I am writing a paper (in German) for a philosophy seminar using MLA citation style. For my work I use three english sources and I am going to translate all of my quotes for a better textflow. At the frist quote, I would like to mark that all of the following quotes will be translated by me. How do I do that in MLA?
1 Answer
Footnote —per work— is the easiest and flows the best for me.
Given that “lorem ipsum dolor sit amet” (Lorem 42),3 it is evident that…
- This and all subsequent quotations are my own translations from the original Ipsum language.
But it's not unheard of to do it in the parenthetical reference:
Given that “lorem ipsum dolor sit amet” (Lorem 42, translation mine), it is evident that…
I can't seem to find an example of someone doing it for multiple ones like you mention, although I definitely recall seeing it once or twice. The parenthetical form is most commonly done for a source you only cite once or twice and each time you just say translation mine (or translations mine if there are two or more quotations that go with a reference), but I guess it wouldn't be horrible if you put this and subsequent translations mine or similar.
So basically, my recommendation is parenthetical if you'll use them a handful of times. Footnote if you'll be quoting extensively from them.
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Good answer. I think you'll feel more confident about this if you look at one or two papers where this was done. Mar 20, 2017 at 5:27