Techniques for Quoting Material

(based on The MLA Style Sheet, 2nd edition, 1970)

I. Quotations

A. Quote all secondary material exactly as printed: wording, spelling, interior punctuation, capitalization. Indicate errors with [sic] after the point of error. Use brackets also to indicate alterations made by you.

B. Use three spaced periods (they . . . went) within a sentence, disregarding any punctuation after the first word or before the second word. Use three periods and the regular period (or other terminal punctuation) to indicate ellipsis at the end of the sentence (yesterday . . . .). For ellipsis following a complete sentence, use the period and then three periods (yesterday. . . .). If possible do not use spaced periods to open or close quotations.

C. If the quoted material is less than four full lines, use quotation marks and double space the material. If the quotation is four lines or more, use no quotation marks, single space, and set the quotation in from each side five spaces. Do not indent the first line if the quoted material is part of a paragraph or just one paragraph. Do not use a colon to introduce the quoted material unless it is formally introduced.

II. Textual references and footnotes

A. When a bibliography is included, put only the author's name and the year of publication in parentheses in your text. If the pages are not listed in the bibliography, include page numbers also.

B. If footnotes are necessary, follow (consistently) one of several accepted forms:

1William F. Smith and Raymond D. Liedlich, From Thought to Theme, 4th ed. (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1974), p. 87. 2Hennig Cohen, "Why Isn't Melville for the Masses?" Saturday Review, 16 Aug. 1969, pp. 19-21.

58A. O. Aldridge, "The Sources of Franklin's 'The Ephemera,'" New England Quarterly, 27 (1954), 388-91.

III. Bibliography

A. Alphabetize all entries by author's last names or by the first word of the entry.

B. Set in the second and succeeding lines five spaces.

C. End each major section with a period.

Aldridge, A. O. "The Sources of Frinklin's 'The Ephemera.'" New England Quarterly, 27 (1954), 388-91.

Avery, Emmett L., et al. The London Stage, 1660-1800. 5 pts. in 11 vols. Carbondale: Southern Illinois Univ. Press, 1960-68.

Commission on the Humanities. Report of the Commission on the Humanities. New York: American Council of Learned Societies, 1964.

Education Directory: Higher Education 1967-68, Part 3. Washington, C.C.: GPO, 1968.

Lowes, John Livingston. The Road to Xanadu: A Study in the Ways of the Imagination. 2nd ed., 1930; rpt. New York: Vintage-Knopf, 1959.

Parker, William R. Milton: A Biography. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968.

D. Double space bibliographical entries.