Quoting Correctly
(Adapted from the MLA Handbook and M. Quilligan)
Poetry
Unless unusual emphasis is required, verse quotations of a single line or part of a line should be
incorporated, within quotation marks, as part of your text. Quotations of two or three lines may also be
placed in your text, within quotation marks, but with the lines separated by a slash (/). Leave a space on
each side of the slash.
In Shakespeare's Hamlet, the hero says of himself, “Hamlet, thou art slain” (5.2.314).
In Hamlet, Hamlet begins his famous speech: “To be, or not to be: that is the question” (3.1.56).
Verse quotations of more than three lines should be separated from the text by double spacing, introduced
in most cases by a colon, indented ten spaces from the left margin, and typed single-spaced, but without
quotation marks unless they appear in the original. The spatial arrangement of the original should be
reproduced as closely as possible.
Crashaw begins his poem “The Weeper” with several metaphors describing the eyes of St. Mary
Magdalene, withholding until the end of the first stanza the subject of his work:
Haile Sister Springs,
Parents of Silver-footed rills!
Ever bubbling things!
Thawing crystall! Snowy hills!
Still spending, never spent, I meane
Thy faire eyes, sweet Magdalene. (ll. 15-30)
If the quotation begins in the middle of the line of verse, it should be reproduced as such and not shifted
to the left margin.
It is in Act 2 of As You Like It that Jaques is given the speech that many think contains a glimpse
of Shakespeare's conception of drama:
All the world's a stage
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. (2.7.141-45)
Prose
Prose quotations of not more than four lines in the typescript, unless special emphasis is required, should
always be incorporated, within quotation marks, as part of the text.
For Dickens it was both “the best of times” and “the worst of times” (82).
“He was obeyed,” writes Conrad of the company manager in Heart of Darkness, “yet he inspired
neither love nor fear, nor even respect” (10-11).
Longer quotations (more than four lines) are usually introduced by a colon, set off from the text by double
spacing, indented ten spaces from the left margin, and typed with single-spacing. Again, no quotation
marks unless they are part of the original. Let your reader know how the original was paragraphed, just as
you let him know how the lines of verse were arranged on the page. Thus, if the first sentence of the
quotation is the beginning of a paragraph indent a few spaces. If not, don't.
Ellipsis
When omitting a word, phrase, sentence, or paragraph from a quoted passage, you should be guided by
two principles: (1) fairness to the author being quoted and (2) clarity and correct grammar in your own
prose. If only a fragment of a sentence is quoted, it will be obvious that some of the original has been
omitted. (E.g., In his Inaugural Address, Kennedy spoke of a “new frontier.”) But if, after material from
the original has been omitted, the quotation appears to be a grammatical sentence or a series of
grammatical sentences, the omission should be indicated by using ellipsis points (spaced periods: . . .).
For ellipsis within a sentence, use three spaced periods, that is, leave a space before and after each. A
quotation that can stand as a complete sentence should end with a period even if something in the original
has been omitted. When the ellipsis coincides with the end of your sentence, use three spaced periods
following the sentence period (i.e. four periods with no space before the first). If parenthetical material
follows the ellipsis at the end of your sentence, use three spaced periods, then the quotation mark, then the
sentence period.
Original: The sense of isolation present in many of the poems of his earlier collections grew into an
obsessive loneliness, under the pressure of two alien cultures. (From Robert Pring-Mill, Pablo Neruda:
A Basic Anthology (Oxford: Dolphin, 1975), xxi.
Quoted with ellipsis in the middle:
As Robert Pring-Mill notes of Neruda's years in the East, “The sense of isolation . . . grew into an
obsessive loneliness, under the pressure of two alien cultures.”
Quoted with ellipsis at the end:
As Robert Pring-Mill notes of Neruda's years in the East, “The sense of isolation present in many
of the poems of his earlier collections grew into an obsessive loneliness. . . .”
Or:
As Robert Pring-Mill notes of Neruda's years in the East, “The sense of isolation present in many
of the poems of his earlier collections grew into an obsessive loneliness . . .” (xxi).