Answered By: Elizabeth Stephan
Last Updated: Oct 13, 2021     Views: 90429

The 8th edition of the MLA Handbook, section 3.5.3, Repeated Use of Sources, addresses this.

There are three different ways to handle this. If your references/quotes run concurrent to each other, you can use one citation at the end, i.e., (Smith 23, 32). This works best with direct quotes because it indicates that the first quote is from page 23 and the second from 32. The cited text must directly follow each other. 

If you break your citations up within the paragraph, you can cite the first, (Smith 23) and then later add (32) after the second citation. This allows you text between the two pieces of cited text.

The third technique is to mention the book you are citing from at the beginning of the paragraph i.e., "John Smith in his book states..." and then place the page number in parenthesis after the cited text.

See the MLA guide in the Hacherl Research & Writing Studio on Haggard 2 or visit us online for examples and a more in-depth explanation; you can also ask for assistance.

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