Writing Papers for Me

 Documentation Within Text:
   Literature Such As Poetry and Drama

This is more a matter of

Verse: When quoting verse of less than three lines, work the lines into your sentence.  If you are incorporating more than one verse line into your sentence, separate lines with an (/) to indicate break.  If the poem has line numbers, indicate the lines quoted in parentheses; otherwise use page numbers.  If the poem is long and broken into books with the line numbers restarting at 1 with each new "book,"  then book plus line number appears in the parenthesis. Note that  (I: 2-3) indicates book one, lines 2 -3.  

Example. This sentence would sit within a paragraph, perhaps discussing the importance of selecting language that is exact, truthful, and says, as close as is possible, precisely what you mean. Note that the slash does not negate the need for the interior punctuation, in this case a comma. Why? Because we want the quoted lines to be as they were written in the translation we'll site in the Work Cited section.

For three or more lines: Note: You'll find an oddity here. MLA uses this example, which breaks the verse into four lines. The translation I use show it as two lines (3-4), and changes the spelling of the transliterated title and author. This kind of thing happens all the time. Because I could not tell what translation the MLA used, I was disempowered as a reader, though MLA had every reason to presume I was reading for examples of how to cite verse, not information on the particular verse involved.

Layout: When quoting poetry, organize lines as they appear in the original.  If lines run at angles, in the image of a cross, in zig-zags, etc., your quotation of those lines should appear in the same format.

Figure 3. George Herbert. Easter Wings / The Temple (1633)

As you can see, it was easier for me to provide you with an image of the original than to attempt to make the lines work in html code. If you have an interest in shaped, concrete poetry, see Mary Ellen Solt's Concrete Poetry: A World View. 

Plays: When integrating 3 or less lines spoken by a single character into your sentence, you may use the (/) to indicate line breaks.  For more than 3 lines or when quoting dialogue of two or more characters,  set the quotation off from your text. Begin each dialogue with the appropriate character's name indented one inch (ten spaces).  The name should appear all in capitals and be followed by a period.  All dialogue below the character's name should be indented an additional 3 spaces until you begin a new character's dialogue.  

Note about information in the parentheses, if there are act numbers and scene numbers include those as well.  (2 . 4. 254 - 58) would be act 2, scene 4, lines 254 - 58. When the readers check the Work Cited list, they can find the translator involved.

Work Cited.

Sophocles. Antigone. Andrew Brown trans. (Aris & Philips, 1987). malaspina.edu/~johnstoi/sophocles/antigone.htm

Bynner, Witter. The Way of Life According to Lao Tzu: An American Version, John Day Company, 1944.

Herbert, George. "Easter Wings" The Temple. In an exhibit of Visual Poetry Harvard University. Seen at website with a discussion by Phillip John Usher, 2004. Date found: July 16, 2008 at http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~dudley/fellows/lit/Infinity/what_is.htm

Penn State Press. "Copyright Issues for Authors." University of Pennsylvania. (n.d.) Date found: July 16, 2008 at

Soft, Mary Ellen. Concrete Poetry: A World View Indiana University Press, 1968, and excerpted online at http://www.ubu.com/papers/solt/index.html.

The Tao Teh Ching Comparison Project. St. Zenephon Library. (n.d.) See line by line comparisons of the text in various translation. Date found: July 16, 2006 at http://www.wayist.org/ttc%20compared/indexchp.htm.

2002; Last revised July 14, 2008
Dr. Bonnie Duncan
bduncan@millersville.edu
1-717-871-2080
English Department
Millersville University
Millersville, PA 17551

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