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How To Make Quotes In An MLA Format Research Paper


Every research paper looks much more trustworthy and reliable if it’s content is confirmed by information of other researchers, especially direct quotations. However, such quotations should be formatted in a correct way, depending on the general style that you are using. If your whole research paper is finished in an MLA format, you need to remember its rules regarding proper organization of quotations in your text.

So, in accordance to the MLA format, quotes are formatted in different ways, depending on their length.

  1. Format short quotes.

    2. Short quotes are the ones that are no longer than four lines of regular text or three lines of a poem. These quotes should be enclosed in double quotation marks. With such a quote, you provide the name of its author and the exact page of the book where this quote can be found. In case you are quoting a verse, provide the number of the line. All punctuation marks that are a part of your text should appear after the end quotation mark. Punctuation marks that are a part of the quote should never be separated from it and should appear within the quotation marks. Very short quotes from poetical texts (less than three lines of a verse) can be typed as a piece of a regular text, separated in the end of each line by a slash (/) preceded and followed by one space. Double spacing of the text is maintained in quotes, too.

  2. Format long quotes.

    3. Long quotes (the ones that are longer than four lines of regular text and three lines of a verse) should be located in a separate paragraph of your text without any quotation marks. The quote should start at a new line, the whole quote indented by an additional quarter of an inch. If you are quoting a verse, maintain the genuine way lines are broken. Long quotes are formatted with the same double spacing.

  3. Add or skip words in quotes.

    4. If you need to add words that are not a part of the original quote, surround these words with square brackets to show that they belong to another author. No change of fonts or style is required. If you need to skip a part of the text within the quote, replace them with ellipsis (…) that is separated from the text by spaces on either side. Skipping one or several lines from a verse, replace the entire line by spaced periods along the whole length of this line or lines.

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