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I have an entire paragraph mostly based off one source, but in the middle of the paragraph I have a sentence that comes from a direct quote and then the rest of the paragraph is from that first source. How can I cite this using MLA-style?

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  • Hi, I edited you question a bit and since I did not know what MLA should mean, I googled it and inserted a link. I hope, this is correct, if not, feel free to edit it out (and sorry!).
    – Dirk
    Sep 1, 2016 at 17:10

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Use three citations, plus a bit of supporting prose: one for the first part of the paragraph, one for the direct quote plus some prose indicating that you've changed sources, and one for the final part of the paragraph plus some prose indicating that you've shifted sources again.

For example:

According to the consensus of the time, electrons might be blue but they were never green or yellow (Dali 89). Picasso, however, declared "I have many times seen green, yellow, and even polka-dotted electrons" (Picasso 322). The obvious retort to this declaration, however, is that Picasso was probably mistaking protons for electrons (Dali 89).

If your paragraph is particularly lengthy, you may need to use more citations, just as you would if the inserted quote did not exist.

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