MLA Citation Examples: Citing a Source within a Source

Scenario: You read an article by Robbins that cites, on page 270, another article by Wills. You want to cite Will's article, but you have not read Wills's article itself.

Works cited list

Robbins, Michael. "Paul Muldoon's Covert Operations." Modern Philology, vol. 109, no. 2, 2011, pp. 266-99. JSTOR, doi:10.1086/663233.

Your Works Cited list will contain the article you read, by Robbins. Your Works Cited list will NOT contain a citation for Wills's article.

In-text citation

• Wills (cited in Robbins 270) notes that...
  Your in-text citation gives credit to Wills and shows the source in which you found Wills's idea.
• As Freud wrote, "He himself, however, had not noticed this glaringly obvious connection" (qtd. in Robbins 272).
  If Robbins directly quotes another author and you want to use that direct quotation, include the abbreviation "qtd. in."