The Literary Criticism Web

The Modern Language Association (MLA) specifies that resources used in writing be identified in parenthetical notes that refer to items on a list of works cited appended to the essay.  (See the Works Cited page for guidelines on bibliographic format.) 

PLEASE NOTE:  citations are needed to identify both the sources of quoted material and the sources of paraphrased information.  For information on proper quotation and paraphrase format, see the Using Resources page.

Below you will find information on

General Note Format
Note Format for Literary Texts
Placement of Notes
Note Samples

General Note Format

These parenthetical notes routinely contain two elements.  The first of these is the keyword of the complementary bibliographic entry.  This is the first word of the entry, normally the author's last name but potentially a word from a title.   Following the keyword is a notation of the page(s) of the source that have been used in the passage.  So punctuation normally separates the keyword from the page numbers noted.  So, the standard parenthetical note in MLA format looks like this:   (keyword #). 

Parenthetical notes can often be still further simplified and shortened:

1. If an author's name (i.e., the keyword) is mentioned in text, for instance, then the note need contain only page numbers). 
2. Similarly, if the same source needs to be referenced several times in succession with no intervening notes to other sources, then the keyword need not be repeated.
3. Paraphrased material from one source scattered through a single paragraph need only be identified with one note at the end of the passage.
4. Several quotations from the same page of a source may be covered by a single note at the end of the paragraph as long as no other sources are used in the passage.
5. An electronic source has no verifiable pages.  When such a source is cited, only the keyword is necessary is the parenthetical note.
6. Likewise when reference is made to an entire work, only the keyword is necessary is the parenthetical note.

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Note Format for Literary Texts

Notes for prose literary texts are handled the same as a piece of non-fiction prose.  Thus a quotation from p. 42 of an edition of Conrad's Heart of Darkness would have this notation:  (Conrad 42).  However, quotations from poetry or drama are routinely handled differently to assist readers in finding a passage quickly in whatever edition they have available.

The authors and/or titles of such primary literary texts should normally be introduced in the text, so keywords need not be included in notes to poetry or drama.   In addition, with poetry, the note refers to appropriate division and line numbers, while with drama the note refers to appropriate act, scene and line numbers.  Only arabic numerals are needed.  Do not use "l." or "ll." as abbreviations for line or lines. 

A citation in a discussion of Hamlet, for instance, might take this form:   (3.2.123-26).  This note identifies a passage in act 3, scene 2.  A quotation from Arnold's "Dover Beach" could simply be this:  (14).  A note for a quotation from the end of book 1, canto 11 of Spenser's Fairie Queene might be this:  (1.11.370-78).

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Placement of Notes

With paraphrase or with quotations run-on into textual commentary, notes are normally placed before the final period of the sentence.  Notes for quotations from different sources that occur in the same sentence need to be placed so that references are clear.

With longer block quotations set off from the main text, parenthetical notes come after the punctuation ending the black quotation.  (For more information on handling quotation format, see the Quotations page.)

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Sample Notes

Below are samples of different note forms appropriate for different situations:

no author mentioned in text
author mentioned in text
no author for source
block quotation
electronic source
indirect source

To see the accompanying works cited entry, click on the note to go the the appropriate page on Works Cited entries.

A book or periodical source with an author not mentioned in text:  The initial confrontation of the poem seems set up "the odd mixture of self-serving and self-illuminating speech" comprising the first half of the dramatic monologue (Fish 63).

A book or periodical source with the author mentioned in text:  Butler maintains that Wordsworth and Jane Austen express in their writing "a nostalgia for a predominantly agagrarian world" (25).

A source that lacks an author:   This line from Donne's poem makes more sense when one knows that early Renaissance astronomer's termed the apparent motive force of a celestial body its "intelligence" ("Intelligence" 1456).

A block quotation:  Although Victor Frankenstein is released from prison, his freedom remains tainted with his sense of guilt:

The cup of life was poisoned forever, and although the sun shone upon me, as upon the happy and gay of heart, I saw around me nothing but a dense and frightful darkness, penetrated by no light but the glimmer of two eyes that glared upon me.   Sometimes they were the expressive eyes of Henry, languishing in death, the dark orbs nearly cover by the lids [. . .]; sometimes it was the watery, clouded eyes of the monster, as I first saw them in my chamber at Ingolstadt. (Shelley 166)

In the preceding example, note the placement of the note after the punctuation ending the passage.

A literary source requiring line or act/scene numbers to be noted:  Arnold's persona in "Dover Beach" begins speaking in a romantic frame of mind:  "The sea is calm tonight. / The tide is full, the moon lies fair / Upon the straits" (1-3).   [Here, the numerals in the note denote line numbers.  For more information on run-on quotations like this, see the Quotations page.

An electronic source:  In The Mayor of Casterbridge, the portrayal of Henchard offers a subtle but insightful study of the mindset of an individual suffering from alcohol addiction (Bump).

An indirect source:  W. David Shaw finds in "Fra Lippo Lippi" "a synthetic image, an indissoluble fusion, of character and philosophy" (qtd. in Fish 62).  [Normally, material should be taken from the original source.  However, when a quotation made by a source is used, the original source should be identified in text (here, W. David Shaw), and "qtd. in" (for "quoted in" ) is added to the note.  With this procedure only double quotation marks are needed to mark the passage.]

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updated 08/10/99