This document provides guidance on integrating quotations in MLA style. It discusses introducing quotations with your own words before presenting them. It also covers using attribution tags and setting up signaling phrases when introducing quotations. For longer quotations over four lines, it recommends using a block format without quotation marks and indenting the text. The document also notes that multiple paragraphs should be indented an extra quarter inch when using the block format.

1. INTEGRATING QUOTATIONS
MLA STYLE
Make sure you have integrated your quotations correctly

2. You must introduce your quotation
• So, you have your long quotation, and you are all ready to
jump off of it to start your narrative portion of the essay.
There is a bit of a trick here, though. You can’t just begin
your essay with a quotation from the book. You have to
introduce it to the reader.
• There are a number of ways to do this. One way is to briefly
introduce the novel and the author. Another way is to
summarize the context of quotation before you present it.
Then after it, you can do a brief explanation of how it
connects to your own story. Or, you can use another
introduction, but you must have your own words before
you insert a quotation from the novel!
• Take a moment and write a brief introduction to your
quotation.

3. According to the St. Martin's Guide, there are three
main ways to set up a signaling phrase:
1. With a complete sentence followed by a colon.
– The effects of Auld's prohibition against teaching Douglass to read
were quite profound for Douglass: "It was a new and special
revelation" (29).
2. With an incomplete sentence, followed by a comma.
– Douglass argues that Auld's prohibition against literacy for him was
a profound experience, saying, "It was a new and special
revelation" (29).
3. With a statement that ends in that.
– The importance of Auld's prohibition to Douglass is clear when he
states that "It was a new and special revelation" (29).

4. Using Attribution Tags
• One common error is to put the
quotation in a sentence by itself
• Quotations need to be introduced and
have an attribution tag
• Some common attribution tags:
– She said, “Yes, I know how to write dialogue.”
– “That’s not correct, you know,” he claimed.
– “If not,” he asked, “then what is?”

5. Take, for example, this section from a student
paper:
Incorrect: Katniss doesn’t respond to Cinna’s statement,
but she agrees in her head. “He’s right, though. The
whole rotten lot of them is despicable” (65).
Correct: Katniss doesn’t respond to Cinna’s statement, but
she agrees in her head: “He’s right, though. The whole
rotten lot of them is despicable” (65).
Or
Correct: Katniss doesn’t respond to Cinna’s statement.
However, she thinks, “He’s right, though. The whole
rotten lot of them is despicable” (65).

6. Long quotations
• For quotations that are more than four lines of
prose, place quotations in a free-standing block
of text and omit quotation marks. Start the
quotation on a new line, with the entire quote
indented one inch from the left margin; maintain
double-spacing. Only indent the first line of the
quotation by an additional quarter inch if you are
citing multiple paragraphs. Your parenthetical
citation should come after the closing
punctuation mark. When quoting verse, maintain
original line breaks. (You should maintain double-
spacing throughout your essay.)

7. The classroom was noisy as the MUN students filed in[. . .] Mr. Mustard began in
the middle of the program, and the room quieted down as we strained to hear the
narrator’s voice:
I look up at the buildings, these immense buildings They are so
enormous. And along the edges of each enormous building are the
nets. Because right at the time that I am making this visit, there has
been an epidemic of suicides at the Foxconn plant. Week after week,
worker after worker has been climbing all the way up to the tops of
these enormous buildings, and then throwing themselves off, killing
themselves in a brutal and public manner, not thinking very much
about just how bad this makes Foxconn look. Foxconn's response to
month after month of suicides has been to put up these nets. (Mr.
Daisey and the Apple Factory)
For example, when citing more than
four lines of prose, use the following
example:
Hanging
indent for long
quotation: 10
spaces

8. When citing two or more paragraphs, use block quotation format, even
if the passage is fewer than four lines. Indent the first line of each
quoted paragraph an extra quarter inch.
Katniss thinks about how difficult it would be to get a meal like this in District 12:
What must it be like, I wonder, to live in a world where food
appears at the press of a button? How would I spend the hours I now
commit to combing the woods for sustenance if it were so easy to
come by? What do they do all day, these people in the Capitol,
besides decorating their bodies and waiting around for a new
shipment of tributes to roll in and die for their entertainment?
I look up and find Cinna’s eyes trained on mine. ‘How despicable
we must seem to you,’ he says. (65)
Katniss doesn’t respond to Cinna’s statement, but she agrees in her head: “He’s
right, though. The whole rotten lot of them is despicable” (65).
Although our world does not really…..
Indent 12.5
Indent 12.5