Answered By: Kathleen Goldfarb
Last Updated: Nov 22, 2023     Views: 21

The MLA Handbook says:

Whenever you can, take material from the original source, not a secondhand one. Sometimes, however, only an indirect source is available -- for example, someone's published account of another's spoken remarks. If what you quote or paraphrase is itself a quotation, put the abbreviation qtd. in ("quoted in") before the indirect source you cite in your parenthetical reference. If you do not take direct quotes, just cite the source you have.

Example:

Samuel Johnson admitted that Edmund Burke was an "extraordinary man" (qtd. in Boswell 2: 450)

Then on the works cited page:

Boswell, James. The Life of Johnson. Ed. George Birkbeck Hill and L.F. Powell. 6 vols. Oxford: Clarendon, 1934-50. Print.

 

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