Quoting Passages Using MLA Style - A Research Guide


Citations are an important aspect of academic writing. Especially, when you write my essay or a research-based essay or assignment. Citations are used to give credit to the author of the idea or information that you have used in your research paper. Citations are also important to avoid plagiarism in your writing. Plagiarism is the concept when you use someone else’s work and present that work as yours, without giving the credit. The credit, hence, is given in the form of citations. Another purpose of the citations is to generate authenticity to your research.





There are several ways of citations, depending upon the formatting style you are using to write your essay or your paper. There are several formatting styles of writing an essay or a research paper such as APA, AMA, MLA, Chicago, and Harvard. In every formatting style, the citations are done differently. For instance, in APA format, the in-text citations are done with the last name of the author, along with the date of publication (Arthur, 2019). If you need help for your assignment take help from 5staressays.com. Similarly, in Modern Language Association, the style of in-text citation is different. In the previous 8th edition of Modern Language Association, you were only required to incorporate the last name of the author. However, in the newly introduced 9th edition of Modern language association, you are also required to provide the page number of the source (Arthur, 54).


Modern Language Association is one of the most widely used formatting styles in the field of academic writing. There are two ways of citations when using the Modern Language Association formatting style. One way is that you paraphrase an idea from a book, and write it in your essay or paper. After paraphrasing, you are required to put the last name of the author along with the page number from which you paraphrased. For instance, gun violence is strongly associated with the possession of guns under gun rights (Author’s Last name, page number).


Another way is that you take the complete sentence as it is, from the original author and do not paraphrase, for this, you will have to write the quote in inverted commas. For instance, “Gun rights allow people to possess guns, and as a result, people sometimes use it anger.” (Author’s Last name, page number). Being an essay writer, you might already know this technique because this is similar to most of the other formatting styles.


The above method is acquired when you have used the quote from some other source which is less than four lines. Or, similarly, for the poetry, it is less than three lines. However, for quotes that are more than four lines of prose, you will have to use block formatting rule. The block formatting, nevertheless, is a bit technical thing to do. When there is a need to incorporate direct quotes from the source, I use the following steps to write my paper.


The first step is to introduce the quote in your word, in one sentence, before you put it on the paper. A sentence or two will be enough to tell the reader why the quote relates to the argument you have provided. It is easy to tell the readers why you have incorporated the following quote. However, you can also take help from a professional paper writing service in this regard.


The next step is when you have provided the introduction to the quote, jump to the next line. Like the rest of the Modern Language Association, the quote is written in double line spacing. However, you need to double indent the quote and remove the inverted commas. Similarly, at the end of the quote provide the intext citation in the following format (last name of the author, page number).


The last step is also important, yet, many people disregard this important step. It is observed that people end the paragraphs with the in-text citation. However, this is not a standard practice. You should explain the quote after you have done with that and conclude the paragraph in a way that relates to the topic sentence of the paragraph. For instance, a recent study has suggested that gun rights are directly linked with the crime rate:


Gun rights have enabled people to carry guns. Although, it is following the US constitution that allows people to carry guns. However, this has created and linked many criminal activities in the United States. At the time of anger, or any other emotionally unstable moment, people might develop the will to commit a murder. Yet, they can not execute it without a weapon (Xyz,76).


Therefore, gun rights should be regulated to have a stronger check on who possesses the weapons.


Above is the example to cite quotation while writing in Modern language association. It is simple and can be learned easily. Similarly, it is important to follow these guides, to produce a good academic paper from essay writing service.


Long story short, direct quotes are an important part of a research paper in every formatting style, as well as in Modern Language Association. The key concept is to introduce the quote in one or two sentences and explain why the following quote is important for your argument. Then, put the quote as it is, with the inverted commas, however, if the quote is longer than four lines, you will have to do it in block format. In any case, the in-text citation is necessary at the end of the quote.


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