MLA Citation Examples

Scenario: You read an article by Robbins that on page 270 cites 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, https://doi.org/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 (qtd. in Robbins 270) notes that...
  Use the abbreviation "qtd. in" for "quoted in" at the beginning of the in-text citation. This will give credit to Wills and show the source in which you found Wills's idea.

Note: Whenever you can, take materials from the original and not a secondhand source.