MLA citation style

A guide to citing sources using MLA Style, 9th edition

In-text citations: Poems and song lyrics

General rules

In MLA 9, when you quote from a poem or song, there are 2 main differences in the in-text citations from those created for other text sources:

Cite line numbers, not page numbers unless otherwise instructed by your professor. In the first parenthetical citation, use the word “line” or “lines” to indicate that you are using line numbers instead of page numbers. Afterwards, it’s not necessary to include “line/s” in every citation. In research papers, either en dashes (–) or hyphens (-) can be used to indicate number ranges.
Reproduce line breaks as they appear in the original poem/song by separating lines with a slash / or by using a block quotation.

Formatting poem titles

For a shorter poem that is part of a collection or anthology, use quotation marks to denote the title of the source:

In Al Pittman's "The Dance of the Mayflies," the imagery...

For a longer, book-length poem published on its own, italicize the title:

Homer's Illiad demonstrates that...

Quoting 1 - 3 lines of poetry or lyrics

Place the quote in quotation marks and use a slash with a space before and after it to indicate the break between lines.

Sample in-text citation:

In “Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers,” Rich writes that “Uncle’s wedding band / Sits heavily upon Aunt Jennifer’s hand” (lines 7-8).

Quoting 4 or more lines of poetry or lyrics

Use a block quotation:

Do not enclose in quotation marks
Indent each line half an inch from the left margin (unless it involves unusual spacing)
Keep the line breaks, spacing and alignment exactly as they appear in the original
Place the line numbers in parentheses after the punctuation at the end of the last line

Sample block quotation:

Dickinson concludes “I’m Nobody! Who Are You?” with a characteristically bittersweet stanza:

How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong June
To an admiring bog! (lines 5-8)

Quoting individual words

Sample in-text citations:

Roethke uses a variety of words in "My Papa's Waltz" that indicate physical violence, words such as "death" (3), "battered" (9), "scraped" (12), "beat" (13), and "hard" (14).

When Heaney uses a simile to compare his pen to a "gun," he creates a startling image (2).

Omitting words or lines

If you omit a word or words from a quotation, you should indicate the omitted word or words by using ellipses, or three periods preceded and followed by a space.

When omitting one or more full lines of poetry, space several periods to about the length of a complete line in the poem:

Sample in-text citations:

Plath describes the speaker’s perception of her physical appearance by saying, “An elephant, a ponderous house / ... / O red fruit, ivory, fine timbers!” (2, 4).

The persona in Hayden's poem would wake to hear the fire his father started before dawn:
Sundays too my father got up early
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress. (1, 6-8)

As a boy, the persona visited his grandfather in the fields: "Once I carried him milk ... / He straightened up / To drink it" (Heaney 19-21).

In-text citations: Plays

In MLA 9, when quoting dialogue from a play, there are 2 main differences from quoting books and other text sources:

In general, you will cite act, scene, and line numbers instead of page numbers. For example, lines 109 to 112 from act three, scene two, would be cited as (3.2.109-12). Some plays may only have act numbers, some may only have scene numbers, and some may have neither. In that case, it may be preferable to cite page numbers.
You will typically use a block quotation.

If a quotation of dialogue is very brief, you may decide to integrate it into your paragraph:

When Reagan asks Lear, “What need one?,” Lear responds in exasperation, “O, reason not the need!” (2.4.257-58).

MLA recommends presenting lengthier dialogue as a block quotation:

Do not enclose in quotation marks
Indent each line half an inch from the left margin
Each speaker’s name should be in all capital letters followed by a period
Place the act, scene and line numbers, or page numbers, in parentheses after the punctuation at the end of the last line

Sample in-text citation:

In The Importance of Being Earnest, two of the protagonists have the following exchange:

ALGERNON. I am sick to death of cleverness. Everybody is clever nowadays. You can’t go anywhere without meeting clever people. The thing has become a public nuisance. I wish to goodness we had a few fools left. JACK. We have.

ALGERNON. I should extremely like to meet them. What do they talk about?

JACK. The fools? Oh! about the clever people, of course. (51-2)

Works Cited list: Poems and song lyrics

Poem that is part of a single author’s collection

Citation format:

Author Lastname, Author Firstname. “Title of Poem.” Title of Book, Publisher/s, year, page #(s).

Sample Works Cited entry:

Markson, David. “I Ate My Love Alive.” Collected Poems, Dalkey Archive P, 1993, p. 17.

Poem that is part of a collection that also has an editor(s)

Citation format:

Author Lastname, Author Firstname. “Title of Poem.” Title of Book, edited by Editor’s Firstname Editor’s Lastname, Publisher/s, year, page #(s).

Sample Works Cited entry:

Plath, Sylvia. “Suicide Off Egg Rock.” The Collected Poems, edited by Ted Hughes, Harper & Row, 1981, p. 115.

Poem that is part of a compiled collection or anthology

Citation format:

Author Lastname, Author Firstname. “Title of Poem.” Title of Book, compiled by Compiler’s Firstname Compiler’s Lastname, Publisher/s, year, page #(s).

Sample Works Cited entry:

Bliss, Carman. “A Northern Vigil.” An Anthology of Canadian Poetry, compiled by Ralph Gustafson, Penguin Books, 1942, pp. 29-32.

Works Cited list: Plays

Published play script

Citation format:

Author Lastname, Firstname. Title of Play. Publisher/s, year of publication.

Sample Works Cited entry:

Mighton, John. The Little Years. Playwrights Canada P, 2012.

Play that is part of a collection and also has an editor(s) or compiler(s)

Citation format:

Author Lastname, Author Firstname. “Title of Play.” Title of Book, edited by or compiled by Firstname Lastname, Publisher/s, year, page #(s).

Sample Works Cited entry:

Winter, Jack, and Cedric Smith. “Ten Lost Years.” The CTR Anthology: Fifteen Plays from Canadian Theatre Review, edited by Alan Filewood, U of Toronto P, 1991, pp. 133-90.

Video recording of a live performance

Identify “contributors” such as the director or performers, relevant to your research or that help identify the version you accessed. If there is no date available, use the date you accessed it instead. Date of access goes at the end of the entry.

Citation format:

Author Lastname, Firstname. Title of Play. Contributor/s, Production Company, day Mon. year of performance, Theatre Name, Location. Title of Database or Website, URL.

Sample Works Cited entry:

Shakespeare, William. Othello. Directed by Iqbal Khan, performance by Lucian Msamati, Royal Shakespeare Company, Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon. Digital Theatre+, edu-digitaltheatreplus-com.qe2a-proxy.mun.ca/content/productions/othello. Accessed 8 Oct. 2020.