthetical citation.

Editing Quotations to Fit Your Writing

• For example, suppose you want to quote a source that says "While they excelled at individual projects, they struggled with group projects." Previous sentences indicate that "they" refers to "introverted students. Your quote would read: "While they [introverted students] excelled at individual projects, they struggled with group projects."

• Grammatical errors are more likely to come up in quoted speech than in a written and edited text. If a source has very many errors in the text, this may be an indication that it isn't reliable and probably shouldn't be used as a source at all.
• Avoid using "sic" to make a political or editorial statement about the language the source is using. For example, if your source includes the word "mankind," you would be making a political or editorial statement to include a "sic" after the word. Even though in your view the word "humankind" may be more appropriate, "mankind" isn't grammatically incorrect.

• For example, you might write: "Students who described themselves as highly introverted liked group projects the least" (Briggs 24, emphasis added).

• If the material you omitted occurs at the end of the sentence, retain the period at the end of the sentence. It will look like 4 ellipsis points instead of 3.
• If there is other punctuation, such as a comma or a semi-colon, in the source text, retain that after your ellipsis. For example, a quote might read "Students enjoyed the individual projects . . . ; however, they did not like working in groups." Note that you include a space before the first ellipsis point, as well as a space after the last ellipsis point.
• If you're quoting a source that uses ellipsis points as "suspension points," meant to indicate a hesitation or pause in speech rather than omitted words, put your own ellipsis points in brackets to distinguish them from the original text.

• For example, suppose you wanted to use the beginning of a sentence in the middle of one of your sentences. To change the initial capital letter, you might write: Percy Bysshe Shelley argued that "[p]oets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world."

Tip: If you have to make too many changes to the source text, it may look cluttered and will negatively affect readability. Consider recasting your sentence or only quoting snippets of the source text, rather than using the full sentence.

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• ↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/mla_style/mla_formatting_and_style_guide/mla_formatting_quotations.html
• ↑ https://columbiacollege-ca.libguides.com/MLA9/in-text
• ↑ https://research.wou.edu/mla/mla-blockquote
• ↑ https://www.unr.edu/writing-speaking-center/student-resources/writing-speaking-resources/mla-quotation-punctuation
• ↑ https://style.mla.org/when-to-use-sic/
• ↑ https://style.mla.org/cite-altered-quotation/
• ↑ https://depts.washington.edu/engl/askbetty/changing_quotations.php

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Integrating Quotations in MLA Style

Integrating Quotations (MLA)

A reader may be able to make sense of a quotation dropped into a piece of writing, but introducing or integrating quotations into the flow of your sentence is the way to use them most effectively—to be sure that your reader knows what you mean. You have three options: 

• Introduce the quotation with a statement that puts it in context. A colon follows a formal statement or independent clause.
• Lynn Quitman Troyka warns us of the particular challenges of using quotations in research papers: “The greatest risk you take when you use quotations is that you will end up with choppy, incoherent sentences” (184). 
• Use a signal phrase followed by a comma or a signal verb followed by that to announce a quotation.
• According to Lynn Quitman Troyka, “. . ..”
• The narrator suggests that “. . ..”
• As Jake Barnes says, “. . . . . ..”
• Frye rejects this notion when he argues, “. . ..”
• Integrate the quotation fully into your sentence. The quotation and your words must add up to a complete sentence.
• We know the boy has learned a painful lesson when he says that his eyes “burned with anguish and anger” (Joyce 481). 
• Leaders are inspirational; they are concerned with “providing meaning or purpose in work for employees and creating meaning in the product for customers” (Ivancevich, Lorenzi, and Skinner 341).  
• Researchers found that firms with a strong corporate culture “based on a foundation of shared values” outperformed the other firms by a large margin (Quigley 42).

Quotations within Quotations:

Use single quotation marks to enclose a quotation within a quotation.

• Miller states, “Religions are examples of ‘noble lies’ aimed at uplifting human stature” (18).

Adding Material within Quotations:

Use square brackets to enclose material that you add to or change within a quotation to allow it to fit grammatically into a sentence. 

• Balko (2015) argues, “If they [policymakers] want to fight obesity, they’ll halt the creeping 

socialization of medicine” (p. 142).

• “Today, the [saturated fat] warnings remain a cornerstone of the government’s dietary guidelines,” O’Connor (2016) states, “though in recent years the American Heart Association has also begun to warn that too much added sugar may increase cardiovascular disease risk” (p.92). 

Block Quotations:

Indent longer quotations (more than four lines) ten spaces from the margin. Notice that quotation marks are not used to enclose material that is set off from the text and that the parenthetical reference is placed after the punctuation following the quotation. 

A socially responsible vision can make an organization more attractive to customers, potential employees, and investors.  As consultant Robert Rosen puts it,  

The best companies are values-based and performance-driven.  Their community involvement supports the mission of the business.  Modern employees want to work for companies who make a difference, their customers want to do business with them because they have solid reputations as good corporate citizens, and shareholders enjoy the value such companies represent over the long term. (9)

Shortening Quotations:

Use an ellipsis of three dots to shorten longer quotations by removing non-essential words and ideas from the middle of the quote.  The quotation must fit grammatically into the sentence even with the ellipsis.   It must also retain enough of the quotation so that it still makes sense in your essay and you do not distort its meaning.   You do not need to provide ellipses at the beginning or the end of the quoted material. 

Foer states, “My grandmother survived World War II barefoot, scavenging Eastern Europe for other people’s inedibles . . . So she never cared if I colored outside the lines, as long as I cut coupons along the dashes” (159). 

Complete quote: “My grandmother survived World War II barefoot, scavenging Eastern Europe for other people’s inedibles: rotting potatoes, discarded scraps of meat, skins and the bits that clung to bones and pits. So she never cared if I colored outside the lines, as long as I cut coupons along the dashes.” 

Quick tip about citing sources in MLA style

What’s a thesis, sample mla essays.

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Home / Guides / Citation Guides / MLA Format / Using short quotes and block quotes in MLA

Using short quotes and block quotes in MLA

Quotations (also known as quotes) are the exact words that are taken directly from a text and repeated by someone other than the original author. When you use the exact words and sentence structure as your source, you are quoting that source. When using quotes in your writing, you need to copy the words exactly as they appear in the source.

Quotes should be used sparingly because the majority of the text should be your own ideas. Keep quotations short and to the point to keep your readers interested. Quotes are most effective when the exact words of the source are particularly well suited for your purposes and back up your own ideas.

Short quotes vs. block quotes

There are several ways to incorporate quotations into your text. You can include short quotes of four lines or less, which are incorporated into your text and are set off from the text with quotation marks.

If the section you wish to quote is longer than four lines, you can use a block quote . Block quotes are set off from the text in a separate paragraph that has larger indents at the left margin.

The MLA Handbook says this about quotes:

Construct a clear, grammatically correct sentence that allows you to introduce or incorporate a quotation accurately. When you quote, reproduce the source text exactly. Do not make changes in the spelling, capitalization, interior punctuation, italicization, or accents that appear in the source. Generally place citations at the end of your sentence or quotation. (253)

The quote above from the MLA Handbook is formatted in block quote style.

When using quotes in your papers, you must include the author’s last name and the page number(s) from which the quotation is taken as an in-text citation, unless you have named the author is the sentence preceding the quote. A full reference should appear in your Works Cited page.

Using short quotes in MLA

When you want to cite a section of your source that is four lines or less, you set off the quote in the text with double quotation marks directly before and after the quoted material. End punctuation goes before the final quotation mark.

Quotations can be integrated into a text in several ways.

1. Use the quote as a sentence

She recalled the moment of her husband’s passing. “John was talking, then he wasn’t” (Didion 10).

2. Directly integrate the quote into the sentence

Didion writes that for many months, “there has been occasions on which I was incapable of thinking rationally” and that she was “thinking as small children think, as if my thoughts or wishes had the power to reverse the narrative, change the outcome” (35).

3. Place the quotation in the middle of the sentence

Joan Didion says that after returning to her apartment after her husband’s death, she felt that, “there must be certain things I needed to do,” when she got home from the hospital (28).

Guidelines that apply to all short quote formats:

• All punctuation should be the same in the quote as in the source text.
• The MLA in-text citation should always appear in parentheses at the end of your sentence, regardless of the location of the quote within the sentence.
• If the source does not use page numbers, do not include a number in the parenthetical citation.
• If the source does not have an author’s name, you should use the title of the work or the first item listed in the full reference in the parenthetical citation instead.
• Punctuation such as periods, commas, and semicolons are placed after the parenthetical citation.

Quoting poetry

When quoting up to three short lines of poetry, indicate breaks in verse by placing a forward slash at the end of each verse line. A space should precede and follow the slash. If there is a stanza break within the quotation, indicate this with a double slash ( // ).

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do / with your one wild and precious life?” (Oliver 94).

“What is my name? // What is the name of the deep breath I would take / over and over” (Oliver 125).

Block quotes

If you want to quote a section of text that is longer than four lines or a section of poetry that is longer than three lines, use a block quote. Block quotes are also used when quoting lines from a play.

You introduce the block quote with a sentence in your own words. You want to let your reader know who the quote is from and why you are including it.

Joan Didion ends her first chapter by laying out her goal for writing the book:

This is my attempt to make sense of the period that followed, the weeks and then months that cut loose any fixed idea I had ever had about death, about illness, about probability and luck, about good fortune and bad, about marriage and children and memory, about grief, about the ways in which people do and do not deal with the fact that life ends, about the shallowness of sanity, about life itself. (7)

How to format a block quote

• Lead into the quote with a summary sentence that lets the reader know why you are including the quote.
• End the sentence before quote with a colon (unless the grammatical connection between the sentence leading into the quote requires some other punctuation or none at all).
• Start a new line.
• Indent the quote ½ inch or five spaces from the left margin for the entire quote (not just the first line).
• Do not use quotation marks.
• Double space the quote.
• Put the parenthetical citation after the final punctuation mark in the quote.
• Comment on the quote after using it. Do not end a paragraph with a block quote. You should always have text after it.

Adding or omitting words in quotations

• If you add words to a quotation, enclose them in brackets like [this].
• If you omit words in a quotation, use an ellipsis, which is three periods separated by spaces ( . . . ) to show where the words were removed.

You may want to add or omit words in quotations to make them clearer, shorten them, or help them to fit grammatically into your sentence.

Additional block quote formatting for prose

• If you are directly quoting one paragraph or part of one, do not indent the first line of the block quote more than the rest of the quote.
• If you are quoting two or more paragraphs and the first sentence of the quote is also the first sentence of a paragraph in the source, indent the first line of each paragraph an additional ½ inch or five spaces.
• If the first sentence of a multi-paragraph quote is not the first sentence of a paragraph in the source, indent only the first line of the second paragraph ½ inch or five spaces.

Formatting block quotes for poetry

Format it as you would prose unless the poem has unusual spacing or formatting.

• Indent ½ inch or five spaces from the left margin.
• Do not add any quotation marks unless they appear in the source.
• If the line of poetry does not fit on one line in the paper, continue it on the next line, but indent that line an additional ½ inch or five spaces (like a hanging indent).
• When citing longer sections of poetry, keep the formatting as close to the original as possible.

In her poem, Rain, Mary Oliver describes the sensation of rain on a tree:

All afternoon it rained, then

such power came down from the clouds

on a yellow thread,

as authoritative as God is supposed to be.

When it hit the tree, her body

Opened forever. (3)

Formatting block quotes for drama/plays

Formatting quotes from plays has slightly different rules than prose and poetry.

To format dialogue from plays:

• Begin with the name of the character speaking printed in all capital letters followed by a period.
• Start the quotation. If the line a character is saying needs more than one line, indent the subsequent lines a ½ inch or five spaces.
• Some lines of dialogue start with extra spaces between the character name and the first line of dialogue. Print the dialogue exactly as it appears in the play, including the extra spaces.
• When the dialogue shifts to a new character, follow the pattern above.
• For the in-text citation, cite the act, scene, and line of the quote instead of the page number.

ROMEO.                                     By a name

I know not how to tell thee who I am.

My name, dear saint, is hateful to myself,

Because it is an enemy to thee.

Had I it written, I would tear the word.

JULIET. My ears have yet not drunk a hundred words

Of thy tongue’s uttering, yet I know the sound.

Art thou not Romeo, and a Montague?

ROMEO. Neither, fair maid, if either thee dislike. (Shakespeare 2.2.54-61)

• Works Cited

Didion, Joan. A Year of Magical Thinking . Vintage International, 2006.

MLA Handbook.  9th ed., Modern Language Association of America, 2021.

Oliver, Mary. New and Selected Poems. Vol. 1, Beacon Press, 2004.

Shakespeare, William. Romeo and Juliet . Arden Shakespeare , edited by René Weis, Bloomsbury, 2012, 118–338. Drama Online , https://doi.org/10.5040/9781408160152.00000039.

Published October 27, 2020. Updated July 18, 2021.

By Catherine Sigler. Catherine has a Ph.D. in English Education and has taught college-level writing for 15 years.

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MLA General Format 

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MLA Style specifies guidelines for formatting manuscripts and citing research in writing. MLA Style also provides writers with a system for referencing their sources through parenthetical citation in their essays and Works Cited pages. 

Writers who properly use MLA also build their credibility by demonstrating accountability to their source material. Most importantly, the use of MLA style can protect writers from accusations of plagiarism, which is the purposeful or accidental uncredited use of source material produced by other writers. 

If you are asked to use MLA format, be sure to consult the  MLA Handbook  (9th edition). Publishing scholars and graduate students should also consult the  MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing  (3rd edition). The  MLA Handbook  is available in most writing centers and reference libraries. It is also widely available in bookstores, libraries, and at the MLA web site. See the Additional Resources section of this page for a list of helpful books and sites about using MLA Style.

Paper Format

The preparation of papers and manuscripts in MLA Style is covered in part four of the  MLA Style Manual . Below are some basic guidelines for formatting a paper in  MLA Style :

General Guidelines

• Type your paper on a computer and print it out on standard, white 8.5 x 11-inch paper.
• Double-space the text of your paper and use a legible font (e.g. Times New Roman). Whatever font you choose, MLA recommends that the regular and italics type styles contrast enough that they are each distinct from one another. The font size should be 12 pt.
• Leave only one space after periods or other punctuation marks (unless otherwise prompted by your instructor).
• Set the margins of your document to 1 inch on all sides.
• Indent the first line of each paragraph one half-inch from the left margin. MLA recommends that you use the “Tab” key as opposed to pushing the space bar five times.
• Create a header that numbers all pages consecutively in the upper right-hand corner, one-half inch from the top and flush with the right margin. (Note: Your instructor may ask that you omit the number on your first page. Always follow your instructor's guidelines.)
• Use italics throughout your essay to indicate the titles of longer works and, only when absolutely necessary, provide emphasis.
• If you have any endnotes, include them on a separate page before your Works Cited page. Entitle the section Notes (centered, unformatted).

Formatting the First Page of Your Paper

• Do not make a title page for your paper unless specifically requested or the paper is assigned as a group project. In the case of a group project, list all names of the contributors, giving each name its own line in the header, followed by the remaining MLA header requirements as described below. Format the remainder of the page as requested by the instructor.
• In the upper left-hand corner of the first page, list your name, your instructor's name, the course, and the date. Again, be sure to use double-spaced text.
• Double space again and center the title. Do not underline, italicize, or place your title in quotation marks. Write the title in Title Case (standard capitalization), not in all capital letters.
• Use quotation marks and/or italics when referring to other works in your title, just as you would in your text. For example:  Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas  as Morality Play; Human Weariness in "After Apple Picking"
• Double space between the title and the first line of the text.
• Create a header in the upper right-hand corner that includes your last name, followed by a space with a page number. Number all pages consecutively with Arabic numerals (1, 2, 3, 4, etc.), one-half inch from the top and flush with the right margin. (Note: Your instructor or other readers may ask that you omit the last name/page number header on your first page. Always follow instructor guidelines.)

Here is a sample of the first page of a paper in MLA style:

The First Page of an MLA Paper

Section Headings

Writers sometimes use section headings to improve a document’s readability. These sections may include individual chapters or other named parts of a book or essay.

MLA recommends that when dividing an essay into sections you number those sections with an Arabic number and a period followed by a space and the section name.

MLA does not have a prescribed system of headings for books (for more information on headings, please see page 146 in the MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing , 3rd edition). If you are only using one level of headings, meaning that all of the sections are distinct and parallel and have no additional sections that fit within them, MLA recommends that these sections resemble one another grammatically. For instance, if your headings are typically short phrases, make all of the headings short phrases (and not, for example, full sentences). Otherwise, the formatting is up to you. It should, however, be consistent throughout the document.

If you employ multiple levels of headings (some of your sections have sections within sections), you may want to provide a key of your chosen level headings and their formatting to your instructor or editor.

Sample Section Headings

The following sample headings are meant to be used only as a reference. You may employ whatever system of formatting that works best for you so long as it remains consistent throughout the document.

Formatted, unnumbered:

Level 1 Heading: bold, flush left

Level 2 Heading: italics, flush left

Level 3 Heading: centered, bold

Level 4 Heading: centered, italics

Level 5 Heading: underlined, flush left

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Suggested Ways to Introduce Quotations

When you quote another writer's words, it's best to introduce or contextualize the quote. 

How To Quote In An Essay?

To introduce a quote in an essay , don't forget to include author's last name and page number (MLA) or author, date, and page number (APA) in your citation. Shown below are some possible ways to introduce quotations. The examples use MLA format.

Use A Full Sentence Followed by A Colon To Introduce A Quotation

• The setting emphasizes deception: "Nothing is as it appears" (Smith 1).
• Piercy ends the poem on an ironic note: "To every woman a happy ending" (25).

Begin A Sentence with Your Own Words, Then Complete It with Quoted Words

Note that in the second example below, a slash with a space on either side ( / ) marks a line break in the original poem.

• Hamlet's task is to avenge a "foul and most unnatural murder" (Shakespeare 925).
• The speaker is mystified by her sleeping baby, whose "moth-breath / flickers among the flat pink roses" (Plath 17).

Use An Introductory Phrase Naming The Source, Followed By A Comma to Quote A Critic or Researcher

Note that the first letter after the quotation marks should be upper case. According to MLA guidelines, if you change the case of a letter from the original, you must indicate this with brackets. APA format doesn't require brackets.

• According to Smith, "[W]riting is fun" (215).
• In Smith's words, " . . .
• In Smith's view, " . . .

Use A Descriptive Verb, Followed by A Comma To Introduce A Critic's Words

Avoid using says unless the words were originally spoken aloud, for instance, during an interview.

• Smith states, "This book is terrific" (102).
• Smith remarks, " . . .
• Smith writes, " . . .
• Smith notes, " . . .
• Smith comments, " . . .
• Smith observes, " . . .
• Smith concludes, " . . .
• Smith reports, " . . .
• Smith maintains, " . . .
• Smith adds, " . . .

Don't Follow It with A Comma If Your Lead into The Quotation Ends in That or As

The first letter of the quotation should be lower case.

• Smith points out that "millions of students would like to burn this book" (53).
• Smith emphasizes that " . . .
• Smith interprets the hand washing in MacBeth as "an attempt at absolution" (106).
• Smith describes the novel as "a celebration of human experience" (233).

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MLA Citation Style 9th Edition: Quotations

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Quoting vs. Paraphrasing

There are two ways to integrate sources into your assignment: quoting directly or paraphrasing.

Quoting  is copying a selection from someone else's work, phrasing it exactly as it was originally written. When quoting place quotation marks (" ") around the selected passage to show where the quote begins and where it ends. Make sure to include an in-text citation. 

Paraphrasing  is used to show that you understand what the author wrote. You must reword the passage, expressing the ideas in your own words, and not just change a few words here and there. Make sure to also include an in-text citation. 

Quotation Examples

There are two basic formats that can be used when quoting a source:

Parenthetical Style:

Narrative Style:

Note: If there are no page numbers, as in a website, cite the author name only.

Long Quotations

A long or block quotation is a quotation which is 4 lines or more. 

Rules for Long Quotations

• The line before your long quotation, when you're introducing the quote, usually ends with a colon.
• The long quotation is indented half an inch from the rest of the text, so it looks like a block of text.
• There are no quotation marks around the quotation.
• The period at the end of the quotation comes before your in-text citation as opposed to after , as it does with regular quotations.

Example of a Long Quotation

At the end of Lord of the Flies the boys are struck with the realization of their behaviour:

The tears began to flow and sobs shook him. He gave himself up to them now for the first time on the island; great, shuddering spasms of grief that seemed to wrench his whole body. His voice rose under the black smoke before the burning wreckage of the island; and infected by that emotion, the other little boys began to shake and sob too. (Golding 186)

Modifying Quotations

Sometimes you may want to make some modifications to the quote to fit your writing. Here are some MLA rules when changing quotes:

Changing Quotations

Omitting parts of a quotation

If you would like to exclude some words from a quotation, replace the words you are not including with an ellipsis:  …

Adding words to a quote

If you are adding words that are not part of the original quote, enclose the additional words in square brackets: [XYZ]

• Using Quotations (The Learning Portal) Tip sheet on how and when to use quotations
• Paraphrasing (The Learning Portal) Tip sheet on paraphrasing information
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