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Professional and Technical Writing/Documenting Your Sources/MLA Style Short Quotations

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MLA Style Short Quotations

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  • When you are directly quoting the work of another person in your paper you will need to format the quotations differently depending on the length of the quote. Also remember that MLA style should be double spaced.

Here are some guidelines to follow when inserting a short quotation:

  • 1) A short quote is fewer than four typed lines in your text.
  • 2) Make sure to include the author and the specific page citation and also make sure that the author is on the works cited page.
  • 3) Make sure that punctuation marks like periods, commas, and semicolons are after the parenthetical citation.
  • 4) Punctuation marks like question marks and exclamation points should appear inside the quotation marks as long as it is a part of the passage.

Here are some examples from Purdue Owl online writing lab 

According to some, dreams express "profound aspects of personality" (Foulkes 184), though others disagree.


According to Foulkes's study, dreams may express "profound aspects of personality" (184).


Is it possible that dreams may express "profound aspects of personality" (Foulkes 184)?
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