citing verse which includes poetry or
song lyrics and some plays is very
different than citing prose this video
explains how to cite verse within the
text of your paper according to the 7th
edition of the MLA handbook the two main
differences between citing prose and
citing verse is that instead of giving
page numbers MLA requires you to give
line numbers and for plays actin C
numbers as well secondly you have to
reproduce the quotation exactly as it
appears in the original source this
means keeping the line breaks the same
as they appear in the original however
if your instructor has given you
different directions or has asked you to
use page numbers always follow their
instructions when you're quoting up to
three lines of verse you can place the
lines within a paragraph and use
quotation marks around the quote but you
have to use a forward slash to indicate
the break between lines as they appear
in the original notice there is a space
on either side of the forward slash at
the end of the quotation in parentheses
you indicate the line numbers in this
case line 29 to 31 of the poem in your
very first quotation actually write the
word line to indicate that you're using
line numbers versus page numbers after
this and all of the quotations that
follow you can simply write the numbers
you would quote Shakespeare or other
plays written in verse the same way if
you have a play with act and scene
numbers you would include them in
parentheses as well this quote is from
act 2 scene 2 of Hamlet and is line 378
and 379 unless your instructor requests
it do not use Roman numerals for act and
scene numbers if you're quoting four or
more lines of a poem or song or you're
quoting dialogue from two or more
characters you need to use a block quote
start the blockquote on a new line and
indent the entire quote one-inch block
quotes should be double-spaced but
otherwise keeping the line breaks and
spacing exactly as they appear in the
poem you don't use quotation marks
around block quotes place the line
numbers in parentheses after the
punctuation at the end of the last line
when your quotation begins in the middle
of a line it should still be positioned
where it is in the original even if the
original poem uses very unusual spacing
reproduce it as accurately as possible
in your paper if you're quoting dialogue
from two or more characters you also use
a block quote each character's name is
written in all capital letters if a
character has multiple lines all lines
after the first one get indented an
extra quarter inch and the ACT scene and
line numbers are at the end of the
quotation when you're quoting poems or
songs occasionally you may leave out
parts of or entire lines how do you do
this while still reproducing the verse
exactly as it appears in the original
here are some examples of what to do if
you are leaving out words or lines and
how to use an ellipses first let's look
at what you do for an in-text citation
in this example we want to leave out the
second line of the poem when we quote it
you have to indicate that you have left
out a line by using an ellipses an
ellipses is a punctuation mark made up
of three dots and literally means the
omission of a word or words notice in
parentheses we are citing line 1 and 3
in this example we've left out the rest
of this sentence which was the beginning
of line 20 when an ellipsis coincides
with the end of a sentence you use four
dots the three dots of the ellipsis mark
plus the period
we've also left out the remainder of
this sentence here we've also used the
ellipsis plus a period block quotes are
similar here we have left out the last
two lines of the sentence we're again
using an ellipsis followed by a period
than a space and the line numbers in
parentheses in this next example we have
left out two entire lines in a block
quote if you leave out one or more
entire lines in the middle of a poetry
quotation you replace them with a whole
line of periods approximately the same
length as a line of the poem thanks for
watching for more information on mla
check out our other videos or visit the
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